© YouTube / MSNBCRachel Maddow
The AG's departure on Wednesday at the request of President Donald Trump caused alarm on the left, especially since his replacement, Matthew Whittaker, once criticized Special Counsel Robert Mueller's 'Russiagate' investigation and suggested that a new Attorney General could reduce Mueller's budget to "so low that his investigation just grinds to a halt."
Immediately, liberal groups started organized protests, due to hit the streets of 900 American cities on Thursday evening. The demonstrations are for the most part organized by MoveOn and Indivisible.org, a liberal activist group made up of former Congressional staffers.
For the chance to oppose Trump, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow was more than willing to do her part in getting the word out.
"It's happening," she wrote on Twitter. "This is the 'Break Glass in Case of Emergency' plan to protect the Mueller investigation. We knew this would happen at some point - the day has arrived."
The TV host also retweeted a map of protest locations, and helpfully directed her 9.5 million followers to a site where they could join up or organize their own demonstrations.
A journalist on the surface, Maddow's gloves come off when it comes to covering the Trump administration. In addition to her latest call to action, Maddow has pretended to cry on TV when covering Trump's immigration policy, has devoted an inordinate amount of airtime to the wildest Trump/Russia fan fiction, and greeted the president's electoral victory two years ago to the day with an onscreen meltdown of epic proportions.
Activism-as-journalism has come to be expected in the age of Trump, but some sides are held to different standards than others. Like Maddow, Fox News' Sean Hannity is an opinionator, not a 'just the facts, Jack' journalist. Yet Hannity was slammed for appearing at one of President Trump's rallies in Missouri on Monday. Fox News management released a statement saying "Fox News does not condone any talent participating in campaign events," and said that the problem has been "addressed" without elaborating as to how.
Hannity claimed in his defense that his appearance on stage with Trump, who complimented the Fox host on his network's coverage of his administration, was "not planned."
While they may come from opposite sides of the political spectrum, Maddow and Hannity seem to have plenty in common. However, it seems unlikely that Maddow's online activism will earn her anything like the dressing-down given to Hannity by Fox.
We slipped into a mirror universe.
I can't tell if it's a matter of shaking off the dream state on my part, or if the dream just changed.
Or maybe everybody has been evolving?
I remember FOX reports being wildly, hysterically toxic; a corporate culture whereby it was openly decided that admitting one was wrong was weakness, to be avoided at all cost, (even if one was indeed wrong). Where FOX lied and spun with the most skilled P.R. snakes in suits, where, "Some people say" (remember that one?) and where they were also ham fisted thugs, "TURN OFF HIS MIC!", (remember THAT one?). And where their final line of legal defense was that they were not, (in the small print), an actual news organization, but rather an entertainment outlet and thus not subject to false claim penalties.
They were a grade school level joke.
What the hell happened? It's truly baffling.