To wit, NBC hiring Ronna McDaniel, former head of the Republican National Committee, as an on-air commentator providing election commentary and ” “an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party.”
First off, I hate the trend, now at least 30 years old, of people who pop back and forth from politics to news media gigs (I have similar reservations about politicians’ kids such as Meghan McCain and Chelsea Clinton). As someone put it years ago, it’s impossible to tell when a former political PR person is offering genuine commentary, acting as the voice of their former boss or doing PR favors to secure their next gig. Is McDaniel going to give us “an insider’s perspective” or simply say what will land her her next position with the party?
I see the value of an insider’s perspective but there are other perspectives. I’d much sooner see a pundit who’d worked construction or lived in a homeless shelter or like Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed involved putting in time in minimum wage jobs. Somehow it’s the much more comfortable world of white-collar political operations, lobbying and consulting.
Plus, of course, McDaniel isn’t just a conservative, she’s a devoted Trumper, spouts lies the election was stolen (that is not a point of view, it’s a lie), supported Trump’s various schemes after he lost the election and called the Jan. 6 insurrection legitimate discourse. As Alexandra Petri says, it’s like Gotham City TV hiring the Joker for an alternative to the pro-Batman news. Happily NBC’s on-air staff revolted and her contract got nixed — though she may collect the $600,000 she’d been signed for, even without doing any work.
For a long time the mainstream media have made a big thing of hiring conservatives to promote intellectual diversity — which as noted at the link, is a bullshit concept (see also here). In the past decade their conservative hires have been never-Trump conservatives, however ghastly their views. McDaniel represents another notch in the way Trump gets normalized, like pretending Clinton conceding in 2016 is somehow no different from Trump attempting a coup. Republicans are different and not in a good way, as witness Michele Morrow, who’s running for Superintendent of Schools here in North Carolina, has called for executing Biden, Hilary Clinton, Anthony Fauci, Obama and other people. Morrow’s a Qanon believer who’s proud of her work with Liberty First Grassroots which has equally extreme views.
A couple of decades back, this kind of rhetoric wouldn’t have flown; that it’s now normal for Republicans doesn’t mean we should just shrug and say it’s normal. Ditto Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor who’s compared Planned Parnethood to the KKK.
Or Heather Scott, a Republican in Idaho who’s crusading against cannibalism. Which is bad, yes, but despite her lies that “This is going to be normalized at some point, the way our society’s going and the direction we’re going,” it’s not a big issue. I suspect she’s just posturing like the liars claiming schools put down litterboxes for furries. Spouting bullshit and taking a stand against it is an easy way to pretend you represent the nice, normal decent people … but the people telling these lies are not nice or decent. We shouldn’t accept their conduct as normal.
