As a matter of full disclosure, I watch a lot of MSNBC primetime. I am often working late at night and I prefer to have something on in the background. My go-to choice for a long time has been MSNBC's Chris Hayes & Rachel Maddow/Alex Wagner.
I try and focus on media stories during the day, but as a political junkie, I want to stay in the loop. So that cable news network's primetime programming fits both my personality and my worldview.
But the past few months haven't been a great time for the network when it comes to ratings - although their primetime lineup has held up better than some of the other dayparts. But as the elections draw nearer and the war in the Middle East escalates, they seem to be shedding some percentage of their audience.
I hadn't been able to articulate why that might be the case until I read the latest edition of the Substack "Oliver Willis Explains," titled "You Can't Shame People Into Democracy." In the piece, he is describing the behavior of the generic Democrat leading into next year's election. But his take on that voting group also feels awfully similar to the attitude of the typical MSNBC anchor:
But don’t they understand? Democracy is on the line! Trump incited an armed attack on the U.S. Capitol and has made it clear a second presidential term would be even more racist and fascist than his disastrous four years.
This argument doesn’t motivate them. It stinks. This argument should be the easiest motivator in the world. It’s a big motivator for you and I and people who think like us, but it isn’t true for a lot of people. They don’t see the current political fortunes of the Republican and Democratic parties as fundamental boons and threats to their daily lives so the drive isn’t there.
No amount of attempting to shame voters about this is likely to produce a result. The universe of people who are open to this message probably made up their minds back on January 6 2021 and it has hit its ceiling or is very near the ceiling in the best-case scenario. Very few voters are going to be compelled to come off the sidelines based on this message in the next twelve months, I doubt enough to tip the scales of the election in one direction or another.
To be clear, I think electing Donald Trump would be a bad thing. It's not just that I think that he's a personally loathsome individual, although I do believe there is a special place in hell for wealthy individuals who use their money and power as a lever to bully and cheat small contractors and businesses. And it's not that I disagree with his politics. Even though I do. Because with Donald Trump it's often difficult to know what his politics might be from speech to speech.
It's that Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that if he is elected President, he is going to do everything in his power (or perhaps beyond it) to wreak revenge on his political opponents. He sees the levers of government as a possible extension of his will and in his first term, he managed to find quite a few people willing to bend Constitutional safeguards to move forward their agenda.
But while I believe another Donald Trump presidency would whack democracy around like it was a pinata, Willis is right to note that fear is not a motivating factor for most swing voters. Either they don't believe there's a real danger or they just see all politicians as inherently corrupt and Donald Trump is just a bit more energetic in his efforts.
And that is also the problem with MSNBC's focus on "Democracy In Danger." It's not that it's not true or even that it's not important. It is that it's not the primary mover for swing voters - or swing viewers. The people who think Trump is a danger to democracy are very likely already convinced. Putting that fear on constant rotation won't change many minds. And it certainly makes for boring television.
So what might work?
It requires the steady recitation in black and white of this idea over and over again. That thing you like — the bridge getting fixed, unemployment cut in half since 2021 - was done by Democrats. That thing you’d like — assault weapons being banned, abortion rights being protected — is part of the Democratic agenda. And the things you absolutely loathe — abortion bans, mass shootings, cuts to Social Security and Medicare — are the things Republicans are vehemently behind.
The simplicity of this equation means that feel-good nuance, a constant refrain of the Democratic Party establishment, has to be thrown out. It’s near-impossible to argue that Republicans are a threat to democracy and Social Security if Democratic leaders like President Biden, Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (among so many others) are constantly calling for things like “bipartisanship” and going on and on and on about how the problem isn’t Republicans but “MAGA Republicans.” To the disinterested voter who is already prone to tuning out politics, these distinctions largely fade into white noise. Once you’ve argued that some of the Republicans are okay, pushing the idea that the party also embodies a threat to democracy ends up sounding like cynical politics and a reason not to bother voting.
The problem for MSNBC is that most of their anchors are either repurposed political reporters, refugees from the Republican Party (Nicole Wallace), or former Obama and Biden White House staffers (Jen Psaki, Symone Sanders). These are people who are predisposed to seeing the Trump era as just some aberration in the political zeitgeist. And because that is the case, they believe that the "Democracy is Dying" clarion call can be a call to arms. And it might be if the Republican voters they see in their mind's eye still existed in real life.
As a result, MSNBC's editorial tone pushes away moderates and bores many of the converted. There is too little focus on the nuts and bolts of America. Too much of an emphasis on the sport of politics instead of the business of governing.
Ratings for all three major cable news networks ebb-and-flow and I have no doubt MSNBC will recover its momentum. But without some core changes to the content, that recovery might take a while.
