MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry kicked off her weekend program with a monologue on what she called the “derogatory” implications of the term “Obamacare,” the colloquialism for the Affordable Care Act.
“It’s a word that has been with us for years. And like it or not, it’s indelibly printed in the pages of American history,” she said. “A word that was originally intended as a derogatory term, meant to shame and divide and demean. The word was conceived of by a group of wealthy white men who needed a way to put themselves above and apart from a black man. To render him inferior and unequal and to diminish his accomplishments.”
But Harris-Perry said that despite the efforts of President Barack Obama’s opponents to reduce him to that one “disparaging word,” he President embraced the moniker.
“I mean, what do you call the president who rescues the U.S. auto industry? Obamacare,” she said, ticking off a number of “victories” she said would ultimately be subsumed by Obamacare in the President’s legacy. “What do you call the president who finally eliminates Osama bin Laden? Obamacare. What do you call the president who ends Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Say it with me! Obamacare.”
Watch below, courtesy of RealClearPolitics:
[h/t Mediaite]
