The Cowardice of Joe and Mika
Between Eltiism and Being on the Right Side of History, They Chose Elitism
I will be the first to admit, I stopped watching Morning Joe regularly years ago. To me, it had become a one dimensional Trump-a-palooza where the conversation would ONLY be about Donald Trump. Oh sure, it would occassionally take it’s aim off him long enough to target a few Republican office holders and the stupid shit they say, but as a show it had grown tiresome.1 To me, it and MSNBC had crossed the line from news to opinion programming and the repetitive nature of it all just seemed too much.
But I gave them, along with others at MSNBC, some credit. Most of them were taking principled stands against what had become a real problem in our body politic; an authoritarian movement that sought to destroy the very institutions that make America great. When Trump won the GOP nomination in 2016, they were completely mocking the Republicans falling in line with this charlatan. Anyone going to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring of the orange menace was laughed at and ridiculed. Others, who knew what an idiot and danger Donald Trump was, like Jeff Flake, Mark Sanford, George Conway, Rick Wilson (and the list goes on), they had on talking rationally about what was becoming of the Republican Party.
It was on the days following January 6th where I sat glued to MSNBC in the mornings, utterly transfixed at the moral high ground Joe, Mika and the gang were taking. How utterly galling it was what Trump had done, and they spent hours every day detailing why. During the 1/6 Commission hearings, they praised people like Adam Kinzinger, Cassidy Hutchison and Lynn Cheney, people who took serious, principled stands and lost their careers for it, because they knew, we knew, hell everyone knew they were on the right side of history. MSNBC was an outlet for much of that angst against the GOP obstinancy and kakistacracy. It quite often went trolling there far too long and too far, but they were an effective counterbalance against the Fox News echo chamber for the left.
Which is why this week, when word got out they had ventured to Mar-a-lago to make amends with the Orange Shyster and kiss the ring, the left was rightfully outraged. The unbelievable hypocrisy of these two. It was and still is embarrassing. Trump must have loved it, smirking and knowing full well that these two were bending the knee and would forever be the subject of mockery in his clown world circus. Worse yet, the excuse seems to be that they were worried about “retribution.”
What? You’re caving to a psychopath, because you’re worried about what he’ll do? Have you not learned anything?
You do not negotiate with Terrorists. You do not pay the ransom to the hostage takers. You do not wave a white flag to an enemy who will shoot you either way.
They could have taken the principled position. Hell, they could have even been pressured out of their jobs if MSNBC were pushed by the incoming administration to do it (I don’t think they would have, I think the press pushes back quite a bit when journalistic ethics is on the line). Sure, NBC News would not get access to the Trump administration. So what? Big deal? You don’t think you can’t figure out what he’s doing? He broadcasts it across Truth Social every day, and is not exactly quiet about what he plans on doing. Joe and Mika could have built this up to an Edward Murrow moment, holding fast to the principle of democracy and standing firm against oppression and innuendo. Instead, they sided with McCarthy.
In the end, the real deal they made was that Joe and Mika remain a part of that elite political world that so many marvel at. They can still go into the backrooms and private clubs where handshakes are made and scotches are poured. Joe can play with his crappy rock band some more, and may even get a gig at MAL now that I think about it. Mika can keep rolling her eyes at everything and offering snide commentary about everything not having to do with her cynical “Know your value” books. In the end, they remain part of the aristocratic class in America.
It just cost them their souls to do it. Just like it cost every Republicans’ soul too.
PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day
Joe Scarborough started his political career as a Republican Congressman from Florida. His first show on MSNBC, Scarborough Country, bombed horribly. It wasn’t until he was paired with Mika Brezynski in the mornings that his broadcasting career took off.
PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject
“Change the channel, or better yet turn it off.”
—Every Gen Xers parent on listening to whiny Gen Xers talk about nothing was on.
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Footnotes and Fun Stuff
And that’s really too bad because it had a lot of regular guests who are great. Willie Geist is a gem, John Dickerson is a top notch reporter. You can learn more about the economy by listening to Steve Rattner for five minutes talk about it than you could anyone else. Others were less interesting, like Mike Barnacle, Michael Steele and Eugene Robinson, all of whom you kind of knew exactly what they were going to say ten minutes before they opened their mouths.
So I’m going to take the more charitable view of their choice to do this, that it was solely motivated by a genuine and credible fear of legal (crim and civil) peril if they keep up their staunch criticism and mockery of the Orange Asshole. It’s still UNBELIEVABLY cowardly.
In 2018 Joe was making 25,000,000 dollars a year. Mika was pulling in a far lesser haul of 3,000,000 a year. I cannot imagine those contracts haven’t been renegotiated in the years since and they are both pulling in even higher numbers of dump trucks full of money.
If they do not own houses all over the world in countries with extraditing and non-extraditing treaties alike; if they do not have even a 10th of their assets in forms that can be fairly easily liquidated in the next 2 months, then they are utter and complete morons.
That these people of such ungodly means and power are too fucking afraid to continue on the path of the righteous out of fear or retribution, then fuck them. I’ll never watch again and no self-respecting Never Trumper commentator, Liberal activist, or Dem should ever grace MJ’s airwaves with their presence again.