Former MSNBC host Joy Reid has lashed out at Republicans for wanting the American people to pay less tax and earn “as much money as they want.”
Reid is accusing conservatives of wanting to roll the country back more than a century in pursuit of a “hierarchical past.”
She made the remarks during a BET Talks event on Monday.
Reid argued that GOP efforts to reduce or eliminate income taxes and deregulate business amount to a desire to return to a pre-20th-century America.
She claims, without evidence, that Republicans want white men to hold uncontested power.
“And one of the reasons they’re so serious about it is that, if you go back before the 20th century, there were no income taxes,” Reid said.
“There were no regulations on business.
“You could earn as much money as you want, leave 100% of it to your children with no taxes.
“That’s the world they want back.”
She went on to say conservatives ultimately want Americans to accept fewer modern comforts and to “be satisfied just being workers.”
She continued by dismissing the idea that conservatives believe in natural rights.
The federal income tax was established in 1913 with the ratification of the 16th Amendment.
The landmark move expanded government revenues.
However, it has since been criticized by limited-government advocates as fueling bloated federal spending.
Reid also cast journalism as a form of activism, telling the audience that reporters represent “the last thing standing between us and fascism.”
“I mean, one of the things that, you know, people say is alarmist to say, but it is just true, is that we are in a fascist moment,” she said.
“And what that means is a right-wing, white nationalist, white supremacist moment that is centered around hierarchy.”
WATCH:
Reid has a long record of inflammatory commentary about conservatives.
In 2021, she claimed on social media that right-leaning Americans would gladly give up tax cuts if it meant being allowed to use racial slurs without consequence.
“I’ll say it again: people on the right would trade all the tax cuts for the ability to openly say the n-word like in ‘the good old days,’” she wrote at the time.
“To them, not being able to be openly racist and discriminatory without consequence is oppression.
“Trump is the avatar for this ‘freedom.’”
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