Joy Reid

“Technology has made it a lot easier to be productive. It's incredibly helpful to be able to get little bits of information quickly.”

“Trump is beset by clear and alarming conflicts between his international business concerns and the national interest.”

“The America that clings to Confederate statues and flags, and that jealously guards the social privileges white Americans have long enjoyed, form the stalwarts of Trump's base.”

“Being on a grand jury felt like attending a series of hangings in a legal Wild West. Hands up for a true bill. Hands up for a dismissal. A show of hands to save a life, or to end it.”

“Bill Clinton had a hell of a first 24 months, even though he, like Trump, enjoyed a congressional majority. Scandal after scandal befell the White House, including the failure of Hillary Clinton-led healthcare reform. But Clinton's scandals, from 'filegate' to 'travelgate' to a brouhaha over a haircut, were petty, personal and domestic.”

“If you are Black or Brown, or a liberal or immigrant or Democrat, or a woman unwilling to quietly submit, then Ailes was the ultimate villain. You were the object of mockery and scorn - sometimes overt, often subtle. You were the thing to be gawked at, pawed at, jeered at, propositioned or feared.”

“Trump's more outre economic ideas, like repealing trade bills and implementing a massive surcharge on imports, would seem like non-starters in a Republican-led House and Senate, except when you consider a second point as a kind of syllogism: Republicans fear their angry, white electorate. Their angry, white electorate chose Donald Trump.”

“As a media consultant to Republican presidents, Ailes proved a deft manipulator of racial fear. But it was in building Fox News that he found his calling.”

“I've written before that the president is our national avatar - a stand-in for what we believe we are, or want to be.”

“Whatever its cause, the media's general Hillary Clinton loathing is a foundational truth that would define her as president.”

“Trump, who in his own history as a developer preferred mob concrete and Chinese steel to the variety produced in the Rust Belt, cannot bring back the steel and manufacturing jobs lost in Lorain, Ohio or western Pennsylvania.”

“The presidency is, in many ways, America's comment on itself; our collective national costume. In the occupant of our sole nationwide elected office, we see who we think we are, or who we want to be.”

“Popularity has always been the key currency in choosing a president.”

“Freedom is neither guaranteed nor automatic; not even in the United States. Left unguarded, it can slip away like a thief in the night.”

“After Trump, how can we credibly say that our process for choosing a national leader yields the best possible result, or even someone capable of uniting the country, let alone running it?”

“The one woman Trump does seem to totally respect is his daughter from his first marriage, Ivanka, on whom he heaps constant, effusive, at-times borderline creepy praise and physical affection.”

“There are few instances when American history offers us two clear sides of a moral line.”

“To be sure, police do a dangerous job and take tremendous personal risks to safeguard the public. Most officers just want to do their jobs and go home alive.”

“In many ways, Trump is both a boon and a bane to Republicans. His insanity and moral decrepitude keep the country focused on things other than the horrible public policies the GOP is attempting to ram through. But because he has no loyalty to anything other than himself, he's much more useful to them as a shiny object than as an ally.”

“The Trump phenomenon might feel both interminable and unprecedented to Republican elites, but of course it isn't.”