Who is Joe Scarborough and Why Does He Matter?

Posted on by under Free Press Issues, Political commentary, Social commentary

Joe Scarborough is an American cable news and talk radio host. He is currently the co-host of Morning Joe on MSNBC, and previously hosted Scarborough Country on the same channel. Scarborough was previously a lawyer and a politician, and served in the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001 as a Republican from the 1st district of Florida. Scarborough is also a visiting fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He was named in the 2011 Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. (Note that he is obviously a smart guy)

Scarborough resigned from the House of Representatives five months into his fourth term, in order to spend more time with his children … (Note that he is obviously a good guy)

“The realization has come home to me that they’re at a critical stage of their lives and I would rather be judged at the end of my life as a father than as a congressman.”

In an op-ed for The Washington Post in August 2016, Scarborough argued that the Republican Party must “dump Donald Trump” as their presidential candidate. Scarborough wrote: “A bloody line has been crossed that cannot be ignored. At long last, Donald Trump has left the Republican Party few options but to act decisively and get this political train wreck off the tracks before something terrible happens.” (Note again that he is a smart guy)

In June 2017, Scarborough and his co-host/fiancée Mika Brzezinski were the targets of Trump’s tweets, in which, in response to their coverage of his administration, referred to him as “Psycho Joe” and called her “low I.Q. Crazy Mika”, while asserting that she was “bleeding badly from a face-lift” when he previously encountered her at Mar-a-Lago. What a class act is Mr. Trump, eh? On July 11, 2017, Scarborough announced, not surprisingly, that he was leaving the Republican party to become an Independent. (Note yet a third time that he is a smart guy)

Why am I giving you this brief background report on Joe Scarborough? Because this evening, an OpEd he wrote for The Washington Post crossed my radar and I felt it warranted sharing on Filosofa’s Word.  But first, I wanted to establish that this man has the credentials, that he knows of what he speaks, that he is not just another talk show host.  Having established that, at least to my own satisfaction, here, in its entirety, is Mr. Scarborough’s opinion titled …

A Storm is Gathering 

By Joe Scarborough  December 28 at 7:50 PM

A storm is gathering, and there is every reason to believe that 2018 will be the most consequential political year of our lives.

The reckoning upon us follows a year mercifully drawing to a close this weekend. Over that horrid year, President Trump has questioned the legitimacy of federal judges, used Stalinist barbs to attack the free press and cast contempt on the rule of law, while his campaign manager, his national security adviser and a foreign policy aide have been marched into federal courts. Those anti-democratic instincts were made all the more ominous by his praising of autocrats across the world as they were ruthlessly consolidating power in countries such as Russia, China and the Philippines.

It is difficult to pinpoint the nadir for a man who has savaged Mexicans, Muslims and Gold Star mothers while fat-shaming beauty queens and face-shaming female news hosts (disclosure: in the latter example, my own fiancee ). But the low moment in this presidency may have occurred four months ago, when Trump claimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and those standing against them. Or perhaps it was three weeks ago, when the president told Americans to vote for an accused child molester who had called our country the focus of evil in the modern world and once suggested opposition to the constitutional amendments that ended slavery and gave women the right to vote.

Others would surely consider the president’s malignant idiocy in foreign affairs to be the most damning legacy of his first year. World leaders continue to watch dumbstruck as the United States retreats from organizations that were created following the allies’ victory over Hitler. Those same alliances that Trump now undermines with reckless tweets and discarded treaties carried the United States to victory in the Cold War. But this is a White House that heaps contempt on history. And so, America’s dangerous retreat from the world continues.

“On the morrow of the Republican success isolationist conceptions prevailed,” Winston Churchill wrote in “The Gathering Storm.” The British prime minister believed Hitler’s rise proved, above all else, “how absolute is the need of a broad path of international action pursued by many states in common across the years, irrespective of the ebb and flow of national politics.” But this president is ripping apart the carefully woven fabric of U.S. foreign policy that bound administrations together from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, and across the American century.

