This week has been a goldmine for content, but not if you’re on the Left. Seems one of their favorite sinkholes…I mean news networks is having to make some cutbacks, including the firing of some on-air talent like Joy Ann Reid.
Sorry. I have to take a moment to let the laughter subside at using “talent” and “Joy Ann Reid” in the same sentence.
Several hours later…
Okay, I’m back. Now where was I? Oh yes, talking about MSNBC! Because I’m a giving person, I want to give it the attention it deserves and the audience it is sorely lacking. With the tens and tens of my readers out there, I can see their ratings skyrocket!
So let’s get into it.
MSNBC
What the Left thinks it means – a valuable cable news source full of diverse opinions and smart analysis
What it really means – the Air America of cable news
As a recovering journalism student and a child of the 70s and 80s, I was there when cable news really became a fixture in the reporting game. Yes, back in the days when various hair products gave us hairstyles that were hard enough to take a sledgehammer to without a single strand being out of place, cable news was a bit of an oddity at first because we weren’t sure just how much news there could be on any given day. Sure, if you had a couple of high profile stories, you might be able to stretch it out over an hour or two, but 24 hours?
Well, that’s why God made filler content.
As cable news found out you could make any story run for hours by a) reporting it, b) analyzing it, c) bringing in panelists to analyze it, and d) repeating the cycle, more people decided to jump in the pool. Nowadays, cable news is dominated by Fox News, with CNN and MSNBC not so close behind. Fox News’s popularity is understandable, as they seem to have the hot newsreader demographic on lockdown. CNN is a shadow of its former self, both in content, quality, and ratings.
That brings us to MSNBC. They are the number two cable news network (both literally and figuratively), and they have a loyal following. And so did Charlie Manson, but that’s besides the point. With Donald Trump coming back into the White House like a wrecking ball, one would think they would be set up nicely to rake in the money bashing the President left and, well, further left.
You would think that, but these are Leftists we’re talking about here. They tend to make money in spite of themselves, and MSNBC is no different. If you are an opposition network when a President from a particular party is in power, it’s practically a license to print money. Fox News did it under Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Brick Tamland, and MSNBC kinda did under George W. Bush and the first Trump Presidency.
There is one slight problem with that, however: the potential lack of crossover watchers. The harder you lean into a particular ideology, the harder it gets to get viewers outside of that ideology. Fox News gets away with it because, well, hot newsreaders, but MSNBC is a bit harder of a sell. I mean, who wants to listen to a bunch of unattractive smug assholes complaining all the time? If I wanted to do that, I could just go to a Leftist rally.
And in some cases, my attendance would double the attendance.
Just look at their prime time line up. Aside from Rachel “I’m Only Here One Night a Week But Still Manage to Rake in $25 Million a Year” Maddow, who else is there? Lawrence O’Donnell, whose inability to grow an audience is only surpassed by his contemptuous arrogance? Joy Ann Reid…oops! Too soon? Chris Hayes?
Wait. Has anyone seen Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow in the same room at the same time? I’m just asking questions here, kids.
And that’s pretty much the list of heavy hitters MSNBC has. Everyone else, including Al Sharpton, is either washed up or a virtual unknown. I’ve seen SyFy movies with more star power. And when you’re dealing with attracting an audience, you need more than an ideological connection.
The other thing that hurts MSNBC is repetition. If you watch Rachel Maddow (and for God’s sake why would you), you’re going to get the same perspective, sometimes even down to the same squawking points, on another show. And another show. And another show. And…well, you get the picture. The lack of variety tends to bore an audience.
Now, before you say “Faux News does the same thing, idiot,” let me remind you Fox News does bring on Leftists in prominent (and more watched) shows to offer opinions, as wrong-headed as they are. MSNBC typically doesn’t, or when they do it’s self-styled Republicans who are so far left they make Karl Marx look like Ronald Reagan. Not quite the same thing, kids. It’s closer to what the kids like to call “controlled opposition.”
