Look in a Mirror: MSNBC Obliviously Bemoans ‘Right-Wing Media Machine’ #Political
On Tuesday night’s episode of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour, Stephanie Ruhle officiated over yet another session of commiseration about the actions of the new administration, with the usual heavy emphasis on Elon Musk and DOGE. Joining her was Reed Galen, author of The Home Front on Substack, who –without evidence – accused the administration and Musk, with media complicity, of leaning on recalcitrant officeholders in some vague and unspecified way.
During the nightly ritual of Trump/Musk/DOGE- bashing, Galen decided to pin the blame on Congress, including both parties, and said,
Republicans in Congress now are the lemmings, and Democrats are the headless chickens. There's nobody…really minding the store over there…there used to be a time when Congress jealously guarded its place as a co-equal branch of government, and those days are over.
Apparently, in his assessment, Congress had not stopped “jealously guarding” that place back before the dawn of current living memory, allowing its powers to be eroded over many decades.
Rather, they had “jealously guard[ed]” away right up until Trump’s return to office last month, when their will to live as a legislative body had suddenly somehow just imploded. Even casual scrutiny of modern American history would have shown that Galen was presenting, at best, only a tiny sliver of the full picture.
Ruhle grudgingly reminded Galen, “But…there has been some pushback from Republicans, when their constituents at home complain. Then they call the White House.”
Galen conceded the point, but claimed that such efforts were always stymied by the “right-wing media machine”:
We shouldn't forget that the one thing that has been built up over the last 40 or 50 years, is an incredibly effective and efficient right-wing media machine that often blocks out a lot of those things, or overwhelms that kind of news, even when people start getting calls in their offices, whether it's at the Capitol or at the district level or at the state level… And so, there's always a way to counteract that.
At that moment, Galen was speaking on a major news network which had endlessly and unabashedly criticized, berated, cursed out, and thrown wild accusations at the current president, his administration, and the entire right side of the political spectrum in general, and which at that very moment was facing a $30 million defamation suit for a baseless story aired just to sensationalize a favorite left-wing narrative.
Notwithstanding, he went ahead and asked the world, with no evidence, and no specifics, to take him at his word that a “right-wing media machine” was suppressing the truth in America.
Galen then got back around to the standard pet obsessions, saying that what most Republican officeholders really feared the most were “Trump's personal ire, and Elon Musk's bank account.”
He then addressed the Democratic side of the aisle, and stated that they seemed to have a naive idea that:
[W]e have to work with ‘Secretary X,’ because if we don't, then that might hurt my constituents. And what I- what I try to tell my friends is: They are going to hurt you. They are going to hurt your constituents. And then they're going to blame you for it.
…[W]e should not be under any illusion…There is no good deed that can- is coming from these people because they feel like doing you a favor. It's all transactional, and if they feel like they can make your life harder at the expense of your people in your state, your voters, your constituents, that's what they're going to do. They don't care. And I'm not sure how much longer it's going to take Democrats to figure that out, but they better figure it out soon.
Not for the first time on MSNBC, the casual attitude about shameless bias and baseless accusations, plus the complete lack of self-awareness about it, were staggering.
For full transcript, click 'expand' to read:
MSNBC’s The 11th Hour
02/19/2025
11:50 PM[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: CONGRESS CAN’T DO ANYTHING BUT COMPLAIN ABOUT MUSK FIRINGS]
(...)
REED GALEN (AUTHOR, THE HOME FRONT ON SUBSTACK): And I feel like Republicans in Congress now are the lemmings, and Democrats are the headless chickens. There's nobody- you know- really minding the store over there.
Uh- You know- there used to be a time when Congress jealously guarded its place as a co-equal branch of government, and those days are over.
STEPHANIE RUHLE: But- but let's just stay on that, because there- there has been some pushback from Republicans, when their constituents at home complain. Then they call the White House.
GALEN: Well, that's true, but also, we shouldn't forget that the one thing that has been built up over the last 40 or 50 years, is an incredibly effective and efficient right-wing media machine that often blocks out a lot of those things, or overwhelms that kind of news, even when people start getting calls in their offices, whether it's at the Capitol or at the district level or at the state level, if you're a- let's say- a legislator or a governor. And so, there's always a way to counteract that.
But remember, too, that a lot of these guys- and most of them are guys- are willing to go along with this because the thing they fear more, is Trump's personal ire, and Elon Musk's bank account, which would both serve as massive primary election voter- excuse me- drivers, should these people decide to get out of line, and I think that's what you're seeing.
Look, they've always been afraid. They're just as afraid as they've ever been.
RUHLE: And headless chickens. Why do you have that assessment of Democrats? What do you think they should be doing?
GALEN: Well, I think what they should have been doing, it's too late to do in most- in- for the most part- they should have had some sort of plan to get together and figure out how to slow down as much of these things as they could.
They should have understood- as so many of us- and I- look- I did some very incredible work with people like the Brennan center for justice at NYU and a lot of very smart people around the table, who said, ‘this is what's going to happen, these are the things that you can do.’ And a lot of them didn't happen.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: MUSK, DOGE MOVE QUICKLY TO DISMANTLE FEDERAL AGENCIES]
Now, look, I don't know if there wasn’t consensus, if people were afraid-
You know- I- I think that there's still this fantasyland idea that, well, we have to work with ‘Secretary X,’ because if we don't, then that might hurt my constituents. And what I- what I try to tell my friends is: They are going to hurt you. They are going to hurt your constituents. And then they're going to blame you for it.
Like- we should not be under any illusion, Stephanie, after- 10 years of this, right? There is no good deed that can- is coming from these people because they feel like doing you a favor. It's all transactional, and if they feel like they can make your life harder at the expense of your people in your state, your voters, your constituents, that's what they're going to do.
They don't care. And I'm not sure how much longer it's going to take Democrats to figure that out, but they better figure it out soon.
RUHLE: But don't Democrats have a tricky needle to thread? Because they can't be seen as simply defending the status quo? Because that's also not what the American people want.
GALEN: Well, I think that's right. But this is- you actually make an incredible point, which is, the things that so far they have been trying to defend-
Look, I think USAID probably does incredible work across the world- I know that there are a lot of farmers who get USAID money to ship their- their products overseas. But if that's the first thing that you're going to cut and Dem- and the Democrats are going to jump on that bear trap is [sic] like- ‘this must be defended. This must be defended,’ both on the point of foreign aid and because Congress didn't say you could do it, right?
Those are process arguments, but also it gives one more hammer for Trump and those people to say, “See, they don't really care about you. They're happy to ship all that money that should be going to you.’ Or maybe ‘we shouldn't be spending it all overseas.’
And so I think they just have to understand the nature of the fight they're in- which, again, they've always had trouble with- but also understanding the nature of saying, ‘what are the battles we're going to fight? What are the things we must protect? What are the things we can't do? What are the things we can do?’
But they got to get on offense and they got to stay on offense between now and the next- you know- 22 months before an election, and every day that they're going to be in a fight with this administration.
RUHLE: All right then Reed, thank you so much for joining me tonight.
(...)
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