“The Gathering Storm” is on my holiday reading list because of Republican strategist Steve Schmidt’s insistence to me that Churchill’s ominous warnings to future generations will be more relevant to 2018 than at any time since it was written in the years after World War II. While Trump’s eroding of U.S. prestige across the globe is disturbing, it is his administration’s undermining of democratic values that poses an even greater threat to our Constitution and country. Borrowing again from Churchill, America’s constitutional norms tremble in the balance as Trump unleashes furious attacks on First Amendment protections, independent counsels and law enforcement officers who refuse to be bullied. While the framers of the Constitution foresaw the possibility of a tyrannical president, they never let their imaginations be darkened by the possibility of a compliant Congress.

Again, Churchill: “The malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous . . . They lived from hand to mouth and from day to day, and from one election to another . . . The cheers of weak, well-meaning assemblies soon cease to echo, and their votes soon cease to count. Doom marches on.”

Schmidt is right. The storm is gathering. And how we respond in the months ahead may determine our fate for years to come.

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71 thoughts on “Who is Joe Scarborough and Why Does He Matter?”

  1. I just saw the Churchilll. Like Trump, Winnie was sort of a warhawk. Unlike King Donald, he placed the unity of country before his own self interest at a critical time. He also learned from his past failures in World War I whereas King Donald sees no reason to question his lying and bully past and present.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Churchill, though not one of my favourites, was intelligent and … most importantly … put the best interest of the nation he led before all else. Trump is a narcissistic little jerk with an ego the size of the continent, and a brain about the size of a grain of rice, who has not a shred or human decency in his entire 400 pound body. Do you get the feeling I am not very happy with him tonight? Not that I ever am, but his revenge against the UN and his intention to take food from starving children has infused me with rage. Sorry about that … rant over! 😉 For now.

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  2. It’s all fake! WWII never happened. It was a conspiracy to make Americans pay higher taxes. The Climate is a Zionist-socialist plot to encourage the lack of CO2 and thus make everyone gay. Everyone who disagrees with Donald Trump is a ‘bleep’! and they use big words!! (and things called facts)…
    Thus spoke someone who is making money and stoking their own egos in this mess. It’s all happened before.

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      • I am on board with that one!!! Let’s get some buttons and bumper stickers printed! Actually, I have been trying to recruit Roger for the White House, but so far he has resisted my offer … 😀

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      • I’d love to run for office in the US…
        ‘Hi folks (clears throat) As a hard-left socialist, who worships at a catholic church and favours gun control, the harmony of races, The LGBT community, and the allegorical interpretation of portions of the Old Testament I would like to say…….’
        Oh, the joy of causing confusion!

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          • But I’m not a US citizen Jill! And I’m catholic and a socialist. No, I’d have to invade. Land at Plymouth Rock and claim the land back for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, then pogo-stick to Washington, gathering supporters along the way, while reading stirring tracts from Shakespeare, MAD magazine and Warner Brothers Loony Tunes cartoons. (I think ‘What? Me Worry’ and ‘What’s Up Doc?’ are good rallying cries?

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            • Just as I was reading this, thinking that yeah, perhaps an invasion is the best option after all, then I came to the part about you pogo-sticking your way to Washington while reading Mad Magazine, and I could hold back the hysterical laughter no longer!!! Bring it on, Roger … I will even gladly volunteer to be captured, if you promise to send me to the UK in forced servitude! 😀 Thanks for the laughs on this cold night … made it just a bit warmer!