The MSNBC business model reminds me of the Leftist attempt at talk radio, Air America. If you don’t remember it, be glad. I’ve talked about it before, so I’ll be brief here. Air America tried to create a Leftist talk radio network by taking the right wing radio network model and just putting in Leftists. And it worked about as well as you’d think.
And who had a show on both Air America and MSNBC? Rachel Maddow. Dun dun DUNNNNNNNNNN!
Okay, that has nothing to do with anything. Moving on…
The bad news for MSNBC right now is it’s not as much of a cash cow as it once was and should be given Trump Presidency 2: Electric Boogaloo. There are going to be more cuts coming, and it’s going to affect more and more people. And you thought corrupt politicians sweat a lot when the Epstein Files got released! But there is a way out, one that CNN is trying to do and having marginal success doing.
Try reporting the fucking news with some balance.
Sure, you’ll lose the hardcore MSNBC audience who counts on you to feed them the misinformation they want to hear, but you’ll gain a little credibility in the process. Not much, I grant you since, well, you’re MSNBC, but it might make for an interesting experience for you all. Not every idea that comes from your hivemind is a good one (see Harris/Walz 2024), and not every idea that comes from outside of your hivemind is a bad one (see DOGE). By opening your ideological lens a little wider and giving different perspectives equal footing, I guarantee you’ll find solid footing again.
Just in time for Elon Musk to buy your sorry network.
Tag: joy reid
Extremist Makeover: MSNBC Edition
If the 2024 elections taught me anything, it’s how much the mainstream media’s influence is waning. And by waning, I mean tanking more than Michael Dukakis in a helmet. And if you got that reference, you are officially old. Welcome to the club!
But there’s one cable news network that has been hit the hardest: MSNBC, or as I call it “the Bluesky of cable news.” (And, for you MSNBC viewers out there, that’s not a positive thing.) Ratings are down, NBC is considering splitting MSNBC from its holdings (it’s not them, it’s you), and even high profile stars like Rachel Maddow are having to take pay cuts.
If anyone needed an Extremist Makeover, it’s MSNBC. Good thing I’m here to help!
Right now, MSNBC is directionless. They can go back to being the “Orange Man Bad” channel (as if they ever stopped), but that route has diminishing returns in its future. They’ve lost a lot of credibility following every Trump-related conspiracy theory and inviting on figures like Adam Schiff to perpetuate those conspiracy theories. They’re behind the times when it comes to reverting back to more straight news, as CNN has already tried to take a step back towards the middle from the hinterlands of Leftistinistan.
Not exactly an enviable position to say the least!
There are two choices that come to mind, neither one attractive in the grand scheme, but necessary to try to sustain an audience. The first is to try to appeal to the middle ground. You can still have Rachel Maddow, but you would also need someone on the other side (preferably not from the not-quite-as-insane-as-Joy-Reid-but-you-can-see-her-sanitarium-from-here group) to balance the scales and offer a different perspective.
And speaking of Joy Reid, you’re gonna have to let her go, as well as a few others. Al Sharpton, Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Hayes, and hosts of others shouldn’t even be allowed in the newsroom if they were getting coffee for the real journalists. They should rightly be shown the door if for no other reason than to eliminate redundancies. Heck, Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow are practically twins as it is, so why not get rid of the less talented one?
A change in ownership may also be in MSNBC’s future, which could go a long ways towards righting this left-leaning ship. One of the names being bandied about is Elon Musk, who knows a thing or two about bringing balance to a media outlet, as all the Leftists fleeing the Social Media Site Formerly Known As Twitter can attest. Or would if you didn’t get banned off Bluesky for not being Leftist enough.
On the other hand, it may be too late for MSNBC to gain any amount of credibility in the eyes of the media consuming public. In that case, maybe it’s time to lean into the nitwit Leftist conspiracy theories. Go all out! Rename yourself MSNBlueAnonC and let anyone with an idea that makes Trump look like the Dictator-du-jour. Is there fluoride in your drinking water? Trump did it! Step in some dog waste on your way into a San Francisco Whole Foods? Trump literally just took a dump right there! Make the Weekly World News look like the New York Times!
