Rachel Maddow is at a loss for words.

 When she sees her employer on the donor list for the Trump ballroom.

Succinct perfection in hypocrisy.

The most overpaid actress ever. pic.twitter.com/2tx3PqdA8c

— MAZE (@mazemoore) December 6, 2024

Musk: "Yeah, I saw an interview with Mark Cuban and, what's her name again, Rachel Maddow, but I couldn't tell which was which."

JUST IN: Elon Musk says he saw an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Mark Cuban but he "couldn't tell which one was which."

Brutal.

Musk: "Yeah, I saw an interview with Mark Cuban and, what's her name again, Rachel Maddow, but I couldn't tell which was which."

Crowd:… pic.twitter.com/0rSHazWqWV

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 19, 2024

Is this the sort of humor you'd advise Musk to use?

Yes, when it's this funny and accurate

Yes, these awful people deserve it

No, Musk is abasing himself to go there

No, he's pushing away some people who might support him

Musk should feel free, go with his instinct, and take risks

This is so inconsequential I can barely make the effort to click this box

 

pollcode.com free polls

"We will let you know if there is any news made in that speech, if there is anything noteworthy, something substantive and important."

Said Rachel Maddow, quoted in "Rachel Maddow defends MSNBC's refusal to air Trump's Iowa victory speech: ‘Not out of spite’/Maddow claimed that not airing Trump's victory speech was 'not an easy decision'" (Fox News).

You can read that or — better — watch Russell Brand's presentation of Maddow's travesty of journalism:

MSNBC and CNN REFUSE to air Trump's victory speech in Iowa🇺🇸 We took a closer look and unpicked their HYSTERIA🚨 pic.twitter.com/5oFQVC5w5r

— Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) January 16, 2024

The desperation is so intense, and it's only December. They can't go on like this.

1) These people seem certifiably insane. As in, needing serious psychological help. I'm not exaggerating here, they seem to have completely lost a relationship with reality.
2) I laughed multiple times in this Supercut. https://t.co/FY6eXuzqnb

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) December 15, 2023

My advice, and I've said it before, is to abandon the overblown demonization and treat Trump like the political candidate he is. About half of the electorate supports him. If it's democracy they're so concerned about, let them show respect for their fellow citizens and endeavor to understand the good reasons why they support Trump and not Biden and engage on the issues.

I don't expect them to take this advice, because: 1. They're so dug in, and 2. They don't trust themselves to argue on the substantive merits.

Of all the posts I've ever tagged "Trump derangement syndrome," this is the most deserving.

IN THE COMMENTS: michaele said:

The look on poor Jennifer Rubin's face at the end of her comments (.29) is half hilarious and half tragically concerning. Her anguish at the possibility of Trump being reelected truly seems to be affecting her mental and physical health.

Yes, I noticed that too. I'll make a screen shot. If I had more skills, I'd make that portrait in the background — a portrait of her, right? — change its expression too:

"Audiences have different orientations toward humor and political talk. Those orientations have some underlying psychological needs."

"And styles of comedy have political and cultural histories. Bluntly, scholars who study political communication and humor often find that liberals are ironic smart alecks and conservatives are outraged moralists. Some of us are a bit of both, but most of us have a psychological need to be one over the other.... Unfortunately, outrage makes more money, and today’s conservative media is much better at outrage."

Writes Tressie McMillan Cottom in "In the Political Talk Show Race, Outrage Is Winning" (NYT).

"Their lives were dotted with the minor luxuries of the progressive and affluent. They’re the kind of people who know..."

"... the local lady who makes her own Thai barbecue sauce; they notice when Rachel Maddow changes her shade of lip gloss; Bloom once had a second refrigerator devoted solely to condiments. One sign Brian was changing: his taste started to falter. This was funny until it wasn’t. He began to buy Bloom jewelry, she writes, 'so far from my taste that, if he were a different man, I’d think he was keeping a Seventies-boho, broke-ass mistress in Westville and gave me the enameled copper earrings and bangle he bought for her, by mistake.'"

