MSNBC is Straight Up a Cult

As one of the 99.9% of Americans who never or rarely ever watch MSNBC, my viewing habits were unaffected by the reports of the hissy fits triggered by the hiring and then firing of a failed RNC chairwoman. The pull of bias at MSNBC has so completely collapsed into itself like a cognitive black hole that there is not even room for a token punching bag RINO on staff. 

At his peak, Rush Limbaugh’s audience was 20-40 times larger than any show on MSNBC. Limbaugh and Fox News provided content and a viewpoint that was not available in the media echo chambers online, in print, or on the air. The appeal was because it offered a substantive challenge to the prevailing intellectually lazy, leftish orthodoxy.

In stark contrast, MSNBC is itself a circling of the wagons against any challenge to that orthodoxy, presenting highly distilled versions of The Narrative often using some deeply pathetic presenters and “experts”. Limbaugh’s audience was forced to listen to the other side from many outlets all day and welcomed support for the resistance he led, glad that a debate was undertaken and appreciative of the sheer novelty of common-sense pushback. MSNBC literally wants to prevent such debate.

The use of caricature, fear, an aversion to disobedient facts, and a strange common smugness create a well-defined but small and self-limited audience. It is a cult that thinks it is speaking to the nation. The weird thing is that a show in which articulate conservatives and non-zombie liberals conducted respectful, focused debates with informative interviews of real experts could probably double or triple MSNBC’s net audience in the evening slots; even allowing for the departure of most of their bubble-dwelling regulars, who would be triggered, offended and horrified. But there is a greater probability of LGBTQ+ concerns being debated on Saudi or Iranian news channels than such an event happening on MSNBC.