When viewing MSNBC’s coverage of the Republican National Convention, one is led to wonder why leadership would sideline Morning Joe, albeit briefly, but not the insane asylum airing on prime-time. “Historian” Michael Beschloss’s assessment of President Trump’s acceptance speech only serves to intensify that wonderment.
This is how MSNBC closed its A-block coverage of the RNC: with comparisons of Donald Trump to Fidel Castro, Nikita Kruschev, and with an intensified version of Beschloss’ usual hysterics click "expand" to view transcript):
MSNBC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION COVERAGE
7/19/24
12:26 AM
RACHEL MADDOW: I want to bring in our friend Michael Beschloss, because, by the rules of this broadcast, once you’ve been invoked we have to- we have to find you. Michael Beschloss, we have invoked your name in terms of talking about, I mean, one very simple metric of this speech which is that it is by far, by a mile, the longest convention speech ever given in the modern era. You suggested that that might itself tell us a little bit of something about the function of Donald Trump's candidacy vis-a-vis his party right now.
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: It sure does. And the records for second-longest and third longest were: Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. But this one really beat all. And, you know, to get away from the jokes, which are obvious with a speech like that, which mentioned everything went on much too long, the reason why Castro and Kruschev spoke for four hours or five hours at a time, and they really did and they mentioned everything that came into their brain, that’s what it sounded like tonight, is because they were dictators. And the people who worked with them were terrified to tell them they should make a shorter speech. And that’s what happens when you’ve got a cult. May I suggest what the most important thing about tonight is, Rachel?
MADDOW: Please.
BESCHLOSS: This historical moment is the one thing he did not mention. You know, he said on Day One, he’s going to start drilling for oil, and he’s going to close the borders. That’s not what he’s been promising for the last number of months. He’s been promising on Day One to be dictator for a day. And all I am saying is that historically, the most important thing about tonight, a subject he either intentionally or otherwise avoided, is how he will he change this country. Is he going to use a complicit Supreme Court with this new immunity ruling to become the most powerful president we have ever had? Making arbitrary decisions, some of them perhaps unlawful as long as they are called “official acts”, and make radical changes like, you know, pull America out of NATO, conceivably, until Russia, in his own words, under certain circumstances, “do whatever the hell you want.” This is the most decisive moment in American history I have ever seen in a presidential election. And I think we can’t be dissuaded. 15 weeks from now, we will know if this night led to renewed democracy, rebirth of freedom, as Lincoln wanted us to have, or whether it led to dictatorship and the strongest president in history doing all sorts of things we can’t imagine.
MADDOW: NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss, putting a cap on it for us tonight. Michael, thank you. Absolutely priceless.
By no means was this the first reference to dictators on MSNBC's post-Trump speech commentary. Here's how Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace kicked off their wrap-up (click "expand"):
MSNBC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION COVERAGE:
7/19/2024
12:08:03 AM
2 minutes 25 seconds
RACHEL MADDOW: We knew this was going to be a long speech when we got first the excerpts and then the full text of it scripted at probably about an hour. But this came in over an hour and a half long. This was a Fidel Castro kind of experience. The former president did get to most of the words on the teleprompter, but added a whole lot more.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Yeah. There was a lot of extra cereal in the box, if you will.
MADDOW: Yes. Nicole Wallace what did you think?
WALLACE: Well so interestingly, it was pointed out to me that Fox News had stopped carrying his speeches about a month ago and I thought that was curious. And it was when there was a lot in them about electrocution and sharks.
I think when you watch what is arguably his biggest opportunity to speak before the most Americans, you see a little bit of where that -- where some of that thinking might be right? This was very extemporaneous. It was I think about half and half right? Half of it was the scripted speech, and there was about 50% extra added. In the room, it was messianic. People were crying, and they definitely loved it. Trump who --
MADDOW: At the beginning they loved it and were crying. By the end The New York Times actually reported – we’re trying to chase this down – but that actually by the end the upper level seats people were emptying.
WALLACE: And The Times had a great sort of bottom line on this in the beginning, he said he changed by the end it was pretty clear he hadn’t- or hadn’t very much. I think if you are wondering what impact this has on a viewing audience, you have to wonder how much of it the viewing audience stayed through. It was very – it was longer than current modern baseball games with the new pitching clock. I don’t even know that all baseball games last that long.
It was very lengthy, it was very meandering. I hope that the bigger message anyone in the pro-democracy side got tonight, is that the pro-democracy candidate, the democratic person, can beat him and by a lot, and decisively, rendering the story that you cover which- on Rutenberg, meaningless if that should happen. The other thing is if you are looking in here for kernels of substance describing what happened to them on Saturday night, saying this is the one and only time he'll do that, we'll see, right? It seemed like a story that once he got into it, he was very connecting over it and sharing.
This certainly isn’t new material for Beschloss. A few short months ago, ahead of the State of the Union address, Beschloss plied the same hysterical schtick- as captured by our colleague Alex Christy:
Beschloss declared that “this is a real historical moment” and warned, “We could be a dictatorship next year if Donald Trump is elected and carries through on his threats and carries through on his threats to suspend the Constitution. That's what's at stake.”
In fairness, it wasn’t just Beschloss: most of the prime-time panel took turns comparing Trump’s speech to those of Fidel Castro or Nikita Kruschev. But it was Beschloss who ramped the hysterics to 11. There were calls for a lowering of the rhetorical temperature in the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Trump. Those pleas went unheeded at MSNBC.
Instead, America’s TeleSur gleefully went the other way. Reasonable people may determine that this was done, precisely, in order to stimulate the impulses of the hext homicidal nutjob that feels compelled to take Democracy™ into their own hands.
In hindsight, César Conde should’ve pulled the plug on prime-time.
MRC intern Sarah Butler contributed to the preparation of this item.
