Joe Scarborough is at it again, and by "it" I mean the thing where he cranks his outrage dial to eleven and then keeps turning. The Morning Joe host recently invited Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) onto his program for what can only be described as a collaborative exercise in competitive hyperbole, as The American Tribune reported.
The topic was ICE detention centers, which Scarborough has taken to calling "internment camps." He asked Grijalva, "What do you say to the people who are still numb to all of this about what's going on inside these internment camps?" Because nothing gets the morning coffee crowd engaged like casually invoking World War II before 9 a.m.
Grijalva, for her part, delivered her response with all the dramatic pacing of a soap opera revelation. "Open your eyes and wake up," she said slowly. "Literally wake up." She then claimed that "91% of the people in detention right now in these concentration camps are in private prisons." So we went from "internment camps" to "concentration camps" in the span of one conversation. That escalated quickly.
According to a report from The Huffington Post via Yahoo News, Scarborough also described the treatment of detainees as "savage" during a separate episode. He cited the account of a man from Northern Ireland who was held in a facility for months and "basically said it was like a concentration camp." He also mentioned lights being kept on around the clock and "the most savage, inhumane conditions."
Then Scarborough really got rolling on the Department of Homeland Security, accusing them of serial dishonesty. "You have DHS, who has lied to Americans time and time and time again. They've lied over and over and over again," he said. "So who is going to believe DHS? Who is going to believe ICE when they are lying about the conditions that so many of these detainees are being held in? Nobody! The answer is nobody!" The man was practically answering his own questions, which is a neat trick when you're supposedly conducting journalism.
The internet, as the internet does, had thoughts. Tammy Gonzales commented, "Communist propaganda! What about criminal illegal aliens that are trafficking, abusing, exploiting and imprisoning innocent young immigrant children, women and men. DHS is attempting to save their lives. But democrats don't care, they just want their kickbacks!" Another user kept it brief, writing, "These people are mental."
Look, there are legitimate conversations to be had about detention conditions. But when you start your argument at "concentration camp" and work your way up from there, you have not left yourself a lot of rhetorical room. It is the verbal equivalent of starting a poker game by going all in on the first hand. Where exactly do you go from comparing federal facilities to Nazi death camps? What is the next segment, comparing parking tickets to the Spanish Inquisition?
Scarborough used to be a Republican congressman. Now he spends his mornings screaming about internment camps on cable television. Life comes at you fast.
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