Bang bang! Rick Wilson, the controversial former GOP operative, gun enthusiast and NeverTrump TV talking head, has fired back at his critics today, attacking the ‘phony outrage’ against him and the ‘Trump fundraising grifters milking the MAGA herd.’
Wilson found himself in hot social-media water last night as part of a bizarre reverse sequel to the Covington students episode. The fuss is about a widely shared clip from CNN’s Don Lemon show this weekend, which pro-Trump Twitter has been having conniptions over. In the video, Wilson, Lemon, and Wajahat Ali laugh themselves silly while mocking the stupidity of Trump and the ‘credulous boomer rubes’ who support him.
The backlash has been fierce. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter led the way:
You consistently make fun of half the country and then complain that it is divided.
The arrogance, mocking accents and smug ridicule of this nation’s ‘Real Elites’ is disgusting. https://t.co/p3RQzymx4s
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) January 28, 2020
Countless others joined in, saying it was precisely this sort of elite sneering that led to Trump’s victory in 2016.
Deplorables. This Deplorable is ready. 💪 https://t.co/r61DGsbWFM
— Brad Parscale (@parscale) January 28, 2020
If I were an executive at cnn I’d be pissed and there’d be a line outside the woodshed https://t.co/K28fWfabJh
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) January 28, 2020
This right here is why @realDonaldTrump won in 2016. Some never quite got the lesson. Keep insulting Trump voters and I’ll have my popcorn ready to see how that work out for ya.✌️ https://t.co/4WLxsNp9Fr
— Jedediah Bila (@JedediahBila) January 28, 2020
Not a good look. https://t.co/FiacT7fC3k
— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) January 28, 2020
I’m disappointed to see this kind of smug rhetoric from Don Lemon and his guests.
Painting a majority of Americans as illiterate and uneducated “rubes” is low, even for CNN.https://t.co/BplTZesD9M
— Congressman Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) January 28, 2020
Even the president himself joined the pile-on:
Don Lemon, the dumbest man on television (with terrible ratings!). https://t.co/iQXCc7lvCt
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2020
But Rick Wilson was unapologetic when Cockburn contacted him for comment this morning. ‘Once again, the MAGA tough guy “fuck your feelings” crowd demonstrates that what really drives them is a grinding social anxiety fueled by a weaponized and monetized outrage machine,’ he said.
In the clip, Wilson mocked Trump for not knowing where Ukraine was – ‘he couldn’t find Ukraine on a map if you had the letter ‘U’ and a picture of an actual physical crane next to it. ‘Y’all elitists are dumb,’ he said, prompting much anti-snobbish anger from the MAGAsphere, which seems to think this Lemon show video is a sort of 2020 equivalent of Hillary Clinton’s ‘deplorables’ gaff – a moment that crystallizes the way in which rich political types look down on common folk.
But Wilson scoffed at the suggestion, suggesting ‘what set the White House off’ was really that ‘Trump hates being called out for his utter ignorance of the world; all the phony outrage at me is just Trump fundraising grifters milking the MAGA herd.’