From "‘In Love,’ a Novelist’s Powerful Memoir About a Happy Marriage and an Assisted Suicide/In her new book, Amy Bloom writes about loving her husband and helping him to end his life after a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s" by Dwight Garner, in his NYT review of "In Love/A Memoir of Love and Loss" by Amy Bloom.

"But there’s a deeper reason why a cerebral cultural figure like [J.D.] Vance would convert to Trump-style trolldom."

"In today’s political and media culture, trolling is the shortest, simplest path to a level of attention you’d never get any other way. His fiery Twitter account is just the capstone on the gradual reinvention of J.D. Vance.... When Hillbilly Elegy was released in 2016, it was taken as a kind of Rosetta Stone to a world many in the left had never encountered, and Vance became a rare bipartisan figure that liberals could at once praise, pity and understand.... But...Vance became a Trump supporter. And with that, his tone and temperament appeared to shift, too, from conciliatory and unifying to aggressive and mocking. It wasn’t just liberals losing a pet; anti-Trump Republicans have felt a similar sense of betrayal, as another onetime ally is lost to the dark side.... His new tone on Twitter shows that he’s following the 45th president’s playbook, covering for his lack of political experience with the emotion he can stoke from hot-button culture war issues.... What 'the game' entails has changed over time, but at this point, it’s essentially a ping-pong match held over a viper pit... But Vance surely knows what he’s doing.... That’s why some of Vance’s critics have approached his Twitter feed with the appropriate cynicism, and a suggestion that perhaps it was his old persona—and his high wire act of straddling two worlds—that was destined not to last."

 From "J.D. Is Making Everyone Mad on Twitter. Can It Win Him a Senate Seat? The author and Senate hopeful has a special knack at getting under liberals’ skin and getting everyone to talk about him" by Joanna Weiss (Politico).

How fiery is this J.D. Vance Twitter feed? The main example quoted in the article is: "I’m in D.C. today and just saw a group of girls on the Potomac rowing—outside in the sunshine—all of them with masks on. Totally insane." That's called a "rant." It's kind of a rant to call it a rant. I'm surprised Vance got back-and-forth action on such a mundane tweet. 

I've followed Vance on Twitter for a while, and I've never been struck by any exaggerated trolling that deserves to be called a "game" and "a ping-pong match held over a viper pit." The Politico writer wants him to settle down, but why doesn't she settle down? (That's a rhetorical question. You know why.)

Okay, now I'm going to read the last few Vance tweets. Most recent (aimed at a Lincoln Project person): "Look if you guys want to come to Ohio it’s a free country. Just don’t bring your pedophile co-founder."

Next (about the NY Attorney General investigating Trump): "It’s a total joke to pledge to bring charges before you’ve even investigated. You might even say it’s a threat to Our Democracy." 

I'm trying to understand why #FireChuckTodd is trending on Twitter. It was not immediately obvious.

I'll just give you a screen shot of what filled my screen when I clicked on #FireChuckTodd:

That first one made me think I'd missed a town hall with Trump and Chuck Todd. But no, the town hall is tonight. 

Here's an AP article that went up today: "NBC faces backlash after agreeing to Trump town hall."

NBC News faced a sharp backlash to its decision to host President Donald Trump for a town hall Thursday in direct competition with ABC’s event with Democrat Joe Biden, including a social media call to boycott the network.

Well! That's what happens when you cancel the debate and don't put the 2 men on the same stage (which is what Trump wanted).  The networks are in competition. Why should ABC own the airwaves by signing up boring Biden for a town hall? NBC got Trump and is putting the Trump show on at the same time. It's just commerce. And by the way, the networks are at a disadvantage these days, with all the streaming media. That's a reason for them to compete aggressively, and it's also a reason for us not to get bent out of shape by 2 shows on at the same time. We'll be able to stream either show on YouTube and elsewhere. I've had a TiVo for more than a quarter century, and that's how long it's been since it's mattered to me that 2 things are on at the same time.

