1/ Have @chucktodd and others like him really been so naive and gullible? I doubt it, but I also don't care all that much. The more interesting & important inquiry, methinks, ...
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2/ is to identify the *harms* caused when @MeetThePress continues its business as usual w/guests such as Kellyanne Conway, Ted Cruz, et al., who so freely & unashamedly spout patent nonsense and self-professed "alternative facts."
3/ I'm skeptical that it causes an "epistemological crisis," or that, in @Kasparov63's words, it misinforms, exhausts critics, or "annihilate[s] truth.” The mine run of viewers of MtP, or the readers of the @nytimes, etc., aren't fooled (I hope not, anyway) when those outlets ...
4/ ... succumb to the "premise of symmetry" or false equivalence. In that sense this isn't Roy Cohn Redux (although he's certainly the model for Trump & Co.). Nor do I think access to these shows lends credibility to the charlatans--not among any serious viewers, anyway, ...
5/ ... all of whom are more likely to be infuriated or disgusted than to be persuaded. I *do* think that @jayrosen_nyu might be onto something, though, when he suggests that the reason the Trumpers go on such shows is to instigate "confrontation[s] with journalists" b/c ...
6/ ... "fighting with the press helps them with core supporters." (Although, even there, does it really make a material difference in how, e.g., FoxNews viewers think of NBC, or does it serve mostly to confirm their worldview?).
7/ If that's right (& obviously I'm not sure it is), then I think it's a fascinating question what would happen if, as Rosen suggests, and as I and many others have long advocated, MtP and other shows were simply to stop inviting guests who trade in "alternative facts."
8/ Would that make matters worse--contribute further still to the polarization of the electorate, esp. in swing states--or might it have some valuable "delegitimation" effect? (or both?) If @MeetThePress began to look more like our Twitter feeds, or like @maddow, ...
9/ ... -- or even, for that matter, like @ezraklein's Vox, how, if at all, would that affect our politics and the ultimate governance of the nation? Would things be any better? If not, what *should* @chucktodd, et al.? Close up shop? I'm genuinely uncertain.
10/ One more thing: Are we, the outraged, better off if @MeetThePress, et al., continue to give these folks an audience, so that we can see, and more forthrightly confront, what we're up against, rather than staying in our echo chambers here in our Twitter feeds?
11/ For a course I taught on (colloquially) "The Law of Trump," I required my students to watch FoxNews regularly, painful though it might be (and for the Trump supporters to watch, e.g., MSNBC). We can't possibly understand why the votes were and will be so close ...
12/ ... in WI/AZ/FL/MI/MN unless we have an unvarnished look at what the 43% are inundated with every day. Is it therefore perhaps *better* that Conway/Cruz et al. appear on MtP, too, rather than *only* on FoxNews, if only so that we can better confront/understand what ails us?
13/ Want to be clear: I'm decidedly *not* criticizing MSNBC, and *not* suggesting MtP should continue to invite the likes of Conway/Cruz (it shouldn't). Merely wondering how different the world would be, if at all, if, e.g., the NBC shows began to emulate MSNBC.
