We are still 19 months away from a general election and, primarily because of the way the news is covered in this country, attention has shifted particularly - but not exclusively - on cable news networks to the two parties' nominating processes. Meanwhile, our country - besides the executive branch - barely faces the pressing challenges of climate change (clearly our country and humanity's most serious problem), wealth and income inequality, rapid globalization and population growth and the threat of ISIS and other terrorist groups from Al Qaeda to Boko Haram. The standard practice among most of the media is to ignore problems until a specific event occurs, such as a beheading or an outbreak of a disease, and then begin screaming with pants on fire "What is Obama gonna do about it?" even where his administration may actually already be addressing it in some fashion that has not garnered the media's attention. MSNBC, although the supposed liberal cable news network, feeds this cycle without improving its own ratings. For the sake of the country and the network, it is in need of its own civil war.
With one exception, the network's programming can be safely lumped in to three categories. Programs which try to offer straight rundown of the news. This includes shows from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the day as well as weekend hours with Alex Witt. The second batch includes programs led by anchors who all have, to different degrees and kinds, a liberal bent. And the third is exclusively owned by Morning Joe which has traditionally had the highest viewership but has struggled in its ratings in recent months. (The Rundown with Jose Diaz-Balart shown on weekday mornings presents itself as a straight news program but it is hard to deny that he is a big supporter of comprehensive immigration reform although he falls in to the trap of using ineffective, albeit meritorious, arguments about the vices of breaking up families rather than underscoring the practical and financial impossibilities of deporting 11 million or so people which the "anti-amnesty folks demand with unquenchable rage.)
The first slate of programs - the straight news shows - usually spend most of their time highlighting the controversies of the day or week and throw in some short, basically useless political roundtables with pundits making short quips about how certain politicians will react to the issue du jour. The content of the liberal shows varies. The senior member of the crew, Chris Matthews, regurgitates the same themes, based on his experiences growing up in Philly, discussing how certain politicians appeal to various groups but primarily relies on replaying embarrassing moments by politicians and then leading critiques of their gaffes as sports radio shows do when a sports figure gets arrested or says something stupid. Just as those radio programs rarely discuss the way in which teams or players succeed in the sport, Matthews mostly avoids substance and appears to believe we are still living in the 1980's o 90's.
The lynchpins of the liberal programs are The Rachel Maddow Show and All In with Chris Hayes. Maddow excels at providing context to at least one story per night and has focused on pushing stories about chemical explosions (at plants, on trains and pipelines), problems with the use of chemicals in death penalty executions and states' restrictions on the capacity of women to get abortions. She treats guests with respect and maintains decent ratings but the quality of her show varies as she often goes off on tangents viewers in this short-attention span culture in which we live may not follow.
Hayes, a true policy wonk who relishes the work he does, brings a great deal of energy to his show while shedding a spotlight on racial injustice in the criminal justice system, climate change and social issues such as LGBT rights. Unfortunately, despite being as substance-oriented as any of their shows ( or maybe because of it), the program has difficulty either eclipsing the ratings of other cable news programs in the same time slots or moving public opinion on topics such as climate change and inequality towards his point of view.
The liberal group also includes Ed Schultz who brings the style of a radio show announcer to his advocacy for labor unions and the working man, Reverend Al Sharpton who can never shed perceptions that he is a bombastic publicity-seeker regardless of his attempts at moderation and reconciliation, a motley group of younger hosts on "The Cycle" many of whom provide trenchant commentary on a variety of topics. Sharpton and Schultz each play well to their own audiences but will always struggle in their current framework to break out beyond that segment. As for The Cycle, its three p.m. weekday slot is a burden. Alex Wagner and Laurence O'Donnell likewise face challenges as to when their show is aired but each tends to fall back on the practice of commenting on the latest controversy of the week. Wagner often does informative segments on women's issues and hunger in America and O'Donnell handles criminal cases effectively but cannot seem to generate the kind of momentum necessary to enhance his viewership.
