Democrats divided? Nancy Pelosi takes shots at socialism, party's progressives
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticizes outspoken freshmen Democrats' embrace of socialism; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'
MSNBC host Chris Matthews warned Democrats on Thursday that they should "sober up" before the 2020 election, focus on candidates who could beat President Trump and avoid looking elitist like former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
"Pick the best candidate to beat Trump because nobody wants to be around the Democratic Party the day after losing to Trump twice," Matthews said while appearing on "Andrea Mitchell Reports." "Nobody's going to be forgiven for that."
Matthews comments came one day after former Vice President Joe Biden announced his 2020 bid as a perceived moderate in a crowded field of more progressive Democrats. Those included Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and others who have proposed policies many describe as "socialist."
Matthews told Democrats not to "go having a lot of fun in the next year and a half, following the flavor-of-the month stuff."
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Socialism, along with late-term abortion and "open borders," was one of the issues Matthews thought Republicans would brandish in the 2020 election cycle.
"I think Biden is probably not vulnerable to those attacks. I think whatever problems he has in the primaries will be strengths for him in the general," Matthews told MSNBC host Steve Kornacki during another segment on Thursday.
Matthews argued that Clinton "personified the elite Democratic Party — the party that had gotten a little too Ivy League, a little too secular." He similarly told MSNBC host Mitchell that Democrats appeared to be in a bubble that isolated voters like those in Pennsylvania, a state that Clinton lost in 2016.
He also worried about Mayor Pete Buttigieg, another 2020 hopeful, having "all these celebrity parties." "You don't want to look elite in the party of the working people," he said.
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Matthews made similar comments in 2018 when he derided his party's intellectuals. “A true Democrat, lowercase D, thinks they’re no better than anybody else. That’s what a Democrat is," he said.
"And until the party regains that with white, black, Hispanic people, everybody, starts to think of themselves as one of them instead of being better than them, they’ll get back to the party of the people, and they’re not there yet.”
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