GOP turns on conservative media, voters turn on Rep. West

>> when the rim is in the system ain't no telling, will i love him or will i dishim. steve kornacki co-host of "the cycle." karen finney, and msnbc contributor perry bacon political editor for thegrio.com. steve , here is the story everyone is talking about today. the gop's media cocoon it's called. it says that many republicans fear their party is trapped inside a self-selected media universe in which only their own views are reinforced and an alternate reality is reflected. now, coy hai could have told them that. what took them so long to wake up and smell the cool late and smell the coffee and get burned by their own tea party ?

>> i think it was two things. this is the first time things really didn't go their way politically. they decided we're going to oppose everything obama does, we're going to obstruct and be there to get power back when people say the economy has not improved. what happened was obama 's approval rating came down fast in 2009 . republicans had a great midterm in 2010 , and so they could convince themselves for the last two years, the economy is not in great shape. we have already had these successes, we're going to win this election. all these polls are wrong and we're going to win. they never really had to confront it until now. the second thing is you look at this whole question of the closed information loop on the republican side . here is a rare example where really there's no avoidance of confronting reality here because it's something empirical. everybody on the right saying the polls are wrong, romney is going to win this election, well, that's something you can't -- we now have evidence, he clearly didn't win, the polls clearly weren't wrong. you have to confront it at a certain point. other issues like global warming and stuff countdoesn't come face to face it.

>> it's hard to see the republicans blaming their biggest defeat on their biggest cheerleader. here is david frum .

>> conservative followership has been fleeced and lied to. i went to tea party rally and i would ask, have tacks gone up or down in the past four years. they could not answer the question.

>> he calls it the conservative entertainment complex but what he's really referring to is talk radio and fox news. now, the audience for those outlets has always been kept in the dark . how come there was no problem with that until now?

>> because they lost, and i think what they also are realizing, let's be very honest about what's happened here, if you look at the demographics of this country, the republicans are looking at being locked out of the white house not just for one cycle, but possibly two. this is not a problem that gets fixed in three years, let's be very clear about that. and, you know, we all told them that by not standing up to rush limbaugh , by not standing up to the birthers, by not being willing to push that stuff back and say, wait a second, we're here to focus on issues, they were doing themselves real danger. the other problem though, it's not just -- what's so offensive about all of this is it's not just that there was empirical political data. we're talking about the u.s. census . we're talking about the composition of the country. we're talking about people who have pulled the covers over their heads for the last i don't know how many years who have been, you know, railing on and on about wanting to be a more traditional country and taking our country back who are now having to come to terms with the fact that they're living in a country that is not like their grandparents' country, that will never be like their that again, and this is not something where you just, you know, put on some lipstick or get a new message. they have to fundamentally go back and say to themselves can you accept the fact that our country is forever changed ?

>> well, in light of what karen has just said, perry , i think about the phrase from the scholar who talks about demographobia. we are afraid of the new demographics being released. even sean hannity is warming up to am nessty for undocumented immigrants? what's next a new line of solar powered assault rifles from ted nugent ?

>> you had people like michael steele and jon huntsman , jeb bu bush, even karl rove was saying we need to do more to appeal to latinos and other minorities, but they got sort of caught up in the election and thought they had no problems. they won in 2010 so they assume we have no trouble. in 2012 the election was more diverse again and the republicans had no way of dealing with that. it's really problematic. an election is a race to 50 points. it's difficult when you have basically said we're going to see you 13 points immediately. romney never made any attempt to appeal to african-americans at all, and i know the black vote is always very democratic but he made no attempt at all for 13% of voters. it's hard to win a game to 50 when you start out with a disvance.

>> steve , in light of what perry just said, in addition to that nativism, there's something else republicans will have to part with because of this election, but he's not stepping down without a fight. let's take a listen.

>> there's about 78 to 81 members of the democratic party who are members of the communist party . communist, progressive, marxist, socialist, statist, that's another term that's been used. get the hell out of the united states of america .

>> maybe stalin prevailed. it looks like allen west has lost his race yet he hasn't agreed to concede yet but it's not looking good right now. here is my question, without allen west , who is going to keep the spirit of joe mccarthy alive in the senate?

>> first of all, allen west may lose this and may concede and probably will but i don't think he's going away. i have a feeling he will be just as loud in the next two years. the one cautionary note i would throw in is the demographic realities that this election underscored are obviously real, but look at the difference between 2008 , 2012 , and 2010 in the middle when republicans had that big year and what was the difference? it's these core groups for obama that we're talking about didn't show up and there was not much turnout there. that's sort of the nature of a midterm election when your party is in power and democrats are potentially -- i'm not saying huge losses in 2014 but a tougher climate in 2014 where it may be a challenge like it was in 2010 to get these core groups out again and a guy like allen west who maybe had trouble winning a house seat this year, could be better positioned. i think it's a big challenge for democrats how to make sure that electorate does not look like it looked in 2010 .

>> that's a great point. karen , we mention immigration as an issue that republicans now seem willing to cave on a bit but what about all those tea party folks? are they just going to go away and go along with the new reality that we're talking about here?

>> no, probably not. although, you know, one of the things that was most interesting during the occupy wall street movement, let's remember what the tea party quote, unquote movement really is/was. there was a part of it that i think was a legitimate frustration. there was a part of it that was astroturf funded by freedom works , dick army , the right wing apparatus. when we had occupy wall street , some of the former tea partiers were talking to the occupiers and they agreed on some of their frustrations about, you know, economic inequality and the disparities. some of them may come along as part of the economic conversation. some of them may not come along just as there are americans who are not going to be comfortable for a very long time with the fact that, you know, gay people should get married and serve in our military openly. that women, unmarried women are a very powerful political force in this country, and you can't tell us what to do with our bodies. that black and brown people are a substantial part of not just our economy, but also the political discourse . sure, there are going to be people who are not going to like that who are going to don't to pretend it doesn't happen.

>> amen, miss finney. thanks to