These two will be fun to watch flailing in the coming years.

Many of us in the political punditry set have been speculating what things will look like in the era following the Donald Trump years. Apex journalists such as Jim Acosta and Jennifer Rubin are going to struggle mightily now that their muse of malcontentedness has departed. Pity Max Boot, who spent the bulk of the past 4 years rewriting the same petulant column. The whole cadre of Never Trumpers — from The Lincoln Project to the scribes at The Bulwark — are facing irrelevancy. 

There are two names however who have already proven they will be worth watching as they contend with the vacuum of content. Brian Stelter, and his boy-wonder sidekick Oliver Darcy are both going to be challenged, and in the matter of a day they are displaying signs of being imbalanced without their outrage compass to guide them on the political high seas.

The night before the inauguration Stelter referenced his Reliable Sources newsletter (some of the gaslighting aspects contained I covered in my piece yesterday), and in so doing he seems to have gotten caught up in the ginned-up excitement of the week that he did not consider his own words. Behold this gem.

Will Biden and Harris ruin their first week with crowd size dramas and voter fraud lies? No, almost certainly not. Will anti-Democratic media outlets stir up faux-scandals that muddy the first week anyway? Yes, almost certainly. And so it begins… https://t.co/SHyFMGX3XQ

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 20, 2021

This is some remarkable work. Stelter bringing up the crowd size issue displays perfectly the addictive nature of Trump derangement in the press. The 2017 inaugural crowd size was, yes, instigated by Trump’s tendency to go with braggadocio extremes, but it was the likes of Stelter and those in the press who kept hitting this issue in drumbeat fashion — an issue that had little to no impact on the general population and one few truly were bothered by. If Trump’s first week was supposedly ruined by crowd size drama it was due to the melodramatic media.

But Brian was not content with just that. He next cited non-Democratic media outlets creating faux scandals this week, which is curious on a few levels. For one, he says this after referencing a faux scandal created by his very own manufactured outrage, but his assurance that this pre-fab controversy was arriving has to be the result of projection. He not only knows he would engage in the same were the parties switched, but he also has the track record; his complaint is rooted in this being a given. 

Then there is the unintentional admission he made. His critique over reports, which have not even taken place, was emotion-driven to such an extent he essentially declares that he is part of the PRO-Democratic media. That he is such is of zero surprise, but the way he makes the declaration is a monumental slip up for someone who subsists on the puffery of being above bias — as he routinely condemns Fox News, in an addictive fashion. Admitting it is a healthy first step, Brian.

Meanwhile, Stelter’s ward, Oliver Darcy, took a break from his efforts to completely deplatform Fox News to level a completely different complaint about his competition. While watching the inaugural celebration last night — more accurately, while watching how Fox News covered said event — Darcy struggled to come up with a complaint on their coverage. He struggled, but he did not fail. 

In policing what his avowed enemy was broadcasting, Ollie finally saw something that enraged him enough to expose to the masses the venal coverage to be witnessed. It turns out that Fox engaged in the dastardly act of cutting away for the sake of commerce. Not only that, but the moment they chose to interrupt was apparently one of deep import in the eyes of Darcy. It was not filled with such gravity to most others, but we have to take it on faith that this was a grievous decision on the part of Fox.

Oliver Darcy is upset with FoxNews for…
– Not broadcasting content to his liking
– Daring to run a commercial
– Cutting away from…a fireworks display

This is what he has been reduced to the day Trump is gone. pic.twitter.com/9JlBpHCZKS

— Brad Slager – In An Augur Roll (@MartiniShark) January 21, 2021

Those bastards. It seems fireworks are a very vital component to any Democrat event. Not entertaining – Vital. CNN’s director of communications Matt Dornic also found the pyrotechnics to be a crucial message. And let’s remember, when fireworks were set off at the Democratic Party convention it set off a press stampede to rush outside, and abandon anything resembling a press interview with Joe.

Of course, this gripping fireworks coverage was vastly different at the 2017 inaugural. Back then the media were not exactly swooning over Trump’s pyrotechnics — some suggested he had actually spelled out ‘’USSR’’ in the sky, because that was expected.