Rachel Maddow was on the warpath Super Tuesday night. Donald Trump had just interrupted MSNBC's coverage of the results with his victory speech and Maddow was livid. She demanded to know how the network could give valuable airtime to a certain Republican nominee for president of the United States.
"I will say that it is a decision that we revisit constantly in terms of the balance between allowing somebody to knowingly lie on your air about things they’ve lied about before and you can predict they are going to lie about. And so, therefore, it is irresponsible to allow them to do that. It’s a balance between knowing that that’s irresponsible to broadcast and also knowing that as the de facto, soon to be de facto nominee of the Republican Party, this is not only the man who is likely to be the Republican candidate for president, but this is the way he’s running," Maddow said.
The woman is bereft of self-awareness. Donald Trump is a politician. So is Joe Biden. If you can listen to a politician talk for more than two minutes without telling a lie or two, either you're not listening or you're so besotted with partisanship that you're totally unaware of how biased your point of view is.
As a network, MSNBC is free to do anything it wishes with the broadcast of Trump's speech. They could superimpose a clown suit on the former president or draw a funny mustache on his lip. That would probably meet with Maddow's approval, but the network would lose most of the viewers who still watch them.
MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle suggested they "fact-check the hell out of him." Again, self-awareness was lacking on the MSNBC set that night. Unless they're going to "fact check the hell" out of Joe Biden as well, it's an exercise in futility.
Maddow made a point after Trump's victory in the Iowa caucuses to cut away from Trump's speech.
"At this point in the evening, the projected winner of the Iowa caucuses has just started giving his victory speech," Maddow said at the time. "We will keep an eye on that as it happens. We will let you know if there is any news made in that speech if there is anything noteworthy, something substantive and important."
I leave it to your imagination to guess whether Biden received the same treatment. (He didn't.)
"The reason I’m saying this is, of course, there is a reason that we and other news organizations have generally stopped giving an unfiltered, live platform to remarks by former President Trump," Maddow said. "It is not out of spite, it is not a decision that we relish, it is a decision that we regularly revisit. And honestly, earnestly, it is not an easy decision."
"Not out of spite"? "Not a decision we relish"? Who is Maddow trying to kid?
The left and right see the world through different prisms. The left believes it has a corner on "truth" and "objective reality." But for there to be an objective reality, there must be unanimity of agreement about what that reality is.
Trump and his supporters do not agree with the reality being pushed by the left. They have a much different perspective on national and world events and reject the worldview of Biden, the Democrats, and the Mainstream Media.
Does that make them wrong? Or different? On that difference, the election will be won or lost.
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