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Chris Hayes

Chris Hayes Quotes

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Famous Chris Hayes Quotes

“People like bipartisanship not because they like the substance of what bipartisanship produces, but because it reduces the cognitive stress that partisan disagreement creates. If two sides are bitterly arguing over some major piece of public policy, this forces us to choose sides, and for those with weak mastery of the issue or tenuous connections to a specific worldview, it is easy to be stalked by the worry that you’re choosing the wrong side: After all, there are a ton of people screaming in righteous indignation that the side you’re on is about to destroy the country.”

“Successful prime-time television of any genre produces some kind of emotional reaction in the viewers. There are a lot of different emotions to tap into. The emotion of the reward of discovery, the feeling of righteous anger, the feelings of pathos and sadness, or sentimentality of being moved by something.”

“It's not uncommon for revolutions to stem from a radicalized group just outside the circle of power. That's what the French Revolution was all about; that's what the American Revolution was. The question is: Will all those groups, because of the nature of partisan polarization and ideological polarization, just fight each other? Or is there capacity to organize?”

“I don't think polarization is some kind of grand distraction. It's real. People have different commitments, believe in different things and principles, different visions of the good life ... but there is also a degree to which all the really big, successful reform movements in the country had extremely bizarre ideological coalitions.”

“The [Hillary] Clinton campaign posted a pretty clever online quiz that makes a similar point with the Republican presidential field. Who said it? Donald Trump or not Donald Trump? For example, quote, "I mean you can prove you are a Christian. You can`t prove it, then you err on the side of caution." That was not Donald Trump. It was this guy, who strongly denounced Trump`s proposed Muslim ban but supports a religious test for refugees.”

“There was a man named Robert Dear who in court said he was a warrior for the babies, whose ex-wife talked about his Christian beliefs motivating his desire to attack and murder three people, including a police officer, in Colorado.That man is a Christian. He`s an avowed Christian. He appears to have acted on those Christian beliefs to undertake that act of violence.”

“I was looking, a piece in the "L.A. Times" about a paper called "The Menace" back in 1915, that was railing against Catholics and it said all sorts of things about them. They are essentially a fifth column. They are crypto fascists, that they said if we were compelled to live in this term with Romanists, that`s their term of Catholics, the Romanists will have to be taught their place in. Was that bigotry or were they correct back then to look at Catholicism as fundamentally alien and threatening to the American way of life?”

“I`ve been spending a fair amount of time in the recesses of white nationalist, white supremacist social media online areas, what called itself is the "alt right", which is sort of the euphemistic term they use for what is essentially modern day white supremacy. And they are some of [Donald]Trump - this has been reported from the beginning but they are very excited about [anti-Muslim] proposal.”

“None of us were prepared to hear what Justice Scalia said, because in essence what he was saying is let`s go back to pre-Board of Education - Brown versus Board of Education, 1950s America where blacks are doing all right going to black schools or schools where blacks go. He said go to less advanced schools where they do all right. We`re going back to separate but equal.”