MSDNC?

Donald Trump recently called MSNBC "MSDNC" as a way of suggesting that the cable news channel is merely an arm of the Democratic Party.  He may be right for once.

With the Israel-Hamas War continuing to rage in the Gaza Strip, Mehdi Hasan, a weekend MSNBC host of Indian descent and a Muslim, had been a extraordinarily vocal opponent of Israel's heavy-handed response to the Hamas attack on Israeli towns on October 7,  and he had grilled a leader of the Israeli Defense Force over the bombing deaths of Palestinian children in Gaza.  I'm using the past perfect tense for a reason; Mehdi Hasan was demoted from MSNBC.

Not canceled.  Demoted.  He still remains at MSNBC as an analyst and substitute host.  But the loss of his weekend program still sucks. 

Hasan spoke truth to power at a time when the Democratic foreign-policy establishment has a hard time absorbing the truth.  The Democratic Party is relentlessly pro-Israel and continued to put the onus on the Palestinians, continuing to blur the line between Palestinian civilians and Palestinian commandos - though, to be fair, Vice President Kamala Harris has sought to distinguish between the two in a postwar reconstruction plan for the Palestinian people that she recently outlined.  Hasan's fairness and toughness wih regard to the Israelis, though, was obviously too much for Democratic centrists, though many progressives - and reportedly, MSNBC staffers - are unhappy (to say the least) with Hasan's dismissal. 

This isn't the first time MSNBC has canceled a host for not towing the Democratic National Committee line.  Ed Schultz, you recall, was canceled in 2015 for speaking out so forcefully for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign at a time when the DNC was tipping the scales for Hillary Clinton to get the Democratic nomination and when many hosts and contributors were showering Hillary with praise, one contributor calling her the most qualified person to run for President since James Monroe two hundred years earlier.  Also, Phil Donahue's MSNBC show was canceled in 2003 in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq just as his dismal ratings were beginning to improve dramatically because of his opposition to the invasion.  Three of the four most recent Democratic presidential nominees, when they were in the Senate in 2002, voted to give Bush the authorization to use force to disarm Saddam Hussein.  Of those three, only Joe Biden became President. 

MSNBC is a clear liberal alternative to Fox News' red-meat Republicanism, and no, a Republican administration wouldn't handle the Israel-Hamas conflict any better.  In fact, a second Trump administration would let it or make it evolve into World War III, which is why it's important to stop Trump from regaining power.  But if the bosses at MSNBC, whose anchors promote the preservation of democratic values, want to avoid hypocrisy, they shouldn't acquiesce to Democratic (note capital letter) values and promote the Democratic party line on everything. Rather, it should promote more diverse points of view, but that obviously can't happen when someone like Mehdi Hasan gets canned for doing his job as a journalist - seeking the truth.