Look, I taught public school for thirty-six years.\u00a0\u00a0That entire time, kids arrived at school about 7:15 in the morning.\u00a0\u00a0So I was at work by six-thirty for my entire life. (Except for the years when I was part of \u201czero-period\u201d or held morning workouts, then I was there before six).\u00a0\u00a0Part of the \u201cglamour\u201d of retirement, was that I could sleep-in as late as I wanted, and stay-up to the \u201cwee hours\u201d if I was so inclined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Old habits definitely die hard though, and the (now) four dogs don\u2019t necessarily like to sleep-in. So while I\u2019m not up at five am that often, 6-ish is still the normal wake-up time. I take care of dogs, I clean up the kitchen, and then, I write. And for more than a decade, the background \u201cnoise\u201d to all of that has been the MSNBC <\/em> morning show first called Scarborough Country, <\/em>now Morning Joe. <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you don\u2019t know, Joe Scarborough was the Republican Congressman from the Florida Panhandle. (He held the seat recently vacaterd by Matt Gaetz).\u00a0\u00a0He was elected as part of the Newt Gingrich \u201ccontract with America\u201d crowd in 1994, in the middle of Bill Clinton\u2019s first term as President.\u00a0\u00a0Scarborough was a conservative with a 95% rating, and resigned from the Congress in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He then moved to be a \u201cconservative voice\u201d on MSNBC, <\/em>along with such luminaries as, believe it or not, Tucker Carlson and, more recently, Nicolle Wallace. His morning show began in 2003, and he\u2019s been there ever since. In 2007, he brought Mika Brzezinski in as a co-host (along with Willie Geist), the daughter of Jimmy Carter\u2019s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Joe and Mika ultimately divorced their spouses and married each other in 2018. The ceremony was held in the National Archives main chamber, and officiated by Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Not surprisingly, I don\u2019t agree with Scarborough on a lot of issues. But he has come a long way, and even resigned from the Republican Party after the first election of Donald Trump.\u00a0\u00a0He often has other commentators on the panel that I enjoy, and sometimes his \u201crants\u201d are challenging and even entertaining.\u00a0\u00a0But there are two issues where I really struggle with\u00a0Morning Joe.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The first was back in 2015.\u00a0\u00a0Joe and Mika gave an open phone line to Donald Trump; hours of \u201cfree on-air time\u201d for Trump\u2019s riffs and rants. All he had to do was call in.\u00a0\u00a0And while both Mika and Joe criticized Trump to his \u201cear\u201d on-air, they fell prey to a Trump tactic:\u00a0\u00a0better to have bad attention than no attention at all.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those on-air conversations on\u00a0Morning Joe\u00a0<\/em>served to legitimize the first Trump candidacy, and brought him the national attention he wasn\u2019t getting from other candidates.\u00a0\u00a0They didn\u2019t \u201celect\u201d Trump, but the sure gave him a leg-up. But afterwards, one thing you could count on from\u00a0Morning Joe<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0they were critical of Donald Trump.\u00a0\u00a0Trump responded to the criticism with personal attacks.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He insulted Mika about her facial surgery, and even went so far to accuse Joe of complicity in the murder of one of his staff members.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this last year Joe and Mika were outspoken in warning about Trump\u2019s threat to American Democracy.\u00a0\u00a0They even put their own thumb on the scale. When Joe Biden was pushed off of the ticket, they supported Kamala Harris\u2019s candidacy.\u00a0\u00a0 And they were as despondent as the rest of us with the results of this month\u2019s election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I was shocked when I watched the two of them try to justify going to Mar-a-Lago for a private audience with Trump two weeks ago. Mika said; \u201cJoe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-elect Trump. And for those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, why wouldn\u2019t we?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Comedian John Stewart spoke for the rest of us when he responded: \u201cUh\u2026because you said he was Hitler.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I guess we were warned in September.\u00a0\u00a0The \u201cbillionaire class\u201d;\u00a0\u00a0Musk, Bezos, Jamie Diamon and even Warren Buffett were all \u201chedging their bets\u201d against a Trump win (Mark Cuban stood out as the exception).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They, especially Musk and Bezos, \u201cswallowed\u201d the events of January 6, 2021, and excused them away.\u00a0\u00a0Instead of standing up for Harris, many ducked.\u00a0\u00a0That is, except for Musk, who put his billions where his mouth was, into the Trump campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marc Elias, the lawyer to the Democrats, put it well.\u00a0\u00a0He compared the normalization of the Trump Presidency, to a character in Hemingway\u2019s\u00a0The Sun Also Rises,\u00a0<\/em>who told how he went bankrupt:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cTwo ways.\u00a0\u00a0Gradually, then all at once.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Some Americans are \u201cgradually\u201d accepting the bankruptcy of a Trump Administration, gradually acting like it\u2019s all \u201cnormal\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0It is not.\u00a0\u00a0And some Democrats, commentators, and influential business leaders, are showing us the \u201cgradual\u201d way.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nScarborough<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Issues<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Kiss the Ring<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Defend Democracy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n