With his usual amount of pretentiousness and faux solemnity, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell kicked off Wednesday’s edition of The Last Word by attempting to wax poetic about how Frederick Douglass would have supported Kamala Harris and how “some white men” do not share his belief that a woman can be president of the United States.

Douglass has nothing to do with the choice of Donald Trump or Harris. The only reason to invoke him is to make some nonsensical argument about how a universally admired historical figure would support your current and unrelated partisan agenda, which is exactly what O’Donnell tried to do, “Frederick Douglass would be so proud and admiring of Kamala Harris. He did not just fight for the right to vote for black men, when only white men could vote. He also fought for the right to vote for all women. When he was editor of the newspaper, the North Star, Frederick Douglass wrote, ‘We hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man.’” 

Stretching to the point where most people would hurt themselves, O’Donnell continued, “That was a very unpopular opinion among white men in this country at that time and remains an unpopular opinion among some white men in this country to this day. It may be that not enough people in the country believe in the full equality of women to elect a woman president of the United States.”

Attacking the exact voters you need to win over in the most personal ways may strike most people as unwise, but Lawrence O’Donnell is not most people. Instead, he continued with his forced Douglass-Harris connection, “Frederick Douglass would have seen the election of Kamala Harris to vice president of the United States four years ago as real progress. Frederick Douglass knew that progress did not mean the end of struggle.”

Not only is O’Donnell attacking the character of the white men who voted for Trump, his thesis has the added demerit of being wrong. Trump did better with just about every possible demographic, including women, than he did four years ago. Does O’Donnell think women don’t believe “in the full equality of women”?

Here is a transcript for the November 6 show:

MSNBC The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell

11/6/2024

10:01 PM ET

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Frederick Douglass would be so proud and admiring of Kamala Harris. He did not just fight for the right to vote for black men, when only white men could vote. He also fought for the right to vote for all women. When he was editor of the newspaper, the North Star, Frederick Douglass wrote, “We hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man.” 

That was a very unpopular opinion among white men in this country at that time and remains an unpopular opinion among some white men in this country to this day. It may be that not enough people in the country believe in the full equality of women to elect a woman president of the United States. Frederick Douglass would have seen the election of Kamala Harris to vice president of the United States four years ago as real progress. Frederick Douglass knew that progress did not mean the end of struggle.