Harry Reid, Democrats Ask Donald Trump To Deport Steve Bannon Back To 1938

True fact: Personal grooming regimen strictly dictated by Andrew Breitbart (PBUH)

Following up on his "Aw, hell no" statement last week on the election of Donald Trump, Badass ol' Harry Reid took to the Senate floor Tuesday to condemn the appointment of former Breitbart Gauleiter Steve Bannon to be Donald Trump's personal Jiminy Cricket, and called on the president-elect to send the slimy jizzbag back to the foul swamps whence an eldritch abomination raised him up, or at least rescind the appointment. You want to see a takedown from the Senate floor? Here's a takedown from the Senate floor! We know you never watch the videos, but watch this video:

Reid began by pointing out that in his five decades of politics, he's never seen anything like the election of Donald Trump, despite his losing the popular vote, likely by as many as two million votes, followed by a wave of hate crimes. And then he asked: "how do we respond to the election of Donald Trump?"

Reid said Democrats would be happy to work with Trump on, say, infrastructure, which now that a Republican president is in favor of, is suddenly cool, after decades of Republican obstruction. Oh, but hold on a second:

Democrats have a responsibility to improve the lives of Americans. All lives. But we also have other responsibilities.

We have a responsibility to be the voice of the millions of Americans sitting at home afraid that they are not welcome anymore in Donald Trump’s America.

We have a responsibility to prevent Trump’s bullying, aggressive behavior from becoming normalized in the eyes of Americans – especially the millions of young people who are watching and wondering, for example, if sexual assault is now a laughing matter.

Reid cited the "rise in hate crimes and threats of violence" since election day:

Since Election Day, the Southern Poverty Law Center has reported hundreds of incidents of harassment and intimidation. At last count, 315. Overwhelmingly, the hateful acts are anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic, anti-African American, anti-woman, anti-LGBT, anti-Semitic and anti-Asian.

Ah, but doesn't he know every single one of those was a false flag? He went on to tell the story of a Pakistani-American friend, a doctor, who was having dinner when he was approached by a man who asked where he was from. When the friend said he was from Pakistan, the other diner replied, "Why don’t you go back.” Reid entered into the record a compilation of reported hate crimes since the election, and dared any member of the Senate to defend the hateful actions. Silly Senator Reid! Nobody defends them -- they simply downplay them, claim they're lies or exaggerations, or counter with crime statistics from Chicago, proving that "both sides do it." Reid even dragged America's Children into it, reading a letter from a 7th-grader in Rhode Island, who was no doubt coached by her liberal parents:

I’m extremely scared especially being a woman of color that the president of the country that I was born and live in, is making me feel unsafe when I usually don’t feel unsafe. It even scarier because this man who is now the president of the United States of America has said such rude, ignorant and disrespectful things about women and all different types of people and is now in charge of our country. I want to feel safe in my country but I no longer can feel safe with someone like Donald Trump leading this country.

Our president is supposed to make our children feel safe. But on Wednesday, a seventh-grade girl awoke feeling frightened to be a woman of color in America because Donald Trump was president-elect.

And somewhere in a cave on 8chan, the Online Flying Monkey Brigade sought out the girl's address so they could send her pictures of herself being raped and dismembered by Pepe the Frog, or shoved into a gas chamber by Donald Trump, for the lulz.

Reid went on to call for Trump to rescind his appointment of Steve Bannon as his top strategist, a position Trump said would be equal to his chief of staff in importance:

By placing a champion of white supremacists a step away from the Oval Office, what message does Trump send to the young girl who woke up Wednesday afraid to be a woman of color in America?

It is not a message of healing.

If Trump is serious about seeking unity, the first thing he should do is rescind his appointment of Steve Bannon. Rescind it. Don’t do it. Think about this. Don’t do it. As long as a champion of racial division is a step away from the Oval Office, it will be impossible to take Trump’s efforts to heal the nation seriously.

Other Democrats, including senators Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Bob Casey and Chuck Schumer, also called for the Bannon appointment to be reversed, as did Rep. Keith Ellison, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Sen. Cory Booker, and Sen. Ed Markey. Montana's Jon Tester did as well, surely in deference to phone calls from his constituent, your Editrix. (Have you been calling your senators too?) At a press conference Wednesday, Markey, along with senators Jeff Merkley, Mazie K. Hirono, and Senator-elect Chris Van Hollen called on Trump to give Bannon the boot and to denounce the hate crimes that have been committed since the election, for all the good it will do.

Hey, Trump already said on 60 Minutes he told people committing hate crimes to "Stop it," so he's done everything in his power to tamp things down. What, you think he should say "stop it" again, when he's got to actually come up with a secret plan to beat ISIS now?

[ HuffPo / Time transcript of Reid speech / Cleveland.com / Newsweek / Politico / USA Today ]