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Lawrence O'Donnell on Dealing With Trump Grief-And Making Nice With MSNBC
http://www.thedailybeast.com/lawrence-odonnell-on-dealing-with-trump-grief-and-making-nice-with-msnbcLawrence O'Donnell on Dealing With Trump Grief—And Making Nice With MSNBC
Lawrence O'Donnell is 'completely horrified and uncomfortable' that his contract fight with MSNBC became public--but, with it resolved, is focused on scrutinizing President Trump.
Lloyd Grove
06.02.17 6:32 PM ET
snip//
Repeating what has become his personal maxim since he survived a terrible car crash in 2014, O’Donnell declared: “I’m lucky to be alive—that never goes away. I now feel lucky to be doing this show because of our times. This kind of show has never been more important. Before the last election, if you’d asked me about the importance of this kind of show, I would answer, ‘That would depend on the day.’…Now there is no doubt about the importance of the kind of coverage we’re doing.”
In the aftermath of the shocking election outcome, O’Donnell said, he was in a state of mind that—in his description of it—sounds very much like grief.
He had been telling his viewers for years, ever since Trump’s noxious birther campaign in 2011 that questioned the legitimacy of President Barack Obama, that the reality show billionaire was a liar and a clown who never had any intention of running for the presidency, let alone any chance of winning it.
“I really did not know how to do that show after that election—and I knew I had to do it,” O’Donnell said, explaining that he didn’t even recognize his own country, a strange and disturbing nation that could put such a man in the White House. “I also knew I didn’t feel like talking about it. I would have preferred talking about anything else.”
But, working his way through his stages of grief—moving from sorrow to anger to acceptance—“I made the discovery that doing the show every night was pretty good medicine,” O’Donnell recounted, “because I really didn’t have time to slip into the mood of loss.”
O’Donnell said his breakthrough moment came on Jan. 12, when a Quinnipiac Poll was released indicating that a plurality of Americans, even some Republicans and Trump voters, didn’t much like, respect or trust Obama’s successor.
“It was hugely important to me when I saw that poll. It crystallized for me how the country saw this president—and, in early January, people did not know that they were not alone,” O’Donnell said, noting that, after all, Hillary Clinton received three million more votes than Trump, who became “an accidental president” courtesy of the quirks of the Electoral College. “People had gotten overwhelmed by a country they did not understand, that elected this person they don’t understand.”
That night, Jan. 12, O’Donnell devoted the top of his show to the theme, “You’re not alone”; channeling the resistance to the 45th president has been his organizing principle ever since.
“Now we don’t have to tell anyone in America that you’re not alone if you disapprove of Donald Trump, and now the country is living with a suspense in their presidency that it has not had since 1974”—when Nixon was forced to resign to avoid impeachment amid the escalating Watergate scandal.
“The dynamism of the news day is unlike anything that has ever existed in the history of cable news,” said O’Donnell, sounding genuinely energized by the prospect of owning a ringside seat and bully pulpit over the next couple of years. “I’ve often wondered what it would have been like if we’d had cable news during the Vietnam War and Watergate,” he said. “And now we know.”
36 replies
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They watch fox to have their hatred and bigotry confirmed, and they get exactly that. We watch the MSNBC nightly lineup to hear the truth, and to hear intelligent commentary from adults. Remember, the truth has a liberal bias.
from his colleagues, very calm and without a lot of bombast.... But what he speaks is the truth and I am glad that they kept him on. 
Yea, Lawrence. Thanks for posting that.
If only more of the media had done the same, no way would the orange madman be squatting in the White House.
After I posted that, I Googled it and that's exactly what happened.
You're absolutely right. He was in the (British) Virgin Islands according to Wikipedia. Well, at least I remembered the brother part right.
Just not mean enough.
invaluable contribution to our struggling Democracy.
in the Edward R. Murrow vein..... God I just hope he won't be reporting to us from some kind of 'blitz' aka London bombing by nazis, WW2.