Apparently, Rachel Maddow freaked out (but doesn't she need something every damned night to freak out about?):

During an interview with Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, Maddow asked whether she was “as mad as everybody else” about the Trump town hall. “I’m not touching that,” Harris replied. In a second reference to the town hall as her show ended, Maddow spoke as the words “Apparently They Are Not Kidding” were shown on the screen behind her.

I think it's great that the shows are on at the same time. It implicitly argues that there should have been a real debate — something I agree with. And it's kind of like another chance to vote, but the question isn't Who do you want to be President? It's Who would you rather watch on TV? And then we can compare the ratings. 

I'm sure Biden supporters are irked by the prospect of seeing that "vote" by Americans, because, of course, we expect Trump to win. He's much better TV, even for those who loathe him. In fact, I bet Rachel Maddow, in her own private space, clicks her remote to Trump. 

What's the point of watching Biden? Waiting to see if the questions are at all challenging? Putting up with tedium in the hope of seeing him remain arguably lucid or waiting for a truly embarrassing screw up? That's not a good show. You'll hear if there's a big screwup, and if you don't hear about it, you'll know he remained decently lucid. 

What more do you need? The excitement is with Trump. The election is about Trump. Biden is simply this weird person to whom we will turn our attention if he gets elected. When/if Trump is finally ousted, everyone will wake up and look at Biden and be free — at long last — to freak out about this odd old man whom we're stuck with as the next President. 

Rachel Maddow will be free to insist that he get the hell out of the office he has no business clinging to. Get out of the way and let Kamala take over — Kamala, who was never made the slightest connection with the American people, whose statements are all about as enlightening as "I’m not touching that."

By the way, Biden's town hall is scheduled to go 90 minutes, while Trump's is only 60 minutes. So if you want mainly to know how well Biden is holding up late at night, you can watch all of Trump, then switch over to the last 30 minutes of Biden. 

"Yet upon learning that the fascist, Kremlin-controlled, Nazi-like dictator had become ill, Maddow launched a one-woman crusade demanding that her fellow liberals pray earnestly for his recovery."

"She first posted an extremely effusive tweet: 'God bless the president and the first lady. If you pray, please pray for their speedy and complete recovery…' Presumably in response to widespread liberal confusion and criticisms — wait, you spent four years telling us he’s a fascist racist Nazi-like despot and now you insist that we pray for his health? — Maddow devoted a segment on her show in which, with great passion and emotion, she urged her viewers to react to Trump’s COVID diagnosis with the same compassion and through the same prism as if a friend who smokes cigarettes learned she had lung cancer.... There are a few potential explanations that may account for this extremely unusual and confounding behavior of praying for, rather than against, the well-being of a fascist dictator. Perhaps Democratic leaders are simply pretending to be hoping for Trump’s well-being for political purposes while secretly hoping that he suffers and dies. Or perhaps national Democratic politicians have ascended to a state of spiritual elevation rarely seen in modern political history, in which they are capable of praying for even those they most dislike, including ones they believe are imposing fascism on their nation? Or perhaps, maybe more likely, Democratic leaders do not really believe the things they have spent four years saying about Trump...."

Writes Glenn Greenwald in "Why Are Democrats Praying for the Speedy Recovery of a 'Fascist Dictator'?/People typically rejoice over, not lament, the death of someone they genuinely believe is a fascist dictator'" (The Intercept).

"In June and July, Fox News was the highest-rated television channel in the prime-time hours of 8 to 11 p.m. Not just on cable."

