In hopes of remaining related to the social conversation, some big-name individuals in the media are professing a change of heart or new enlightenment that, ironically, just arrived after the vote, when it no longer matters.
The primary example of advertising people attempting to keep their important rank was MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, rabid Trump enemies, crawling to Mar-A-Lago because, they said,” It’s time to do something different”. There have recently been a few more circumstances, one of which is less intense than the other.
After reading the Department of Justice inspector general’s report, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith got loud on his podcast on Sunday, which confirmed what was already known ( if not to the extent ) that there were numerous FBI informants scurrying through the Jan. 6 protest crowds ( though supposedly only three of them were formally tasked with attending the event ). ” My big issue”, Smith said, “is that I’m really, really sick and tired of, every time I turn around, finding something else that the Democrats have lied about or ignored or misrepresented along the way”.
It’s pleasant news that the thunderous sports speaker is “really, definitely sick and tired” of being lied to by Democrats, but the timing isn’t so popular. He would have been aware of this a few months ago if he had listened to what everyone who was really curious about January 6 was saying, that something was wrong, that there was clear information of a setup ( if only by carelessness ), and that those in charge were fabricating information about what really transpired that time. That DOJ review filled in some gaps, but it only provided more power for what had already been demonstrated numerous occasions.
Smith is changing his political outlook in order to sustain the support he has received from some right-wing commentators despite insisting not to support Donald Trump in the vote. He committed his support to Kamala Harris, according to the Los Angeles Times, and said in September,” The way the streets of America was when]Trump ] departed from office in 2020, I don’t think a lot of people are going to want to relive that. They’re going to realize that, and by that righteousness, it’s going to convince her to the presidency”.
Items didn’t really work out that way. In a disaster in the Electoral College, Trump won a non-consecutive name, shifting 90 percent of counties to the correct and capturing the majority of the so-called “popular vote.” A win like this is almost unheard of.
Smith then wants to act as though he is being made to reevaluate some decisions by this brief statement. I can assure you that if the election had taken the same course, even with the same statement, there would not have been an epiphany. Smith may have stated that Kamala was merely a more attractive candidate who won independents ‘ support for pacifist government and that voters would have been more secure choosing any Republican candidate over Trump.
But anything. Because Smith primarily works in the sports industry, his political analysis is frequently amusing, but not really much more, as we just saw.
Someone else that is more intriguing is self-identified conventional Bret Stephens, a New York Times columnist who has fought Republicans in almost every election since at least 2012, who has been a part of that trend. As a once-proud” Biden traditional,” Stephens wrote on Tuesday that it’s “time to stop the large moralizing and persistent doomsaying that typified so much of the Never Trump action.” He cited a newly acquired understanding that Trump’s voters are primarily resentful toward a” self-satisfied elite that thinks it knows better but frequently doesn’t, whether it is about Covid restrictions, immigration policy, or how to get our allies to pay more for their defense” ( p. 2 ).
Stephens concluded by saying that he would “enter the new year by wishing the fresh management properly, giving some of Trump’s government picks the benefit of the doubt, by not sounding paranoid about the ever-looming end of democracy, by hoping for the best and knowing that whatever happens, this too shall pass” and that” by the time it happens, it will also go.”
That’s a pleasant sentiment, but it also comes just a few days too late. Which is to say, weeks after a decisive election. The ideal time to adopt a more charitable perspective on your fellow citizens would have been before that election, since they are more concerned with their dwindling savings and a southern border overrun by destitute foreigners who needed care courtesy of the rundown American taxpayer.
Stephens, Smith, Scarborough, Brzezinski, and all the rest — , they lost. Despite their best efforts — , and boy did they put their backs into it — , they were defeated. They don’t get to enjoy themselves again in the conversation, and they anticipate being taken seriously when they claim to have learned something, as if understanding requires new forms of courage or intelligence.
If they want to keep professionally talking about politics, they’re out of options. They have to pivot. But that doesn’t earn them credit. Now that the stakes are no longer in play, they deserve no grace.
Their status is diminished. That’s the price they have to pay. Their target audience should make sure they continue to pay it.