That brings us to the "hit show", Morning Joe. The fact that it occupies such a position within the network array of shows and the other available morning fare tells us a lot about how jaded our society has become. Otherwise prominent and talented journalists and politicians such as Eugene Robinson, Jon Meacham, Sam Stein and Howard Dean go to great lengths not to go too far in saying anything that will offend - or ensure interruption - by Joe Scarborough, the show's lead dog. Scarborough is essentially an ideologue (although he did show some ability to rethink his views on gun control after Sandy Hook) who does not like to hear evidence which conflicts with his views. He fails to recognize climate change is occurring, loves to talk about great Republican governors but ensures no discussion of the failed policies of Sam Brownback (who has implemented Laffer economics to the hilt), how Wisconsin under Scott Walker has falled behind economically relative to its neighbors or how Bobby Jindahl's and Rick Scott's refusal to expand Medicaid under Obamacare for no good reason other than politics hurts the lives of thousands of citizens' lives profoundly. Nevertheless, he believes the GOP has a great bench.
The show has the feel of a locker room conversation of elitists all of whom have had health insurance for years so has no idea of how important the availability of health insurance is to others. It ignores the violence in places like Mali, Central American Republic and Pakistan but veers in to "crisis mode" if an American is killed anywhere or if an American gets the Ebola crisis. In fact, the show's response to that crisis provides a perfect illustration of that show's shortcomings: while scores were infected with the Ebola virus in certain African countries and the President had sent troops to work with NGOs and medical groups, it got no mention. Once a few Americans were infected, it honed in on the issue and contributed to the hypocritical frenzy culminating in some politicians calling for bans on travel to the U.S. Likewise, when the Obamacare website failed to work properly at its inception, the show covered those problems incessantly. Now that is has not only worked but demonstrated that practically every argument that Republicans made against it lacked any merit whatsoever, the topic is verboten - and this despite the fact Republican candidates for House and Senate ran almost exclusively on its repeal.
As of Mika Brezinzki, she has recently gone ballistic over the controversy over the Hillary Clinton email controversy (despite the fact Jeb Bush almost certainly violated Florida law by waiting 7 years to release his personal emails after being governor). This recurring topic suits Scarborough's agenda (after all he was a Congressman who had no problem spending inordinate time as a Congressman during the Gingrich era impeaching Bill Clinton). As for Mika, she lacks the capacity to understand the relative gravity of various issues. A champion for women "knowing their value", she fails to recognize that most middle class women face more difficult challenges today such as the cost of child care and making ends meet. Surrounding themselves with elitists insulated from the vicissitudes facing Americans of various stripes, they tread lightly on issues of serious import and ignore the hypocrisy of reporting incessantly on possible appearances of improper influence by Hillary Clinton as Republican candidates appeal directly to billionaire contributors to bankroll their campaigns to an absurd degree.
In the "Morning Joe" camp belongs Andrea Mitchell. Second only to Barbara Walters as a trailblazer for women in television news, Mitchell has fallen victim to the belief that the medium can only handle a modicum of nuance. A few months ago on "Meet the Press" she suggested that President Obama's remarks on humility should not have been made because the country is not prepared to follow such an extended train of discourse.
Because the Clintons are an easy target (Republicans have monopolized the political environment before bashing them with specious although most of the allegations have always been false and conspiratorial) within the echo chamber in which Morning Joe operates, we can expect it to continue just as Scott Walker gets a pass although most of his staff has been indicted and convicted over improprieties over personal email, Chris Christie gets a pass over his rare if not unprecedented insertion off his office in the matter of a settlement with Exxon which may cost his state billions of needed dollars and Republicans such as Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush continue to refuse to accept climate change as an enormous challenge.
Instead of MSNBC and its individual programs continue to stay mired in its ratings funk, the liberal hosts should convene a serious debate over how to address climate change and eventually lower the costs of energy to consumers. They should challenge the notion that donation of money to political candidates is an exercise of free speech but rather a guarantee of corruption. They should chide any media program that spends such high percentage of its limited time on the political horse race. They should relentlessly demonstrate how destructive supply side economics and the extreme gun fetishism is to our country's prosperity and safety. Not only could this help the network's ratings, it could also benefit this country which has been hampered by the fact that, since 2011, our legislative body has ceased to be a governing entity and the public confidence in all institutions has eroded dramatically since 2008. The country needs a popular television network (Al Jazeera America and PBS provide excellent coverage of national and international news topics but will probably always suffer from limited ratings.) which can provide a platform for discussion of meaningful topics. Provoking a civil war within the MSNBC network could jumpstart this type of debate.