To Elite: 'I'm the only thing standing between you and the abyss." Transcript MTP

[George Eliot]

http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-september-18-2016-n650151

CHUCK TODD:

Let's bring back the panel, New York Times, I think it was Saturday, Maureen had a lead that said, basically interviewing all these upper west siders panicking now. And in fact I think referred to it as 'The polls are showing a "margin of panic" for Clinton supporters.' Describe this east coast freakout that I feel like you've seen among the elites this week.

MAUREEN DOWD:

Right. Well my friends, one of my friends, Leon Wieseltier, calls it a national emergency. And my friends won't even read, if I do interviews with Donald Trump, they won't read them. And basically they would like to censor any stories about Trump and also censor any negative stories about Hillary. They think she should have a total free pass. Because as she said at that fundraiser recently, 'I'm the only thing standing between you and the abyss.' Oh, and they're taking-- Democratic strategists are taking antacids. In the Times today.

I'm posting this for discussion only. Not judgment. Why would the elite be afraid of Trump if he is one of them? Has Clinton lost the support of millennials who were to her what the black vote was to Obama in 2008?

This election has come down to working people vs. the elite and old people in my opinion. It occurs to me that the elite - read Kochs and Waltons - trusts the democrats to look out for their well being better than Trump. Did Hillary abandon the base handed to her by Sanders? It is more than the Koch Brothers being good citizens. They could care less about the country. They care only about profits.

[radical noodle]

1. Not all the so-called elites are idiots

Some actually care about where this country is going and see that Trump is not just on a different path, but crazy and dangerous.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. Consider the sources.

Modo and Upchuck?

[RBInMaine]

3. You are reading WAY too much into this and being WAY too simplistic here.

Slicing, dicing, and oversimplifying over Chuck Todd and Maureen Dowd? Seriously? C'mon.

Please, stop obsessing on this talking head bla bla bla stuff and just go out and do everything you can to make sure Trump doesn't get near the White House.

[pangaia]

4. Trump is not 'one of the elites.' He is a singularity.

He is a fucking ignorant, narcissistic, delusional, mentally disturbed shit and the 'elites' pretty much know it.

Now, what will they do about it?

[Hekate]

5. +1

[Zynx]

6. It's similar to how both elites and the poor don't particularly want an asteroid to hit the earth.

Trump is a calamity for everyone.

[MineralMan]

7. For the moneyed, elite class, Trump is a loose cannon.

They don't want any sort of drastic change. They depend on the status quo being maintained. Trump seriously threatens that stability, while Hillary Clinton is unlikely to do anything drastic that threatens their livelihoods.

It's that simple. For the rest of us, Trump also represents the same sort of loose cannon, but with worse consequences. Hillary will, as she said, continue to improve what progress we have achieved, but will not suddenly make changes with unpredictable consequences.

In every area, she represents steadiness and progressive change. Trump represents total ignorance of causes and effects. That should panic both ends of the economic spectrum. Down the path he will follow lies chaos. Chaos is never good for anyone, really.

And that's where it is in 2016. You either choose some stability and some progress, or you choose chaos.

[sarcasmo]

8. If you have a lot of money invested in the market, Trump should scare the hell out of you.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

9. I don't think you should necessarily interpret "elites" as the Kochs and Waltons in this context.

My take was that Todd was alluding to liberal intelligentsia, moneyed and not, and not in a complimentary way. Dowd responded by citing Wieseltier who's a writer/editor.

[OnDoutside]

10. Don't forget Hillary 2 weeks off in August fundraising and the last

Week, which did not help her momentum. The campaign is now starting to ramp up and will be going relentlessly until the end.

[GeorgeGist]

11. Chuck and Maureen ...

a pair of clowns.

[bettyellen]

12. Wrongheaded analysis. Millennial voters weren't her strong suit ever- and the UWS elites are the

Furthest you could find from the Koch and Walmart families. The upper west side is home to he elites in education, the arts and sciences and theater.
You're really making connections that do not exist and trying to paint HRC as some sort of a loser. Bullshit premise is still bullshit though.

[George Eliot]

13. Interesting you side-stepped the question of millennials.

I wish the polls looked better than they do. But they do not always tell the whole story.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. Trump is a mortal threat to the republic and our way of life.

I would partner with the devil to stop him at the polls. Hillary Clinton is indeed the "only thing standing between us and the abyss."

[radius777]

15. MoDo is a Clinton hater, Chuck is a false equivalency pundit.

'Elites' in this context is a rightwing slur i.e. 'Manhattan liberal elites', some of whom are wealthy and use their money to advance liberal causes.

H is the only thing standing between everyone (elites and non-elites alike) and the abyss, if she did use this exact phrase, the "you" is more likely a metaphorical/generalistic "you" as in "American citizens" not "you, the elite" or whatever.

Trump represents an existential threat unlike anything we've seen in American history, who has zero respect for the Constitution or anything the West stands for, who admires dictators and tyrants, whose policies could cause a global economic meltdown (which would hurt everyone, rich and poor alike), and whose presidency would empower the ugly underbelly of society (neo-nazi's, kkk, etc) to act out against vulnerable groups. For starters.

Millennials were always a weakness for H, and O will work to help bring them back into the fold.

Her strength has always been PoC, women and rank-and-file Democrats.

Together O and H will work together to reassemble the Obama coalition and if they are able to do this, she should win the election easily.