"Not just among news networks. All of television. The average live Fox News viewership in those hours outstripped cable rivals like CNN, MSNBC and ESPN, as well as the broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC, according to Nielsen. That three-hour slot is a narrow but significant slice of TV real estate, and it is exceedingly rare for a basic-cable channel to outrank the Big Three broadcasters, which are available in more households and offer a wider variety of programming. Even the return of live sports did little to stop the momentum: The Fox News programs hosted by Mr. Carlson and Sean Hannity drew more live viewers than competing baseball and basketball games, including a Yankees-Nationals matchup on Opening Day.... MSNBC, whose liberal prime time is an ideological inverse to Fox News, has increased its audience from a year ago. But Rachel Maddow, once neck and neck with [Sean] Hannity at 9 p.m., has fallen behind all three of Fox News’s prime-time stars in total viewers. [Laura] Ingraham, who appears in the less desirable 10 p.m. slot, has drawn more viewers than Ms. Maddow for many months.... Major advertisers, including the Walt Disney Company, T-Mobile and Poshmark, boycotted [Tucker Carlson's show after he] denounced the protesters as violent anarchists. Later, the host called Senator Tammy Duckworth, a wounded veteran, a 'moron' and questioned her patriotism. In recent days, Mr. Carlson called former President Barack Obama a 'greasy politician' and wondered if [George] Floyd’s death had been caused by drug use rather than being pinned to the ground by a police officer. Mr. Carlson’s ratings have never been higher."

From "Boycotted. Criticized. But Fox News Leads the Pack in Prime Time" (NYT).

"President Donald Trump on Friday broke his silence on a tell-all book that dives into the president's upbringing and family life..."

"... distancing himself from his author niece and calling her a 'mess.' 'Mary Trump, a seldom seen niece who knows little about me, says untruthful things about my wonderful parents (who couldn’t stand her!) and me, and violated her NDA,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'She’s a mess! Many books have been written about me, some good, some bad. Both happily and sadly, there will be more to come!'... Speaking with CNN's Chris Cuomo hours after Trump's tweet, Mary Trump [said] that she and her grandmother were 'very close.' 'My grandfather didn't really have positive feelings for anybody except perhaps Donald'.... During the explosive interview with Maddow [on Thursday], Mary Trump said that she had heard the president and other members of their family use anti-Semitic language and a derogatory slur on Black people."

From "A seldom seen niece': Trump fires back at Mary Trump over tell-all book/The author, in turn, delivers a live rebuttal on cable television" (Politico).

I'd thought that Trump was going to keep silent about Mary Trump — that silence would be an eloquent way to suggest that he knows a lot about her — leaving us to imagine that she may have mental health problems or complicated grudges and that Trump is honoring his beloved dead brother by leaving his daughter in a special sacred circle of immunity from his otherwise free-wheeling attacks.

And maybe that was what he'd decided to do but he had to reverse his position after the Maddow interview, because the poison of the accusation of racist speech requires an immediate antidote.

But was that an effective antidote? It's a hell of a thing to say to someone — your grandparents couldn't stand you.

I know I discarded the racist-speech accusation immediately because it's just about individual words that were used — used or mentioned? — in private. I need at least sentences — not isolated words — to have any idea whether what was said was even bad.

Here's the Rachel Maddow segment:



By the way: "When you ask a normal, right-handed person about something he's supposed to have seen, if he looks upward and to his left, he's truly accessing his memory of the incident... However, if he looks upward and to his right, he's accessing his imagination, and he's inventing an answer." Mary Trump repeatedly looked up and to the right to "see" the answers to the questions she was asked. I don't know if she's right-handed.

"If it were up to me, and it's not, I would stop putting those briefings on live TV. Not out of spite but because it's misinformation."

"If the president does end up saying anything true, you can run it as tape but if he keeps lying like this every day on stuff this important, all of us should stop broadcasting it. Honestly, it's gonna cost lives."

Said Rachel Maddow — to whom it is not up, who can safely indulge in that figure of speech — quoted in "MSNBC's Maddow wants Trump kept off TV, blasts 'fairytale' news briefings" (Fox News).

That's being made a thing of on Twitter I see, and I really don't care. Do you?

I want to make a close study of a section of the transcript of last night's debate — the part about race that ended with Kamala Harris yelling at Biden.

I could not listen to the substance last night. With TV, I'm tuned into the images and emotion. I'm not going to be distracted by the substance, and I know I'll have the transcript later. (I got mine at WaPo.)

I feel that the emotional high point came when Kamala Harris was yelling at Joe Biden. Here's how Drudge depicts it:




It was the emotional high, so that means I was at my lowest substance absorbency. I need to parse the transcript to see exactly how that rolled out and how I think about it in the dark storm of morning.