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              • One of my inspirations being the Johnny Cash song ‘Everyone Loves A Nut’. The thing is these Alt Right pundits are so bloated by their own egos they could not handle being faced by ridicule; Groucho Marx would have had a field-day! 😄

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                  • Yeh but the Stooges had classic comic timing and played for laughs!
                    I mean who want to listen to an hour’s worth of incomprehensible babble from four jerks?
                    ….Oh I don’t know…. A new series…. ‘The Four Jerks’…it could work with talented TV editors and producers. 😉

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                    • I think Jill, the sight of an edited version of four idiots babbling, disagreeing with each others egos, confusing themselves with contradictory statements and not being aware the show is called ‘The Four Jerks’ would provide entertaining for many folk….of course after their filming, you could throw in a back drop of Warner Bros ‘Looney Tunes’ or ‘Muppets’ excerpts.
                      The DVD should have ‘Warning: Shows scenes of an infantile nature’

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                    • Just put out an all-purpose ‘tweet’ saying you need experienced pundits for a documentary exposing a socialist plot in the USA, they’d be hammering on the doors to get in!

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      • I thought I could not dislike a crew more than the KKK/Nep-Nazis until I came across the Sandy Hook vampires of misery…..better not go on any further, it gets gory.

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        • I hear you, my friend. Put children into the mix and my anger turns up to white-hot rage almost instantly. ‘Tis why I have been on a tear for hours over Trump’s “revenge” on the U.N. which includes cutting funding for starving children … if you felt the earth shake even over there on your side of the pond, that was my feet stomping and sending shock waves …

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          • The odd thing is I feel I could start off a low-key conversation with a KKK guy (dunno how long for though), but a Sandy-Hook vampire? No chance! Straight off with foul language, insults, rage, threats of violence, screaming invective, and that’s just the warm-up!
            Oh I thought it was the strong winds we’ve been having rocking the house.
            Yeh, give the klutz a knee-jerk, incorrect, heartless option and he’ll go for it, like a Pavlov dog he is!

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            • I’m with you there! Things like the Sandy Hook conspiracy theory, originally perpetuated by none other than Alex Jones, are the things that make me think our “freedom of speech” has gone too far and that it is time to put some limits on it.

              It’s easier, I suspect, to pick on little kids and grieving parents. Despicable, soulless jerks.

              Hope I didn’t knock any shingles off you roof 😀

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              • I read the name “Alex Jones” and I need to remind myself of how many steps to take to the toilet bowl to barf… I guess the CIA need all kinds to promote their dis/misinformation but really…

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              • In my state he’d be locked up straight away, and anyone who tried to complain would go the same way. Followed by a campaign to destroy their credibility and characters.
                Give a ruthless focused team 5 years and full rein to state apparatus and all this conspiracy stuff could be blown away. Folk want truth, they’d get it, but wouldn’t like it…basically Death & Disaster are random events.
                Nope roof intact, any signs of thunderclouds crossing over the Atlantic?

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                • While some of it is nuts and some of it is manufactured by the very agencies claiming to be truth telling (when everybody knows they are lying through their teeth) conspiracy theories are a part of ‘human’ nature in trying to ferret out truth in a world that is, in fact, one vast conspiracy theory operated by bureaucracies of organized religions, governments and banksterism. The more the security state grows in power and the more “secrets” there are; the less open government is, the more conspiracy theories will flourish, thanks in a large part now to the Internet, but it didn’t give rise to the idea. We know governments are always lying so of course there will be those dedicated individuals and groups that will seek to unmask the lies. Wikileaks has helped uncover some lies; Alex Jones on the opposite side helps to throw dirt on everything, being a false conspiracy theorist, bought and paid for by the Security State for the value of mud slinging and misdirection. Only a completely totalitarian world such as Orwell’s 1984 could exist without conspiracy theories, and perhaps close contenders, Hitler’s Third Reich, Stalin’s Soviets, Mao’s China, Little Rocket-Man’s North Korea and the current Trump administration. Whatever the “leader” says is true, that is truth, no opposing viewpoint allowed. Most conspiracy theories erupt as a result of government secrecy that isn’t about national security but about hiding government corruption and criminality against the people relying on a constitution for good government. Once government is believed to be criminally hiding information, it’s a small step for conspiracy theories to spread into other sectors of the security state, including how police handle investigations of mass shootings, deliberate obfuscation, destruction of evidence, or manufacturing evidence depending on who “they” want to blame or who “instigated” the shooting. No one is so naive to believe that crazy individuals suddenly, out of the blue, decide to massacre dozens or hundreds of people just because. It doesn’t work that way, and if it did there would be an endless string of such “shootings” and they would involve mostly people known to the shooter and with whom he-she had a serious grudge. Also the number of victims would be more representative of the weaponry and skills of the shooter. Look deeper, Roger, you might be shocked at what you see when it comes to “conspiracy theories.” Remember this dictum, “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The security state, historically, is the most corrupt of all types of government and it will do anything to stay in power and increase its hold over the populace. Lying (propaganda) is one of their main assets. Sadly, I think, most American/Europeans weaned on their beliefs in a benign God and democratic governments superior to any other type of government, aided by a belief that it is their God given mandate to set the rest of the world straight on proper religion and proper government, ideally led by white males, cannot begin to fathom how corrupt their own religions and white patriarchal systems are. They can’t reason beyond the propaganda no matter the evidence before them.

