NBC News’s decision to ditch Ronna McDaniel after the hissy fit thrown collectively by Chuck Todd, Joe Scarborough, Jen Psaki, Nicolle Wallace, Rachel Maddow and more should be more than enough evidence to support a commitment from the Republican National Committee and its new leadership: there is no working with NBC. Not on debates, not on town halls, not even on campaign season interviews. There’s no point in creating content for a network that finds even the most generic Republican figure so vile and scary that they don’t even want her in the building.
Obviously this is an unenforceable commitment, and someone like Chris Christie or Larry Hogan will assuredly ignore it. But the point is that NBC News can’t possibly be viewed as a good-faith participant in ideological debate — they’re just a partisan mouthpiece for the Democratic Party.
There are numerous opportunities to debate the left all across today’s media that are more prominent than anything on offer from MSNBC. And unlike their network, if you’re doing so on a program like Bill Maher’s or any of dozens of high-traffic podcasts, it’s going to be a more legitimate and intelligent battle of ideas than trying to pretend NBC is at all interested in such a discourse.
The timing on this couldn’t really be worse for NBC News, because if there’s anything you want at the beginning of the longest general election season of the modern era it’s to make clear you aren’t interested in having anyone representing the other side (Joy Reid has a list of Republicans she likes that consists of Wallace, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Michael Steele). Creating tension makes for good television — without any back and forth, you have none of the argument and disagreement that makes for entertaining back and forth. NBC News deciding to make their tension “next up, who can hate Republicans more? We’ll find out” is just a surrender to the instincts of their most vocal and partisan viewers, as vocalized by their most partisan anchors.
Even the New York Times has a greater representation of right-of-center voices, even as they all hate Donald Trump for different reasons. Even CNN lets an occasional Republican slip through into their ridiculous eight-person panels. But only NBC offers you the purity of no one who will ever challenge your worldviews. Come to 30 Rock, it’s the best silo in cable news.
