We, the American Sheeple, didn't force NBC News to fire Eva Braun...er, Ronna McDaniel
Nah...these are the same folks threatening to turn "Idiocracy" into a documentary
There seems to be a school of thought, championed by people like
and , that holds that We, The American Sheeple, forced the hand of the high-rollers in NBC News’ C-suites. WE forced them to handIn the words of the inestimable Lee Corso, NOT SO FAST, MY FRIEND!!
I’m not saying that folks who are undoubtedly much better connected to America’s media ecosystem than I am might be onto something. Still, given the American public's fickle (and short) attention span, I’m skeptical.
Dworkin argues that We The Sheeple forced the hand of NBC News:
Yesterday Ronna McDaniel was fired. She will not be an NBC News contributor. WE did this. Don’t just thank NBC and MSNBC employees. Our voice cleared the way for them all to confidently speak out. Because we resisted so forcefully, they knew they had the support of the public. They deserve credit, but surely not all of it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful to Joy Reid, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, and to all of the employees and friends who made their objections heard. But without enormous public support, it wouldn’t make any sense for them to be so vocal about their disapproval.
NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde said in an email: “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor.” Great.
But I think he needs to make a public statement acknowledging the backlash and issue an apology to NBCUniversal’s viewers for almost giving a platform to Ronna McDaniel. He should reassure everyone there won’t be another Trump apologist and insurrectionist sympathizer brought on to the NBC networks.
The relentless public outrage shown from the moment McDaniel’s position at NBC and MSNBC was announced was powerful. It was pivotal. It was a fierce and decisive rejection that reminded me of how The Resistance movement against Trump continues to be so successful.
I don’t want to piss in Dworkin’s sandbox, but that seems a relentless sunny assessment of the staying power of the American Sheeple, more than 70 million of whom voted for Donald Trump in 2020. These are the same folks threatening to turn Idiocracy into a documentary.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that the reaction from MSNBC viewers did play a role. However, the outrage from MSNBC’s on-air talent was far more critical than that. When even Chuck Todd and Kristin Welker, average softball throwers at best, vent their spleen at their bosses, you know something’s rotten in Denmark.
Far more significantly, though, when on-air personalities with the collective gravitas of Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, et al. rip their employers on the air in front of millions of viewers, I suspect THAT’S what made the power brokers in the C-suites do a double-take.
Obeidallah began by listing Ms. Romney McDaniel’s numerous offenses against democracy, which is enough to make a rational person wonder what the people behind NBC News’ hiring decision were thinking.
The backlash to NBC News hiring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel has been remarkable—in a great way. It’s already impacting on air content—which is the goal. And the best part of this is that all of it started because of people like you and I outraged that NBC News would hire McDaniel, who was far worse than just an election denier who repeatedly called the 2020 election “rigged.” She was personally involved in Trump’s attempted coup.
As a reminder, on Nov. 17, 2020, she and then-President Trump called two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers urging them not to sign a certification that Joe Biden had won their county’s election. In that call, Trump told the election officials that "we can't let these people take our country away from us" and McDaniel stated, “do not sign it…We will get you attorneys." After that phone call, the two Republican election officials tried (unsuccessfully) to rescind their certification of the election results based on what McDaniel and Trump had told them.
People who tell people, “We will get you attorneys,” know they’re involved in something illegal…or quasi-illegal at the very least. Ms. Romney McDaniel is no idiot; she knew that what she was doing was, if not outright unlawful, was skirting the edge of illegality at the very least.
In addition, the RNC under her leadership--as McDaniel testified to before the Jan 6 committee-helped the Trump campaign assemble “contingent” electors (aka fake electors) after the 2020 election.
As RNC chair, she sought to cover up Trump’s Jan 6 attack. For example, she led the passage of an RNC resolution in 2022 that called Trump’s Jan 6 attack on the Capitol where more than 140 police officers were injured as being "legitimate political discourse." And the RNC passed a resolution that censured Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for working on the Jan 6 House committee investigating the attack. (Liz Cheney responded to NBC News hiring McDaniel by noting that the former RNC chair helped Trump by “enabling criminality & depravity.”)
“Enabling criminality & depravity” is not exactly a ringing endorsement. And what about the January 6 insurrection, where five died and more than a hundred were injured, says “legitimate political discourse?”
McDaniel also did her best to delegitimize media outlets that criticized Trump, for example, accusing MSNBC as of “spreading lies” and employing ‘prime time propagandists.’
In the past, the hiring of a person like McDaniel might have been met with some grumbling but not a massive backlash. That is likely what the top brass at NBC expected—especially given that McDaniel’s hiring was reportedly “unanimously” agreed to by both NBC News and MSNBC’s top execs. But what they got was far, far worse.
