And now, our media scrambles to please The Criminal

This morning's sheepish announcement from Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski that they had made a weekend Mar-a-Lago pilgrimage in order to bend the knee to The Criminal, was both expected and a bit peculiar. The expected part was that hosts from the supposed den of leftism known as MSNBC would, like everyone else in our Free Press, scramble to prove to The Criminal that their previous opposition to his great and exalted shittiness was not nearly as oppositional as it might have looked, heavens no, not if the next four years of interviews and other perks of access journalism might be at risk.

The peculiar part is that it remains damn strange that the "Free Press" would be making supplicating pilgrimages to any of the politicians they are supposedly monitoring for the public good. For decades alleged journalists and pundits have roamed the same cocktail parties, barbecues, wedding receptions, and resort weekends as the political figures they cover, and that is very damn weird. How is that "press independence?" How is that "unbiased?" How is going to a politician's house to drink champaign and schmooze with the politician's most favored allies showing "neutrality?"

I'm not about to claim there was any golden age of journalism in which American journalists weren't largely in the pockets of those they covered. We're not rubes here. Showing up at The Criminal's private club to negotiate for future access, however, is not neutrality. It is supplication, and the looks on the faces of the perpetrators is clear enough indication that they know it. They know it to their very bones.

Because apparently we need to go over all of this yet again: The Criminal attempted to overthrow the government. People died. He did it on purpose: He and his collection of oozing toadies mounted a pressure campaign to demand his party and his vice president ignore the vote totals of a constitutional election and proclaim him the "real" winner. He assembled a violent mob for the precise purpose of threatening lawmakers and his vice president into compliance. It was a coup; he still awaits trial in multiple venues for his acts. He's already been convicted of 34 other felony counts, faces felony charges for intentionally taking steps to prevent the retrieval of classified documents illegally in his possession, is an adjudicated rapist, and has been accused of too many other crimes to plausibly keep count.

Set the rest of it aside: What is the bargain to be made, with someone who openly betrayed our country for personal gain? What supplication is necessary there? What disadvantage do our media talking heads fear, if they do not visit The Criminal's personal den to "restart communications" on how best to present him to their viewers in the future?

Here's a thought. Maybe you don't have the courage to stand up to a fascist and proven criminal. Maybe it's beyond you; maybe your job depends on not doing it.

That doesn't mean you have to show up at the door of the criminal's damn house.

We all keep saying it, but it's staggering just how quickly and completely nearly everyone in power has rushed to fall in line behind The Criminal, pledging themselves to his cause or at least loudly promising to stay out of the way. House Speaker Mike Johnson and his caucus is steadfast in their insistence that a sex trafficker accused of raping a high school girl at a Florida house party is the man their party will appoint as top law enforcement officer. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a delusional quack who could never grasp the health and safety protocols needed to work at an Arby's, but the party is absolutely determined that if thousands of American children in their states need to die to show proper fealty to The Criminal and The Criminal's Pet Quack as they wage war on vaccines with disinformation and deadly hoaxes, then by God they'll help kill those children and boast about it.

We're going to have to watch for the exceptions—for anyone in the media or in politics that still thinks violent coup or concentration camps or deadly delusions are not chips to be bargained with, but both horrifying and disqualifying. These first days suggest it's going to be a short list. When The Criminal begins using the military to carry out his mass deportation plans, as is now promised, perhaps that list will begin to grow.

And perhaps it will not.