Wait, wait. I have to apologize for that last line. In no way, shape, or form was I attempting to question the journalistic integrity and prowess of a highly respected newspaper by comparing it to the New York Times. I’m sorry. Now please don’t sic Bat Boy on me!
Anyway, if you’re going to cater to the marginally coherent crowd, make sure it’s the best catering you can do. Sure, this will further tank your credibility and will shrink your audience smaller than the number of people who still want to see the Snow White movie when/if it comes out, but it will be fun. And when you really think about it, if you know you’re on the Titanic and about to plunge to an icy demise, why not have a little fun with it? Do the biggest cannonball you can and never regret it for a second!
Either way, I hope you folks at MSNBC take my advice. Especially on that second option because, although I can’t guarantee its success, I can guarantee it will make me laugh a lot.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
In case you hadn’t marked it on your calendars, the World Economic Forum (think Nerd Prom for people even less hip than the White House Correspondents’ Dinner) met and gave its opinion on the biggest threat in 2024. Was it post-COVID economic instability? Was it the impact on oil production if the Middle East continues to fight like the Hatfields and McCoys with heavy artillery? Was it the impact Bitcoin and other e-currency will have on the free market?
Nope. It was misinformation and disinformation.
Oh, they also mentioned climate change and the polarization of society in the top 3, but out of all the other subjects, some of them even related to economics, these high-fallutin’ asshats chose misinformation/disinformation to worry about?
Well, that’s by design, kids, as we’ll soon find out.
misinformation/disinformation
What the Left thinks it means – information that erodes confidence in trusted institutions and sources of information
What it really means – information the Left can’t bullshit their way out of
Politics is dishonest because, let’s face it, modern politicians are lying assholes. So much of what they do revolves around releasing certain information and hiding other information that would damage The Party. And once the lie is no longer useful or needed, it’s memory-holed as though it never happened. Remember, Mitt Romney was the second coming of Hitler back in 2012, but then became a good Republican a few years later. Now, the Left would have us believe it was because the GOP and Donald Trump supporters in particular took the party to the far right, but the real reason is far easier and more believable.
Romney wasn’t the monster the Left made him out to be in 2012.
If that isn’t misinformation or disinformation, I don’t know what is. The thing is the Left doesn’t know what these terms mean either, or if they do they absolutely suck at recognizing it. While they’re quick to point out misinformation and disinformation when it comes to the Right (which is a valid point given some of the stupid shit Trump says on the regular), they have a blind spot when it comes to someone who says equally stupid shit, like MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid.
Now, if Reid were an outlier, the Left would have an easy defense. Of course, she’s not. MSNBC is staffed with people less trustworthy than 3 day old gas station sushi. Or 3 minute old Chipotle. But, of course, when they engage in misinformation/disinformation, it’s perfectly fine because they’re doing it for the right reasons.
Like getting underinformed people to believe their bullshit!
That’s the target of any misinformation or disinformation campaign: getting people who are just aware enough to know the key facts and figures of a situation, but not aware enough to know where they have knowledge gaps. In today’s society, that’s more common than a bad Michael Bay movie. Most of us have access to a wealth of information at our fingertips, but we still fall for obvious half-truths and impossible notions because a) we hate to admit we’re dumber than we actually are, or b) we want to believe the lie.
From there, the impact of misinformation and disinformation gets a lot bigger. Whether it’s ego or a desire to believe the implausible because it fits our personal narratives, the more we get intellectually mired into believing something that isn’t true, the harder it is to reverse our thinking. This is a little thing the kids like to call the Dunning-Kruger effect, which encapsulates both the ego and the desire I just mentioned. To put it simply, it’s literally your ego writing checks your brain can’t cash.
Even though the World Economic Forum isn’t exactly the best vehicle to deliver this lesson, the lesson is worth learning as we go into the election this year. After all, the Left is fully behind the WEF’s report, so that means it’s less credible than Eric Swalwell talking about how to avoid Chinese spies. And, it gets funnier. Frequent Leftist misinformers Brian “Potato” Stelter and Philip “I Don’t Have a Vegetable-Themed Nickname” Bump have raised the alarm about misinformation/disinformation, with the latter going so far as to say doing your own research actually helps people be uninformed.
