MSNBC news anchor Rachel Maddow responded to the election results by declaring that she has been given “marching orders from the universe” to protect democracy from her own president-elect because “this is what we are on this earth to do.”
“Half the country went to bed sad tonight, but woke up tomorrow with a new sense of purpose,” she told viewers.
In reality, most of the country was looking at someone else.
Ratings on Maddow's weekly show and on MSNBC as a whole have collapsed after Trump stormed home in the election, winning the popular vote and all seven of the closest battleground states.
Republicans also won back the Senate and would later retain control of the House of Representatives.
Maddow, who was once called the “greatest anchor on television” by a magazine profiler, is also one of the highest paid, earning a salary of $25 million on a five-year contract, according to Fox News.
Bob's Burger's beats ratings
However, the news outlet reported that her pay was reduced this month from a maximum of $30 million as part of a new deal.
The pay cut comes as the bespectacled Democrat's viewership is falling faster.
Her flagship Rachel Maddow show, which has been on since 2008, drew just 1.3 million viewers when it aired Monday, beaten by episodes of Bob's Burgers and Family Guy, tongue-in-cheek animated comedies for adults, in the same series. time slot.
Among key demographics 25 to 54, which are highly sought after by advertisers, the show attracted just 84,000 viewers.
MSNBC as a whole has lost 47 percent of its viewers since election night compared to the rest of the year, according to data from Nielsen Media Research.
It averaged just 497,000 viewers per day, of whom only 49,000 were aged between 25 and 54.
Rachel Maddow on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert – CBS Photo Archive
Since the magnitude of Trump's victory became clear, the public's judgment has been swift and brutal.
CNN, a rival liberal broadcaster, has seen its own 33 percent drop in daily viewers — which is significant but less pronounced than MSNBC.
The broadcaster is being dragged along – and its highest-paid and best-known presenter could be to blame.
Maddow speaks with an emotional and quasi-religious passion about the cases she takes on.
She wears her emotions and political leanings – the two are rarely separated – on her smart black blazer sleeve.
In a country that has moved increasingly toward Trump since 2016, Maddow risks sliding into political irrelevance as she is abandoned by her left-wing base.
Left-leaning viewers are either growing tired of the progressive hysteria caused by Trump's nomination, or wiser to the fact that Maddow's patronizing left-wing preaching isn't helping Democrats win elections.
In 2018, she broke down in tears amid reports that children who had crossed the border illegally had been taken from their parents and held in cages as part of the Trump administration's “family separation” policy.
“Trump administration officials have sent babies and other young children –” she said before cutting her words off and putting a hand to her lips. “Until at least three –” and stopped again.
MSNBC
Ultimately, she was forced to hand the floor over to Lawrence O'Donnell, the veteran presenter who waited stony-faced in front of the camera.
Joe Biden, who dropped out of the presidential race in June to hand over the baton to Kamala Harris, also caused emotional reactions.
“There is nothing he has done in that entire career that is a greater or more consequential act of service and sacrifice for this country than what he has done today,” Maddow said, his voice shaking during the monologue.
MSNBC
At several points, she cast her eyes skyward — or at least the studio ceiling — as she talked about how Biden's “superpower is underestimated.”
The 81-year-old president was forced to step aside by his own party after a disastrous debate performance following three weeks of pressure and threats from the Democratic camp.
In reality, Biden's downfall and Maddow's long monologues about the threat Trump apparently posed to American democracy have done nothing to stop Republicans from marching back to the White House.
Purging pro-Trump voices
Along with her MSNBC colleagues, the news anchor has tried to keep a tight rein on the broadcaster's ideological purity and purge voices aligned with Trump.
Maddow was one of several big names who spoke out against the hiring of former Republican National Committee chief Ronna McDaniel as an analyst for NBC News, MSNBC's cable affiliate.
Executives had apparently wanted a right-wing voice who could appeal to Trump's political campaign as he blew his primary Republican rivals out of the water en route to claiming his party's presidential nomination.
Maddow responded in typical terms. “I mean, you wouldn't hire a smartass, you wouldn't hire a made man like a gangster to work in a district attorney's office, right?” she said.
“You wouldn't hire a pickpocket to work as a TSA screener. And so I find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable, and I hope they will reverse their decision.”
Ms. McDaniel was offered a contract but did not take the job.
Fox News
One of the big beneficiaries of Trump's election victory is Fox News, which beat its rivals by attracting 10 million viewers on election night and seeing its ratings rise 24 percent in the weeks that followed.
As well as winning the ratings war, many of the commentators and presenters are being taken off air and brought into the new government – most notably Pete Hegseth, who has been nominated as Defense Secretary. Fox seems to have its finger on the American zeitgeist.
When Elon Musk publicly mused about buying MSNBC, Joe Rogan, the podcaster, joked that he would take Maddow's job — and her signature dark suit look — to the beleaguered broadcaster.
“If you buy MSNBC, I'd like Rachael Maddow's job. I will wear the same outfit and glasses, and I will tell the same lies,” he told the Tesla billionaire.
It seems unlikely that Musk will buy MSNBC at this stage, and Maddow's audience could yet return in droves after what many will have considered a crushing election defeat.
But it speaks to how Rogan and other “alternative media” figures are on the rise — and never more so since Trump's victory. MSNBC and Maddow, once fixtures in the media landscape and buffered by devoted audiences, suddenly seem expendable.
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