After an MSNBC tweet called out Republican racism, RNC chairman Reince Preibus deemed Republican Americans a protected class and announced a boycott of the lean forward network.
In a moment of Twitter truth telling, somebody at MSNBC tweeted,
The RNC has responded with outrage that MSNBC would dare to tweet the truth about their racism.
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In a letter to MSNBC boss Phil Griffin, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called for a boycott of the network,
Sadly, such petty and demeaning attacks have become a pattern on your network. With increasing frequency many of your hosts have personally denigrated and demeaned Americans-especially conservative and Republican Americans-without even attempting to further meaningful political dialogue.
While I personally enjoy appearing on decent shows like “Morning Joe” and “Daily Rundown”, the entire network is poisoned because of this pattern of behavior.
Until you personally and publicly apologize for this behavior, I have banned all RNC staff from appearing on, associating with, or booking any RNC surrogates on MSNBC. I have asked Republican surrogates and officials to follow our lead.
It appears that Reince Priebus has now declared “Republican Americans” a protected class that can’t be insulted with the truth by the media. What is very telling are the MSNBC shows Preibus enjoys appearing on are pro-Republican propaganda outlets. Morning Joe is festering pool of Beltway conventional thinking and Republican talking points, while the Daily Rundown is Chuck Todd’s Republican talking point hour.
It isn’t like Priebus would ever appear regularly on Rachel Maddow’s show for fear that his not smarter than a 5th grader party leadership would crumble under the harsh light of tough questions and the truth.
In typical Republican fashion by the time Priebus announced his boycott, MSNBC had already apologized twice.
Earlier, this account tweeted an offensive line about the new Cheerios ad. We deeply regret it. It does not reflect the position of msnbc.
— msnbc (@msnbc) January 30, 2014
We are deleting the earlier offensive tweet. It does not reflect msnbc's position and we apologize.
— msnbc (@msnbc) January 30, 2014
I am of the mind that one does not have to apologize for the truth, but in the mainstream media, caving to Republican temper tantrums is expected. The protected class known as conservative Americans must always be treated gently and fawned over, or their feelings will be hurt. More than anything, the mainstream media can never ever confront them with the truth about their own behavior.
If Chairman Priebus wants people to stop referring to his party as racist, he should stop using racism against the president, immigrants, and other minorities as a tool to divide the country.
People call the Republican Party racist because it keeps engaging in, and encouraging racist attitudes.
Republicans got their little feelings hurt because they can’t handle getting called out. MSNBC should not have apologized, and if more media networks would report the truth, Republicans would not be able to get away with such ugly tactics.
Republicans are already boycotting most media in favor of Fox News, so Preiebus’ threat of an MSNBC boycott is hollow and completely undeserving of an apology.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