And people wonder why my opinion of the media is lower than the tip of a male snake’s condom.
What Stelter, Bump, and the Left actually want is for you to not do your homework and just believe what you’re told. Of course, when they get shit wrong, they also want you to overlook the facts and still believe them because they have all the really truthful people on their side. Just look at all the doctors, scientists, and experts who agree! You know, like Dr. Fauci!
This, kids, is a logical fallacy called an appeal to authority. Just because an expert says something doesn’t make it factual because of his or her station. They could be just as fucking stupid as your next door neighbor who thinks Elvis is alive and living in a trailer park in Missouri. This is precisely why you need to verify the information you’re getting, especially if the information is too good to be true.
I’m looking at you, Rachel Maddow.
Although I’ve ragged on the Left primarily for misinformation and disinformation (mainly because they’re the ones claiming to be fighting against it while actively engaging in it), the Right doesn’t have clean hands. In a campaign ad prior to the Iowa Caucuses, Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s PAC ran an ad bragging how how handily she would beat Joe Biden in a head-to-head election match-up, and noted how Donald Trump couldn’t. The problem? Trump’s “loss” was within the margin of error for the poll, meaning it was still possible for him to beat Puddin’ Head Joe. But that didn’t mean she stopped running it or that Haley supporters stopped believing it. Given her third place finish in Iowa, I’d say the only thing that the ad accomplished was turning off voters like me who can do math.
Which goes back to my earlier point about modern politicians being fucking liars. And as long as they’re allowed to get away with it, they’ll keep doing it.
That’s where you all come in. Hold every source of information to the same standard: tell the truth or go the way of Hunter Biden ever getting a job as the Drug Czar. That includes me. If I ever lead you astray, call me out on it. I welcome the scrutiny and it makes me a better correspondent.
The Left, on the other hand, don’t want you asking inconvenient questions like “Are you sure you’re being honest with me?” or “Just how full of shit do you think my head is?” They need you to believe, nothing more. Yet, if you look at their track record over the past, oh, year or so, you’ll find there’s not much of a reason to trust them. So, question them. Back up your thoughts with facts from multiple sources. Look for logical fallacies. Trace back the information using the “who benefits” model. And above all else, don’t continue to believe something that’s been disproven by reputable sources. The Left and the Right need you to be unthinking drones, and being one step ahead of them freaks them the fuck out.
So, good on the World Economic Forum for raising this issue. After all, if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have much of a Lexicon entry this week!
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
This past week was another one rich with possible Lexicon topics, but one person dominated the week, as well as Leftist twits on Twitter. I’m speaking of Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and Space-X and recent critic of Leftist ideas. It’s the latter one that has gotten him in hot water with Leftists, namely Senator Elizabeth Warren and MSNBC host Joy Reid, who recently had some not-so-kind things to say about Musk and what they think he should be doing with his billions of dollars.
Because they’re experts on spending other people’s money, apparently.
As much fun as it appears Musk is having giving the Left the business, I’m afraid the Left is more than willing to take it from him, literally. So, while he’s still in the public eye instead of the poorhouse, let’s take a look at the man who makes Leftists froth like Cujo drinking a frothy root beer float in the middle of a bubble run.
Elon Musk
What the Left thinks it means – an evil billionaire who cheats the system and doesn’t pay his fair share in taxes
What it really means – the man who built a better mousetrap, but has people beating a path to his door…to tar and feather him
People’s reactions to success are fun to observe. Some love to see others to succeed. Others hate to see it. Still others take personal offense at someone else doing better than they are and think it’s unfair. Those who fall in the latter category tend to hate the successful with a hatred that burns hotter than a million suns.
Guess which category Leftists fall into.
