Can the Left Get it Right?

Last month, NBC News Group chairman Cesar Conde hired – then speedily fired – Ronna McDaniel as a political commentator. McDaniel is the immediate past chairperson of the Republican National Committee. Understandably, Conde desires to have a news organization that offers disparate voices. However, NBC’s marquee personalities vociferously objected to McDaniel’s hiring while on air. She barely lasted three days at the network.The outrage was driven by McDaniel having chosen to be a leading propagandist in advancing the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Thus, this wasn’t merely a case of liberals rebelling against the hiring of a conservative; it was appropriate indignation directed at someone who spent years cynically fostering a historic political divide just to placate Donald Trump. The left and right can (and should) disagree about certain policies; that’s the nature of a healthy democracy. But the two sides should never “disagree” about objective reality, especially when said disagreement undermines democracy. McDaniel is guilty of exactly that.More recently, NPR stalwart Uri Berliner wrote a well-received essay regarding his belief that the organization has shifted from being somewhat left-leaning to being an all-out, ideologically-driven echo chamber that “tells listeners what to think”. Berliner, who spent a...