To paraphrase the old saying, when your opponent is destroying himself…let him. There are few things I enjoy more than bad things happening to bad people, and the news about the collapse of CNN’s ratings falls nicely into that category. It couldn’t happen to nicer people. So let’s revel a little in the historic 70 percent ratings collapse of the “Cable ‘News’ Network.”
The primetime line-up of CNN is a joke. How can a network in literally every home with cable, which is almost all of them, draw fewer than a million viewers nightly? If you tried to be as unpopular as Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo, and Don Lemon you would have difficulty; you might have to set puppies on fire or call everyone fat and ugly, and even then you’d likely still be more popular than they are. And more honest.
CNN’s biggest problem is the people who are supposed to be the “faces of the network” are simultaneously the face of the Democrat Party and, unfortunately for them, they’re also wrong as often, if not more so, than the party itself. People can forgive being wrong, they can’t forgive being unrepentant about it.
It’s one thing to be wrong, it’s another entirely to be wrong regularly and with an arrogance that rivals any douchebag character in a 1980s high school movie. It’s like they’re all James Spader and secretly named Blaine, but they have no redemption to their story arc.
The CNN morning show is no better. John Berman and Brianna Keilar bring all the arrogance and ignorance of Morning Joe with none of the audience. If there were an Emmy for smugness they’d win it so often it would be named after them. The only time they take a break from giving liberal guests a puckered colonoscopy is when they swoon over whatever the latest contradictory declaration from Anthony Fauci happens to be. I’m embarrassed for them.
Then there is the daytime diva of CNN – Jake Tapper. Tapper gets a pass from a lot of conservatives because he can, occasionally, ask legitimate questions of liberal guests. Not sure why doing the basics of your job is worthy of praise, but the bar at CNN is set so low that it gets it. It’s a bit like talking about OJ Simpson and insisting he should be judged only based on all the days he didn’t nearly cut people’s heads off.
Tapper is notoriously thin-skinned. If you criticize him on Twitter there is a better than average chance you’ve been on the receiving end of what I like to call a Tapper-tantrum. Out of the blue, Jake will go off on you through direct messaging, usually over trivial things that often weren’t even about him, he just assumed they were. It’s wildly insecure, and it’s a shame because he’s the only person at CNN you genuinely believe had potential and is just wasting it.
Then there are the people who, through fault of their character or upbringing, are horrible people who deserve every criticism that comes their way and then some. The human weeble, CNN’s Brian Stelter, comes to mind as a useful idiot unworthy of polite interaction in public. Whether he had bad parents who didn’t love him or was simply a bad person who found a position that allowed him to inflict himself on others (or a combination of both) is irrelevant, his irredeemable existence is the problem at this point. Stelter’s existence is not unique, beyond the fact that he appears to be the only person in the history of television to not have an appearance clause in their contract, he is just the personification of everything wrong with an industry the American public holds in contempt.
The weeble’s job appears to be to watch Fox News and complain about it. While most of us would rather drink mercury than have a life so devoid of meaning or purpose, this parody of a man embraces his role with the enthusiasm Democrats embraced Jeffrey Epstein’s wallet. The “media reporter” at CNN dutifully ignores every lawsuit, scandal, correction, or staffer caught playing with themselves on video chats at the network to focus on whatever Sean Hannity said. So much of Stelter’s life is based on what happens on Fox that he’s turned into a cheesy tribute band leader who thinks he really is Gene Simmons, not just some wannabe in make-up. He owes Fox a royalty check, and Fox probably owes him a restraining order.
CNN is in the midst of a rating free-fall, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer, more deserving group of people. The network’s only redeeming quality is the thoroughness with which they demonstrate the fact that they have no redeeming qualities. That’s something, I guess.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!), host of a daily radio show on WCBM in Maryland, and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.