Oh, but she had no problem agreeing to work for those who employ “prime-time propagandists.” Of course, If someone waved a $300k/year contract in front of me, I might agree to work for the Devil himself. It’s a good thing I don’t believe in Satan, eh?
Still, her agreeing to work for NBC News does speak volumes about her epic hypocrisy and lack of integrity.
The grassroots criticism of McDaniel’s hiring was swift, loud and ferocious. People shared online the receipts of what McDaniel had said and done, causing other news outlets to cover it. Even the DNC joined the criticism, with DNC chair Jamie Harrison publishing a statement calling McDaniel one of the “key architects” of Trump’s attempted coup and slamming McDaniel as “a proven liar” who “has no place in an honest and objective conversation about the future of this country.”
“Receipts?” Who needed receipts? The trail Ms. Romney McDaniel left behind her at the RNC was as long as it was slimy. And it’s not a state secret. Anyone who’d paid attention since Donald Trump came down the Trump Tower escalator in 2015 understands what a slimeball she is. She dropped the “Romney” from her name because Trump despises her uncle, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT).
Ronna Romney McDaniel has no soul or moral center.
The deafening calls for boycotts of NBC and MSNBC were soon being heard by the top executives at the network. By Saturday night, MNSBC’s top executivewas saying McDaniel would not appear on their air.
On Sunday, NBC News’ Chuck Todd used an appearance on “Meet the Press” to slam NBC executives for hiring McDaniel’s, explaining that “many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination.” (When Chuck Todd has become a voice of reason you know things are bad!)
I don’t believe the public outcry was insignificant or didn’t play a role, but I have to disagree with Dworkin, Obeidallah, and others who may argue that public outcry forced NBC News’ hand.
made the point that trust and accountability still matter, and I think the point made by NBC’s on-air talent was that with Ms. Romney McDaniel on their staff, they could no longer guarantee that. With her track record as a professional liar and provocateur, they would have no way of knowing if ANYTHING she said was accurate and true.
If someone has made her career as a professional liar and propagandist, joining a major news network is certainly not going to whitewash that reputation and suddenly brand her as credible and trustworthy.
As
argues, MAGA doesn’t need an interpreter…especially one embedded within a major news network. Americans already know what MAGA is and what it stands for. NBC News need not pay a professional liar and propagandist $300k/year to translate MAGAspeak for us. It’s stomach-churning enough without being forced through Ms. Romney McDaniel's propaganda filter.So, in the end, the private school and Ivy League alums in the C-suites didn’t need to give a damn about what We, the American Sheeple, were bleating about. However, they did sit up and notice when the on-air talent revolted. They knew this could significantly hit NBC Universal’s stock price, which might hurt their ability to pay for their vacation homes in the Hamptons.
Of course, there’s another aspect to this controversy, as
explains,We couldn’t have asked for a better situation to shine a bright light on the corruption of the corporate media—and its impulse to legitimize MAGA extremism and lawbreakers for profit—than NBC’s hiring former RNC chair, election denier, and Trump enabler Ronna McDaniel.
The extraordinary public rebellion—anchors and stars, from Chuck Todd and Joe Scarborough to Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell, vilifying their network, trashing their employer like we’ve never seen before—brought McDaniel crashing down, fired by NBC within days of the network hiring her.
Had it happened at another network, say CNN or ABC—and McDaniel was reportedly in talks with those networks and others before accepting the job with NBC—would we have seen the same rebellion by news anchors?
As Signorile points out, MSNBC already has a few Republicans in-house, including:
Michael Steele (former head of the RNC)
Nicole Wallace (served in Republican administrations)
Joe Scarborough (Right-wing radio host and former Congressman)
Charlie Sykes (Right-wing radio host)
Stuart Stevens (political consultant)
Tim Miller (political consultant)
The difference between the above and Ms. Romney McDaniels should be evident to anyone who’s watched MSNBC for any length of time. These are all people with reputations for honesty and integrity. They can be trusted, as far as anyone with a political background can be, I suppose.
They add depth and perspective to MSNBC’s political coverage, and I think their viewpoints are worth listening to. They bring a depth of knowledge about the Right side of the political spectrum that most MSNBC talent lacks.
So, as Signorile says, perhaps it’s best that this controversy over Ronna Romney McDaniel happened at NBC News. Its denouement may have been far different at another major news operation.
But let’s not kid ourselves; with more than seven months until Election Day, we’d be naïve to assume this will be the one and only shot across our bow. If this was, as
has said, a trial run for appeasing an authoritarian regime, we can’t afford to assume this was a one-off. There may be more to come.Stay tuned….
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One can already hear the cultists mewling about "cancel culture," their attention spans not being capable of recollecting that she was fired by the Trump cult just a couple of weeks earlier.
Garbage in, garbage out. Off to the compost pile with the rest of the manure. 👏👏