You Can Only Fail Upwards

Conservative pundits in the Trump era can only be rewarded it seems, and the more ridiculous and irrelevant that they were eight years ago, the more of a hot commodity they are today.  Take Hugh Hewitt, the often-mocked and even more often-wrong conservative radio host.  MSNBC leaped at a chance to make him a contributor (one of the many reasons I've stopped watching the network completely) and they've vindicated my boycott by floating the idea of giving Hewitt his own show. 

Today MSNBC announced that Nicolle Wallace––former McCain-Palin ’08 senior advisor and current NBC News political analyst––will be hosting a new 4 pm weekday show on the network. And now it appears conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt may be next up for a hosting position.

Hewitt, an MSNBC political analyst, has not only appeared on the network for a while now, but he has made appearances on Meet the Press panels in the last few months.

Yashar Ali reports for New York Magazine that the liberal network is in talks with Hewitt for a program that would air on “weekend evenings.”

Wallace’s 4 pm program and Hewitt’s reported show will be in addition to Morning Joe––Joe Scarborough being a former Republican congressman––and Greta Van Susteren––formerly of Fox News––in providing analysis that won’t exactly win over all of MSNBC’s liberal audience.

People say "But Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Lawrence O'Donnell have been ripping into Trump for months now!"  Somewhat True.  But people forget that Maddow started out her show by giving Pat Buchanan a voice, that Hayes has been rolled by conservative guests because he's too nice, and that O'Donnell and Matthews are more interested in bashing Obama than Trump these days.  Oh, and remember Ed Schultz, now literally working for Putin's English language propaganda network where he's free to rip on Dems all day?

Also let's not forget how MSNBC treats black pundits: firing Melissa Harris-Perry and Tamron Hall and demoting Joy Reid and Al Sharpton from weekday regulars to weekend shows.  Now in the Trump era when MSNBC is looking to grow, they staff the network with white conservative voices like Nicole Wallace and Hugh Hewitt.  Now that Obama's gone, being black doesn't work for ratings it seems.

So now, I've avoided watching MSNBC for more than a year now.  If I wanted a network where  could see 16 hours of Obama/Clinton bashing, I'd run by the TV in the breakroom at work.