The Steve Schmidt Rehabilitation Tour On MSNBC. I Do Not Welcome Him Back.

Here we have another indictment of the collapse and corruption of the mainstream Media:  the rehabiliation tour of Steve Schmidt on MSNBC.  While his friends in the Media are giving him a bear hug, my memory still works.  And I have Google.  Schmidt crapped all over the Democratic Party with his support of Howard Schultz for president, and it showed that his political judgment sucks.  And this also demonstrates how contrived Media narratives suck.

But here he is back on MSNBC bloviating about our politics.

For those who are like, “Who the fuck is Howard Schultz?”  Let me remind you of the farce that was his “independent” presidential campaign.  The Media tried to push Schult’z campaign and policies as cures for what ails our politics.

Schultz is the former CEO of Starbucks.  He’s a billioniare, and because of his wealth, the Media swooned at his entry as an independent candidate.  CNN gave him his own townhall.  The Media loved the idea that Schultz could be a spoiler and give Trump another term.  

And who quickly quit his job on MSNBC to go run Schultz’s campaign?  Steve Schmidt.  From Vanity Fair:

Democrats used to love Steve Schmidt: he was a Republican operative who had seen the light. Schmidt helped choose Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate in 2008 and then, after sustained exposure to the former Alaska governor, set about publicly torching Palin as “manifestly unprepared” and “filled with anger.” Recently, Schmidt has been a frequent MSNBC presence, podcasting star, and a passionate and eloquent anti-Trumpist. He has renounced his membership in the “corrupt” and “immoral” G.O.P. and called President Donald Trump a “useful idiot” for Russia.

For those that have forgotten, there was a lot of Media speculation that Schultz would pull in enough Democratic moderates to sway the election toward Trump.  The emphasis was on Schultz’s supposed appeal to Democratic moderate voters.  Keep that in mind while I list some of the great policies that Schultz proposed for the voters:

Schmidt shrugs off Schultz’s early stumbles and defends him as a benevolent boss. He views all the attention and criticism as vindicating his belief that the electorate is open to a centrist outsider, and that the entrenched parties are scared of Schultz breaking their hold on the system. “If you imagine a period in time in 2020 where Howard Schultz is ahead in a three-way race, with multiple paths to 270 electoral votes, and all the commentariat saying, ‘How did you know that would happen?,’ well, the indication was probably at the beginning with the hysterical, overwrought, panicked reaction by vested interests within the political duopoly and in the media class,” Schmidt says. “There’s an enormous constituency in this country that’s just completely unrepresented. There has never been a larger population of moderate voters who generally agree on some of the country’s biggest problems.”

It’s certainly a good thing for the Democratic contenders to be challenged on the cost and effectiveness of proposals that are rapidly becoming orthodoxy, like universal health care and free college. But Schultz, to this point, hardly seems the guy to inspire the elusive, possibly chimerical moderate majority. He’s billing himself as a centrist independent, but Schultz’s policy ideas sound more like warmed-over corporate Republicanism. He’s talked up “comprehensive tax reform,” cutting spending on entitlements, and reducing the national debt, while dodging questions about whether his plan would include raising rates on the wealthy. And he has—risibly—apportioned equal political blame on Republicans and Democrats for the failure to pass rational immigration laws.

Actually, Shultz was pissed that people like himself had to pay more in taxes.  But last time I checked, moderate voters were not for cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to reduce the budget deficit.  And the budget deficit was not a major concern either.  And immigration reform has been blocked by Republicans not Democrats.

So Schultz pushed economic austerity and bothsiderism.

With that wonderful agenda, Schultz’s campaign tanked.  And Schultz announced that he wasn’t actually going to run for president, even though he had been.  All those in the Media who had longed for an independent centrist candidate were disappointed.  And they quickly acted like they had never pushed Schultz’s run for office.

Please keep all that in mind when you hear certain Media narratives repeated over and over again.  The corporate executives who run the Media still think that economic austerity sells.  Just because their preferred candidates bombs doesn’t stop them from recycling this shit.

But here we have Steve Schimdt shaking off his attempts to wreck political havok by pushing the BS about bothsiderism.  And MSNBC welcomes him back with open arms and promotes his sage political advice, even though Schmidt’s political judgment SUCKS.  He is the guy who helped foist Sarah Palin on the U.S.

To hell with you Steve Schimdt.