It began right after the break, with the second set of moderators, Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow. Maddow's first question, addressed to Pete Buttigieg, was very specific:

I've been avoiding talking about William Barr, but I'm going to link to National Review because the headline sums up what I've been thinking.

"The Incredibly Dumb Bill Barr Scandal."

I haven't read the article. Must I?

Okay, I skimmed it. I have nothing to add except that last night — and not by my own choice — I overheard a lot of what was on CNN and MSNBC. Awful stuff. Some people find it... I don't know... entertaining. I heard one commentator — I wish I could find this now — ranting about how Trump has caused everyone's brains to rot. I thought I could find that clip by searching the last 24 hours of news for "Barr" and "brain," but I only came up with this clip of Hillary Clinton on Rachel Maddow's show:



That Hillary interview was part of the horror show inflicted on me last night. I'm not in the mood to examing the details of why it's a horror show or even why I am avoiding it. The media and the politicians want to set the narrative, but I am the pilot of my own narrative, and I am avoiding it.

ADDED: From that Clinton clip: She says this story is "far from over," and she says it laughing. What about the part of "far from over" that has to do with her role in getting the Russia hoax started? Maybe being out in the spotlight laughing is the best way to hide.

AND: Searching for brain rot, I came up with 2 old stories in Salon, both by Sophia A. McClennen. First, from February 2017, "Beware the Trump brain rot: The cognitive effects of this administration's actions could be disastrous/Democracy isn't all that's at risk under Trump's agenda. There's a 5-point attack happening on our nation's minds."

Stop for a moment, if you will, and attempt to take stock of the various phrases that you and your friends have been throwing out to describe our collective mental state in the Trump era.... ... I asked more than 1,200 people via Facebook and email and received the following list: "wearing me out," "burning me out," "frying my brains," "beyond belief," "turning my mind into mush," "brain overload," "mental meltdown," “crippling depression,” “constant low level dread,” "making me numb," “stressing me out,” “abject horror,” “disoriented and scared” and "scaring me to death." Others offered descriptions such as "nonstop," "overwhelming," "relentless," "mind-blowing," “devastating,” “exasperating” and "surreal." One friend wrote, “I often wake up in the middle of the night thinking about Trump and unable to get back to sleep from anxiety.“ Another simply posted this Nicolas Cage gif.

And from March 2017, "The resistance is all in your head: 6 ways to fight Trump brain rot/Political opposition to Trumpism requires us to be at our cognitive best. Here are 6 ways to prepare your mind." Let me highlight #5:

Experts on keeping your mind strong and sharp... agree that we all need to be good at resting. Stress, depression and insomnia are some of the biggest threats to cognitive health. There is already significant proof that Trump is increasing our nation’s anxiety and depression.... One of Banksy’s famous images is of a girl looking at a bluebird...

MORE: I think what I remembered as "rots your brain" was really "eats your soul," and people were saying that on TV as a result of the James Comey op-ed that had run in the NYT that morning:

[P]roximity to an amoral leader reveals something depressing. I think that’s at least part of what we’ve seen with Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein. Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive Mr. Trump and that adds up to something they will never recover from. It takes character like Mr. Mattis’s to avoid the damage, because Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites.

It starts with your sitting silent while he lies, both in public and private, making you complicit by your silence. In meetings with him, his assertions about what “everyone thinks” and what is “obviously true” wash over you, unchallenged, as they did at our private dinner on Jan. 27, 2017, because he’s the president and he rarely stops talking. As a result, Mr. Trump pulls all of those present into a silent circle of assent.

Speaking rapid-fire with no spot for others to jump into the conversation, Mr. Trump makes everyone a co-conspirator to his preferred set of facts, or delusions. I have felt it — this president building with his words a web of alternative reality and busily wrapping it around all of us in the room.

Chuck Schumer in January 2017 — "prescient and important (and creepy)."

This turned out to be one of the most prescient and important (and creepy) statements of the Trump presidency: from Chuck Schumer to Rachel Maddow - in early January, 2017, before Trump was even inaugurated: pic.twitter.com/TUaYkksILG

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 8, 2019

Maddow asks Schumer to respond to a Trump tweet that says, "The 'Intelligence' briefing on so-called 'Russian hacking' was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!"