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                  • Hi there.
                    Welcome to my grim side…..He’s never far away.
                    And here we must differ Sha’ Tara.
                    My study of histories and my experience with the realms of the administration government has led me to the firm belief that conspiracies of this nature do not happen. This is based on the innate incompetence of any group of humans to carry out such a far reaching, intricate and all perpetual secret operation. Such a group would require a unification of thought and belief, which does not work with the ruthlessness, greedy and ambition each would have to have, as this creates internal conflict. It also requires every participant to remain doggedly secret and not breath a word to anyone at any time, another thing humans are unable to do.
                    My paradoxical circumstance is whereas I do believe in the good an individual can display in the day to day circumstances of Life, and thus believe in the concepts of Compassion, Tolerance and Respect as the only ways forward, I have little faith in the ‘People’ to do anything constructive unless guided. I tend to the idea of ‘The Mob’, if they are let loose.
                    None of the dictatorships worked in the long run because they tried to impress and empress everyone with total application of Fear, Coercion, Indoctrination and Continued Misinformation, when the opposite was obvious. As for Trump, this little amateur, egotist, a freak of a voting system is a nothing and will be swept away by the forces of history as he is totally out of his depth. Had there been some of the old school style of opponents of the latter half of the 20th Century he would have been buried in the first primaries as the ridiculous fool that he is.
                    Thus, do I rant from my grim socialist corner. It’s a European thing; we’ve been witness to 2000 years of the follies. I don’t doubt Good Times would come, but there would have to be a time of transition, and finding folk with focus and clarity of thought for the task is hard.
                    Just as well I never went into politics eh?

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                    • Oh Roger, you’re priceless! I love your grim side, it’s so Scroogey! I chuckled as I read through your explanations why conspiracies aren’t possible and such theories are all wrong. Having been “educated” under the tutelage of Teachers who span life in years and beyond time, one becomes aware of possibilities that do not arise for those educated in the earth milieu. But there are some who try nevertheless to explain what is unexplainable. So you have conspiracy theories and UFO stories; information and disinformation and misinformation all served at once on the table.
                      You’ve heard it said, “one cannot see the forest for the trees.” That was said about conspiracies. People cannot see, or accept, small conspiracies, such as, the US/NASA faked the moon landings, or 9/11 was an inside job – too much of a stretch, or as someone said, “If I was to be convinced that the Americans never went to the moon my whole life would become meaningless.” People invest in stories so deeply they can no longer extricate when it is discovered the story was a lie. They simply continue to lie, piling up more and more on it until there’s this huge growth covering over a very noxious lie which is called corruption.
                      The thing to realize, and it is so easy, is that we exist within one huge conspiracy against nature and against people. It is operated by Religion, Government and Money. These are illegitimate powers. Innately people know this; certainly they can feel and see the effects of this Great Lie. Yet so convinced they are of their need for these death-dealing forces, they support them, trying desperately, if hopelessly, to guide them, subdue them, sometimes even killing some of their leadership, and change them so they can have some life left not absorbed or gobbled up by the Great Lie, or conspiracy.
                      By comparison to the Great Lie, the rest of the in and out, on and off, conspiracy theories are nothing. They however provide a convenient and necessary cover for the Great Lie. The Great Lie uses them, promotes some, mocks others, plays games with them so as to make itself seem so legitimate; to validate itself as the Great Arbiter of Common Sense. And in the stands, the people cheer, boo, mock, swear, curse and beat each other up as they tear up their bets before going home empty handed and more broke. Then they trudge to work and back, then to the voting booth, then to the pub for that much needed moment of forgetfulness. Grinning from the TV screen, the latest winning prestidigitator politician all fired up to spew off another four years of lies to add to the Great Lie.

