Rachel Maddow
Everything about Donald Trump feels sick to me, especially his pretensions to be an American king. He is sticky with arrogance, greed, and stupidity.
Not so with the estimable Rachel Maddow. I shouldn’t say this, but she is a kind of queen: the best educated, most articulate broadcaster ever, who fills me with a combination of admiration and delight. I feel proud and privileged to be part of her viewing audience. My wonder at her talents is sincere and boundless.
And she has won my heart once again. Earlier this week, MSNBC announced a monumental shuffling of its broadcasters and its schedule. Ayman Mohyeldin is out in his old spot. Jen Psaki is triumphantly in. Joy Reid is out and so is Alex Wagner. I liked Alex Wagner very much, in part because she seemed reluctant to harangue. Ayman Mohyeldin—not so much. I’m deeply ambivalent about the Netanyahu government, but Ayman managed to push many of my buttons. When it comes to Gaza, there have been losses on both sides, and it began with a merciless assault by Hamas.
Joy Reid may be the singular case. It took a while for me to get accustomed to her volume. She is clearly and unapologetically partisan, communicating her displeasures with overt contempt. For a while she changed her appearance nightly, wearing a different hairpiece depending on…whatever. But then I began to appreciate the fierceness of her disapproval, identifying strongly with her case against the Trumpists. I may not have learned much that was new, but I had the thrill of watching someone who was speaking for me.
I don’t know if Rachel Maddow felt exactly the same, but she clearly valued her 7:00 p.m. colleague. And last night she did something deeply civilized. Instead of ignoring the dying elephant in the room, she used the top of her broadcast to castigate the network she works for because of its treatment of Reid and her colleagues. She pointed to the value of Reid’s presence. her voice, the skilled work of her staff…and her summary dismissal. She reassured us that the network had chosen good replacements and felt that Jen Psaki would deliver the goods. But she returned again to the central issue, that a broadcaster of great and proven value had been manhandled by the new overlords at the station.
She did not explicitly name Rebecca Kutler, the sheriff who had shot the fatal bullet, but she made her disapproval clear. This should not have happened, especially now, when the firings/reshufflings were directed against people of color. And she reminded us that the camera may focus on the host, but that a family of staffers would be smashed by the firings.
I don’t think that I have ever witnessed a similar moment of dignity and courage. Not to put too fine a point on the matter, Rachel Maddow acted masterfully. She acknowledged that the firing was not her call and then bit down hard on the hand the feeds her. That station foregrounds her wit, hard, work and intelligence, and indulges her desire for a relationship with her employer that gives her plenty of time for nourishing side-gigs. But it acted badly in the case of Joy Reid. When it comes to her situation at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow is sitting pretty by dint of all the gifts that she brings to her work. And she put all of this at risk in a public rebuke of the very people who treat her so beautifully.
I’ve had very few teachers in the course of my education who have modeled this level of courage and loyalty. But beyond her personal feelings about Joy Reid, Ms. Maddow spoke a larger truth. When someone performs at a very high level and manifests her skills night after night, you shouldn’t treat her like a container of trash.