Think of this as Volume 17, Number 37 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.
These are hard times to be a liberal.
In some ways, it's harder than in the Bush years. At least then we
had someone to hate.
When you're in power, you're naturally
playing defense. When you're in the 5th year of a
Presidential cycle, you're also expecting bad things to happen.
Lincoln didn't survive 1865, McKinley didn't survive 1901, FDR's 1937
was an annus horribilus and the horrors that were unearthed about
Nixon in 1973 destroyed him.
Compared with that, the problems Barack
Obama has faced are minimal. The economy hasn't been great but it's
growing. Syria almost blew up on us but it didn't. Every effort to
inject fear has been followed by a relief rally. Health reform is
coming into force. Next year's off-year elections don't look like a
disaster.
Still, liberals are mostly pissed at
this Administration. The NSA revelations have a lot to do with it.
The fact that the crooks who got us into the Great Recession are
still walking around free. The fact that the President's legislative
initiatives aren't just stalled, but they're being slowly reversed,
in both state houses and the Capitol.
This is no more true than at MSNBC,
which The New Yorker profiled recently. The trade of Chris Hayes for Ed Schultz has failed. It's left the
whole effort looking like a 24-hour academic seminar, without even
the pyrotechnics of Ted Talk. What all the hosts have exhibited,
since the election, is the idea that “governing is hard.” That's
not good TV.
If you're doing politics, if you're
doing talk, you need heat. Chris Hayes is a nice guy, but he's got no
heat. More important, it seems that the entire liberal movement has
become becalmed in 2013.
There are three things that can happen
in politics, and politics are always happening. You're either playing
offense, you're playing defense, or you're making stuff up. The
conservative movement has become great at making stuff out, so it
makes out great at times like this. Liberals don't like doing that.
Aww…you're fee-fees are hurt by that. Put your man pants on, grow a
pair, and get to work.
Maybe MSNBC doesn't understand what
“making stuff up” means. It means going on offense. It means
taking on someone, someone you can define as “bad,” over an issue
you can define as “good.” It means focusing attention on that bad
thing, and winning small victories you can then build into big ones. (To the right, High Times.)
Liberals don't want to do that. But I'm
not talking here about liberalism. I am talking about ratings, about
doing TV. TV ratings demand that you keep people on the edge of their
seats every day, especially if you're running a talk show format, as
MSNBC is. You need to find stories you can own, ride them hard, ride
them to victory, then find other stories just as good. Sounds unfair,
you say, like picking off fleas with a magnifying glass. But that's
the business.
There's a second problem that the New
Yorker story didn't discuss, a story that's just as important. MSNBC
is disconnected from its own news division. Fox can always throw a
story to a local affiliate, interview the reporters and anchors, and
get the “facts” that the talent then spins into ratings gold. CNN
does the same. NBC News is ashamed of MSNBC, and most of its talent
wants nothing to do with it.
That needs to change. MSNBC, CNBC, and
NBC are all one thing, under Comcast. It doesn't mean they have to
have the same editorial opinions. You're not going to turn Maria
Bartiromo into a liberal, any more than you're going to turn Rachel
Maddow into a Teahadist. But the news division needs to serve them
both, on both the local and national level. Once in a while foreign
correspondent Richard Engel comes on Maddow, looking and acting like
Joel McCrea in the movie, and they have a good time. But other than
that I rarely see NBC on MSNBC air, let alone local reporters. I'm
more likely to see Brian Williams on Jon Stewart's show than on the
MSNBC network. Hey, Brian, Comedy Central is owned by Viacom.
The way you get national journalism
stars is by finding local stars and building them up. Everyone on the
national news started as a local reporter. The MSNBC hosts started as
talk show hosts or activists. They haven't paid their dues as
reporters. Get someone who has and connect them up. That's how you'll
find those great, local stories that you can turn into national ones.
That's how you'll get back on offense.
But as disappointing as MSNBC has been
this year, the liberal blogosphere has been worse. They've taken
their eye off the ball. They've been co-opted. They've gotten
comfortable, complacent – dare I say conservative? And they've
handed victories to the other side as a result.
In the days leading up to the Colorado
recalls, sites like DailyKos took their eyes off the ball. Rather
than focusing on the ground game, they focused on trying to raise
money. They did it in a half-hearted manner. They got out-shouted,
they lost, and America lost as a result. The Terrorism that is Second
Amendment absolutism will roll on, and children will die, because
Markos Moulitsas took his eye off the damned ball. Guns are the crack
cocaine of our time. The pushers of guns reward hoarding behavior and
acting out. The berzerker incidents just multiply. Where are we on
this? Maddow can do a “gun outrage of the day,” every day, from
now until doomsday. Why doesn't she? Why doesn't Hayes?
Too many people in Left Blogistan have
pulled the ladder of opportunity up, now that they're gotten what
they wanted, and left some great people behind. Digby should have her own talk show, regular guest spots on
MSNBC, or at least be writing for Talk of the Town. Firedoglake has gotten as complacent as hell. AmericaBlog reads
like it wants to become The Nation – no one reads The Nation, kids.
Worse, the effort to find new, young voices on the left seems to have
stopped dead. Can you think of one discovery, one new bright young
voice, who has appeared in Left Blogistan over the last two years? I
can't. (I don't count. I'm 58.)
In some ways, I am as whiny as the rest
of them. There is a time in our historical cycles when the new Thesis
naturally goes into a clinch. This is one of those times. It was
tough being a Republican during Watergate. I know because I was one
of them. It was a lot easier being one in the late 1930s – Frank
Capra was a Republican. The heat came out of the Lincoln coalition
just as the Civil War ended, and while the Radicals continued to
pursue the South most decided to focus on just making money, taking
the spoils victory had won them.
I get it. But there are so many things
so deeply wrong with our society right now – inequality, gun
violence, education, the right to vote, the fate of the whole
god-damned planet, or at least the mammals now at the top of its food
chain.
I don't like to see time being wasted.
