An established rule among broadcast professionals is never to trivialize or mock domestic violence.
It is believed that more than 10 million incidents of domestic violence occur each year, with victims seeking help less than 40% of the time. It is also common knowledge among broadcasters that any program that draws serious attention to domestic violence provokes responses from many victims, some of whom seek help.
To minimize or mock abuse is to increase the burden on victims who are desperately trying to find a way out of their danger.
MSNBC’S JEN PSAKI JOKE USHA VANCE AFRAID OF HER HUSBAND, RIPPED FOR ‘DISGUSTING’ COMMENTS
This is widely understood, as are other long-standing rules for FCC-licensed broadcasting, most of which were adopted even in the unregulated cable sector and in the early versions of social media and podcasting. The rules against profanity, vulgarity, racial slurs, and more migrated to unregulated platforms without the formal control of laws and regulations, because programming seeking a broad audience had to stay close to the standards in place at the start of the unregulated era.
Those standards did not last. Those standards have all been resolved.
The rise of niche podcasting has completely destroyed these guardrails, as more and more ‘voices’ seek to monetize their opinions into brands that can support podcasts that generate actual revenue. One such offering is the podcast “I’ve Had It,” hosted by Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan, two middle-aged ladies from Oklahoma who engage in what seems like an endless audition of profanity and vulgarity for “The View.”
The podcast does have an audience. With 1.3 million YouTube subscribers, there is clearly a demand signal for profane insult comedy from the far left. That’s a change.
This change in broadcast standards has happened quickly. Consider Kathy Griffin’s cancellation after her 2017 photo shoot with President Donald Trump’s artificially severed head, a stunt that turned off enough people to get Griffin banned for a few years. Griffin is kind of ‘back’ and she has new imitators like Welch and Sullivan. Like the MSNBC-now-MSNOW lineup, the magnet for such programming is a so-called anger bordering on rage, mixed with a healthy love for revenue streams.
After former White House press secretary Jen Psaki appeared on the most recent episode of “I’ve Had It,” titled “The Devil Wears MAGA,” a backlash broke out as there are still some unwritten rules, and Psaki violated the rules regarding domestic violence by claiming she was concerned that second lady Usha Vance was a victim of abuse.
Domestic violence is never funny. It should never be used as a political cudgel. Broadcast professionals should know this. Jen Psaki certainly knows that, but she fell into the trap of trying to please her hosts with an outrageous “joke” about the second lady, urging her to blink if she needed to be saved from the vice president.
Second lady Usha Vance is a graduate of Yale and Yale Law School. She clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as for then-Justice and now Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Amul Thapar – a triple crown of taxing clerkships for three of the great legal minds of our time. She guided her and her children through the tumult of a national campaign. She seems by all accounts an extraordinary person of great achievement and poise, married to the very talented and clearly smart Vice President of the United States, who excelled not only by campaigning in 2024, but also by taking on a high-profile and productive role as Vice President.
I’m writing this before Psaki issues the inevitable apology. And that apology will be sincere. Psaki is an even-tempered and experienced Democratic activist and public figure. She probably knew right away that she had crossed the line, but once it was crossed it cannot be erased. Welch and Sullivan may be happy with all the attention, but I hope everyone who reads this column will actually listen to the entire episode. who is here: This hour is an excellent representation of the fringe conversation currently driving the Democratic Party. Warning: explicit and disgusting content awaits you.
Far-left Democrats hate Vance with a passion previously reserved only for Trump and Senator Tom Cotton. (Cotton broke the New York Times editorial page and has never been a trigger for the far left. He also spearheaded a wave of very smart Republicans with extraordinary credentials and vast reservoirs of knowledge and the calm demeanor that most Americans want in their political leadership.)
Why the fake anger? President Trump, of course, represents a decade of failed attempts by the left fringe of the Democratic Party to derail his ascendancy. Trump has “broken” many media elites in Manhattan-Beltway, and they still don’t know how to beat him.
But why the hatred of Vance? Vance’s domination of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz during the vice-presidential debate last fall was a warning shot to the left that the vast majority of Americans living normal lives “between 20s” really liked then-Ohio Senator Vance. Alarms went off. Vance is very eligible and very young. He will be active in politics for a long time.
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And just as the lunatic left spent a decade criticizing President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney as war criminals who lied to lure America into wars for the benefit of defense companies, they are now turning their fire from Trump to Vance in an effort to demonize him. And now his wife is catching the shrapnel from those attacks.
This descent into the swamp turns off most ordinary Americans. A million YouTube subscribers doesn’t amount to a movement, let alone a majority. There is no doubt that the Democrats are dangerously close to going the way of the Whigs. Zohran Mamdani’s candidacy is a false positive for the appeal of radical politics in America. And just as Jen Psaki did when she chose to dance with fringe podcasters, Democrats who embrace the Democratic Socialists of America will ultimately be marked as outside the mainstream. And unelectable.
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