Schumer leans in, and in a muttering, tough-guy voice says: "Look... yep... lemme tell ya, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at ya. So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this... From what I'm told, they are very upset with how he has treated them."

"Within MSNBC, there’s an acknowledgement that the Trump-Russia narrative on which the cable network—and especially its primetime star Maddow—built monster ratings has fizzled for the moment."

"Insiders also claim not to be surprised that the conclusion of the long-awaited Mueller report—or at least the Trump-appointed attorney general's summary—was a whimper, not a bang for an outlet that has invested so much time and energy, in primetime and throughout its dayparts, in the notion that Trump is unworthy of the Oval Office and might at some point be forced to give it up. And it’s also possible that the Mueller disappointment drove loyal viewers away in much the same way that people avoid looking at their 401(k)s when the stock market is down. Maddow, who has consistently vied for the first or second top-rated cable news program, was sixth on Monday evening, down almost 500,000 total viewers from the previous Monday, as was MSNBC’s second top-rated program in primetime, The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell.... The hope now is that Trump’s conduct as president, along with the ramping up of the 2020 presidential campaign, will prove powerful storylines that will give MSNBC the opportunity to regroup.... 'This stuff ebbs and flows,' said one network insider. 'I think we’re ebbing.'"

From "MSNBC’s Trump-Russia Ratings Fizzle: ‘Time to Pivot to 2020’/The Mueller report and its potential implications have driven the network’s coverage—and monster ratings—for two years. Now it’s ended with a whimper, leaving execs in a bind" (Daily Beast).

Maddow was way down on Monday night, but I watched, and I hadn't watched Maddow in months. I wonder how many of her Monday viewers were people like me, who have not been feeding on collusion delusion and wanted to see how it looks when a collusion delusionist deflates. But one night of that was enough. It's not as funny as you might think. It's boring.

ADDED: I learned a new word there: "dayparts."

ALSO:

Glenn Greenwald calls Rachel Maddow on her hypocrisy.

The most bizarre aspect of Rachel @Maddow's deep anger over troop withdrawal from Syria is that she wrote an entire book in 2012 denouncing illegal US Endless War without congressional approval - exactly what Syria is. I interviewed her about it here: https://t.co/Zg7K1a3bUy https://t.co/js74z4iGUN

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 21, 2018

Rachel Maddow describes how she puts her show together as "a bad process."

"It’s impressive in one way," she says (to The New Yorker's Janet Malcolm), about starting the workday "at around 12:30 p.m., when she acquaints herself with the day’s news," meeting with the staff at 2:00, reading until about 6:30, and only then writing the monologue.

It's "reckless," she says.

"It kills my poor staff. They’re so supportive and constructive. But it’s too much to ask. They need to put in all the visual elements and do the fact-checking and get it into the teleprompter. It’s a produced thing and requires everybody to do everything fast. And it’s a broken process. If I could just get it done an hour earlier, I think I would put ten years back in the lives of all the people who work with me."

She can't move the process to start earlier in the day because, she says, "you can only have your brain lit up for that long before it starts to break down and you stop making sense and stop being creative."

I greatly enjoyed the article, partly because I love Janet Malcolm. I particularly loved the description of a correction Maddow once did, which I wanted to find in video. Ah. Here:



ADDED: If the video won't work for you, go here.

Rachel Maddow made a "scoop" out of her knowledge of the existence of fake documents that are supposedly being shopped around.

And Glenn Greenwald has some problems with that. 

Last paragraph:

While it is of course possible that there is some widespread, coordinated, official effort to feed news outlets false information in order to discredit stories about Trump and Russia, there is no real evidence for that theory, and this story does not offer any. Maddow’s warnings about the need for caution and authentication are important ones, but if — as seems likely — the document MSNBC received was sent by someone who got it from The Intercept’s site, then the significance of this story seems very minimal, and the more ominous theories her report raises seem to be baseless.