MSNBC is in a state of collapse, with various hosts and contributors losing their jobs. As you've likely heard already, one of those people is Joy Reid, a woman whose show, "The Reid Out," was a factory that dealt almost exclusively in producing accusations of racism or "white privilege." She never really added true value to the national conversation, because a lot of her content was trying to sell a radically leftist angle on any given subject.
Reid getting the boot upset MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who went so far as to accuse the network she's worked at for years of racism:
I will tell you it's also unnerving to see that on a network where we have two -- count 'em -- two non-white hosts in prime time, both of our non-white hosts in prime time are losing their shows -- as is Katie Phang, on the weekend. And that feels worse than bad. No matter who replaces them.
That feels indefensible. And I do not defend it.
Rachel Maddow RAKES MSNBC on-air over programming changes pic.twitter.com/Q0wQ1nMbpy
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 25, 2025
(READ: Rachel Maddow Rakes MSNBC on Air for Getting Rid of Joy Reid, Program Changes)
But it's not racism. If it was, then Reid's time slot would be overtaken by white people, which it's not. As it stands, Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menéndez are going to fill that gap. Jonathan Capehart is getting a new morning slot and Phang is staying on as a legal correspondent. Reid is the only one completely out, most of the other shakeups are just reshuffling.
The issue is that the issue of race stopped being useful to MSNBC in the way it has traditionally been useful for the left.
In the past, the accusations of racism really had teeth. To be accused of such a thing was horrifying to many people, especially upper and middle-class Americans. This was great news for cable news channels like MSNBC, because it allowed them to tap into their audience's fear of being "one of them," with "them" being the unwashed, uneducated, backwoods Mericans that cling to their God and their guns.
Race was synonymous with authority, so if a black person said something about a social event then that was the truth of the matter and questioning or arguing against it could only mean you were racist and bigoted. MSNBC loaded themselves up with people of color who were willing to do just that. Joy Reid, Al Sharpton, Tiffany Cross, and Jonathan Capehart have no qualms painting anyone and everything as racist in some form, though Capehart is often smoother about it, which may explain why he still has a job there, though he is being reshuffled. .
But then a cultural shift happened and the accusation of racism didn't just start to lose its edge, it became grating and annoying. In the midst of an economic downturn, it's hard to endure being accused of racism because you don't like the way the country was being mismanaged. With these accusations ramping up, the word lost all meaning and people started to tune out, both figuratively and very literally.
After Donald Trump's victory, MSNBC lost 40 percent of its audience. While there were many reasons for this, one of them was definitely the fact that the network's favorite tool to bludgeon people with had lost its efficacy. It fell flat on the ears. Not only had the ol' race-baiting trick failed to keep Trump out of office, it fell short in giving people the answers they needed when it came to the nation's bad direction.
As people tuned out, the race-baiters ended up showing they were one-trick ponies. Instead of moving into a different direction and focusing on my substantial ideas, they just buckled down on the racism shtick, which only made it worse for themselves.
And now, MSNBC's chief race-baiter is gone, because here's the brutal truth.
MSNBC is a business, and a business still has to survive, and anything that puts the business in danger of going under has to go. Whether it's an idea, a method, or a person. Reid embodied all three of those things in the worst way, and so she has to go.
Does this mean MSNBC is going to stop with the race-baiting? Not totally. It still scratches an itch a lot of leftists have, but it's no longer the sharpest arrow in its quiver. Hell, MSNBC isn't even going to stop being ridiculously leftist because there is still a solid market for that, but MSNBC is having to evolve and change with the culture just like every other business does.
People like Reid are stuck in a bygone era, and they refuse to move with the times, so it's out with the old.