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                    • Oh I am very Scroogey Sha’ Tara. It’s one of the qualities which keeps me on the borderline of Sanity.
                      To me Humanity’s history is one of follies at which some stage there are sometimes unintended consequences which bring advancement and then we go onto the next crisis. Some might say it s part of a Cosmic Plan, some might say it’s Darwinian, on that aspect I remain open-minded.
                      Oh there have been Great Lies, but I see them are transitory events which are consumed by their own weaknesses, and then replaced by another Great Lie.
                      Personally, I can see a forest for the trees, the trees are the forest and the forest ‘are’ the trees and all which grow and live therein. It’s all a question of perspective.
                      Yours scoogley,
                      Roger

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                • AHA!!! So it was your doing … here is the headline from tonight’s Washington Post: “‘Bomb cyclone’ to blast East Coast before polar vortex uncorks tremendous cold late this week” Sheesh, Roger … you could have just sent a few thunderclouds!!!

                  Yes, you guys are more civil than we and less tolerant of the idiocy that seems to be overtaking our citizens in this, the era of Trump, populism, me-ism, whatever one calls it. The Alex Joneses, Sean Hannitys and the rest are warts on the posterior of our society.

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                  • A bit of digging on their personal foibles and mis-judgements and a sustained campaign against them could destroy them in a year. No one is playing dirty enough.

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                    • Reminds me….
                      There’s an old British joke, the local village drunk, quite sizzled stumbles into small holding and falls asleep in a pig sty home to two pigs. A passing ‘worthy’ of the village looks down and says: ‘Humph! You can tell a person by the company they keep’, at which point the two pigs climb out of the sty.
                      Something similar soon may start to happen in a certain large government building…………

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  4. Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
    This are prophetic words … the future of this country will be at stake. Will America recover from the horrific Presidency it currently has? Wondering …
    ‘A storm is gathering, and there is every reason to believe that 2018 will be the most consequential political year of our lives.’

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Dear Jill,

    I know his story well as I am A fellow Floridian. Incidentally he is a true conservative. He is not alone. Another strong conservative George Will has done likewise. Others have been openly critical. They are shocked by the republican sycophants in the US Congress pandering to this president. I throw in this heap the 80% of mostly White Evangelicals who voted for him and who continue to support him. My contempt for these folks is immeasurable.

    When I talk to others, I no longer refer to the democratic party as the sole resource to end all these people’s power. I now refer to the coalition of the decent which includes the democrats, but also those who are part of the resistance groups like the Women’s March, Indivisible and others, the majority of Independents and a significant number of centrist republicans and even some conservatives.

    I am writing that there should not be a focus on social issues like fighting on abortion, whether folks are able to say Merry Christmas, etc. But if anyone is forced to respond, to do so graciously. One should take the approach that being pro-birth is not the sole approach to being pro-life. It is telling that those states that have done the least to reduce our country’s very high infant mortality rates are the very states that have resisted Medicaid Expansion which are republican led states..

    Hugs, Gronda

    Liked by 1 person

  7. This brought me out in goosebumps. First and foremost, here is a man who actually knows his history and does not want to see old, destructive patterns repeated. This is a man I could follow and I sincerely hope this op. ed. signals an intent to /serve/ in the truest sense of the word.

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