On paper, Elon Musk would be a billionaire Leftists should love. He’s a big advocate of alternate fuels. He produces electric cars that people want to buy because they look cooler than a Prius. A low bar, I know, but it should be underscored anyway. He takes up (or at least used to) support Leftist ideas on climate change. He’s greener than a sea-sick leprechaun.
But it’s a different kind of green the Left cares about here. He’s broken the cardinal rule of Leftist climate change advocacy: he’s figured out how to fix the problem and make money doing it. See, Leftists don’t really want to fix climate change because it makes them too much money ginning up fear, so they prolong actually doing something about it. And no matter how much eco-weinies like the Socialist Socialite whine, the recycled aluminum can keeps getting kicked down the road, well past the numerous end times that have been predicted for decades. By the way, Leftists, the estate of Dr. Harold Camping would like a word. Something about stealing their act.
Although this chaps Leftists’ hides (Musk’s success, not the Harold Camping thing), their hatred of him stems from the wealth he’s amassed by being good at what he does, Tesla truck notwithstanding. To them, anyone else who is wealthy did so through dubious means. You know, like purposely tanking the currency of a country. No, wait, that’s George Soros, a billionaire Leftists love. So, why do Leftists hate Musk again? Oh, yeah, he’s making “too much money” and took government subsidies to help Tesla get started and grow. Normally, Leftists don’t care if you take subsidies and, in fact, encourage it. But when you use subsidies and, you know, realize the Left’s ideas are nuttier than squirrel shit, then you’re a freeloader. At least that’s what Joy Reid said, in response to Sen. Warren saying Musk isn’t “paying his fair share.”
Those statements alone were enough to get Leftist Twits…er, Twitter users up in arms. In response, Musk told the world he was paying $15 billion in taxes due to him selling shares. Maybe a little TMI, especially to people who would find fault with anything he did outside of prostrating himself before Chief Running Mouth and begging for forgiveness. And even then they wouldn’t trust him. Having said that, Musk used it as the jumping off point for a serious question Reid and Warren aren’t ready for: what constitutes someone’s fair share?
That’s when Leftist number crunchers started talking about percentages rather than actual payments because the percentages make Musk look worse, thus fitting the narrative. What the Left fails to realize here is…they’ve just made the case for a flat tax rather than the current progressive tax rate. Of course, then they’ll complain about Musk paying the same percentage as lower class people, so the tax rates have to be adjusted so people who make more have to pay more.
Which just goes to show Leftists won’t be happy no matter how you try to appease them. Oh, and they suck at math.
The thing that irks the Left the most is what Musk did is perfectly legal. He accepted federal funds and pays his taxes within the current tax oppression…I mean code. In both cases, Congress made these things possible for Musk to use to his advantage, but they’re going to wash their hands of their role in this matter and simply accuse Musk of skirting the law when he’s actually following it. And it’s easy to do because it feeds into the Left’s disdain for the wealthy (except for their wealthy donors, of course) and into feelings of jealousy we all have. It’s a perfect system.
At least, until someone decides to break it.
That’s what Musk is doing here. He’s defending himself and his business practices while letting the Elizabeth Warrens and Joy Reids of the world throw accusations at him that he’s a no-good-downright-rotten-evil-rich-guy. Although Leftists will rally behind Warren and Reid, the rest of us who are paying attention see what’s happening: Leftists are throwing anything they can think of at the wall and seeing what sticks. When you boil down their objections, they have nothing substantive. Elon Musk is a man walking the walk while they talk and talk.
And for the purpose of transparency, I admit I am an Elon Musk fan, but I liked the cut of his jib before he started to be the bane of Leftists’ existences. I’ve found him to be visionary, forward-thinking, and brilliant in the way he looks at problems. The Twitter trolling he does is just the icing on the cake. Maybe someday the Left will realize what I’ve seen and come around to my point of view. Needless to say, I’m not holding my breath.
Besides, Musk is originally from South Africa, which makes him a literal African-American. And from what I’ve heard from the Left, if you hate an African-American, you’re a racist!
Don’t look at me. I didn’t make the rules!