Wheee!!!! The Rising Tide of Trump TV

And we’ll have fun, fun, fun….. 🙂 It’s clear that MSNBC has practiced on Donald Trump for years like Olympics training. 🙂 The fact that it finally has something simple to explain–counting votes, Mob-like behavior, holding secret documents, white men trying to be above the law–really helps. I never understood one word of its RussiaGate coverage.

Joy Reid, Nicolle Wallace and Rachel Maddow are Ivy(ish)-educated talented writers and broadcasters who were born perhaps for this exact moment. (Conversely, do you think that our Ivy-educated young sis, Abby Phillip, is ready to sound like them? Does she have the emotional strength/anger level to go for the jugular? Will CNN let her do so?) They get to finish a narrative they’ve been carrying on every afternoon/night for years. Reid has been really serious these last 10 days or so, and I like her that way instead of her many failures at trying to provide Jon Stewart/Trevor Noah-type entertainment. Maddow clearly wants to be a contemporary historian. And the Morning Joe team enjoys writing Trump’s obit every day.

I’d feel much better about this if MSNBC would re-hire the former in-house rebel Tiffany Cross. She did nothing wrong but be herself and tell her truth, 1969-style. But I guess one Al Sharpton is enough for the network, and even he won’t talk that way anymore….

Interesting That These Rich, Famous Network Anchors/Hosts…..

…..have openly demoted themselves to special correspondents. I’d like to think it’s a public commentary on the limitations of network anchoring and a true hunger to produce 20th-century, middlebrow magazine-like narrative–and those professional aspects might play a part. But hearing these goodbyes, it really sounds more like the intimate results of a work-life balance self-inventory, a real understanding that they are in a post-COVID/pre-old-age-illness vortex. (I mean, even Amy Goodman–who used to helm Democracy Now! no matter how sick she got!–actually took a day off last week to be part of a relative’s graduation.) In Chuck’s case, it’s almost like someone in his family told him, “You’re missing it.” Well, now he, Judy and Rachel won’t.

SEPTEMBER 10th UPDATE:

Dr. #JaredBall and I Discuss Jonathan Eig’s “Martin Luther King, A Life” On #BlackPowerMedia

Hands-down, one of our better public discussions, on #BlackPowerMedia or anywhere.

Correcting the now-typical goof I make when I talk too long 🙂 : I think it’s more accurate to say that Mahatma Gandhi was a supporter of African independence in his later years, not a Pan-Africanist per se.

The Western Fantasy Construction At The Core Of Writing About Martin Luther King, Jr.

I’ll try to talk about this on Saturday when I’m on #BlackPowerMedia with Dr. Jared Ball to talk about Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life.

Dhrouba bin Wahad, Circa 1992

Watching Dr. Jared Ball’s recent series of interviews with Dhoruba al-Mujahid bin Wahad on Black Power Media led me to finally check out Passin’ It On, the documentary about his life. It is a clear explanation.