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Rachel Maddow devoted the primary half of her present on Tuesday to the idea of how public officers will be made to reverse course by using disgrace.
Maddow stated, “ What makes them appropriate course and begin doing the fitting factor as a substitute? One factor that generally works is disgrace and embarrassment. Being confronted with the wrongness of what they’re doing, feeling disgrace or embarrassment, or at the very least the potential of public rebuke and the awkwardness of being unable to clarify their actions in a manner that satisfies anybody. Generally you possibly can’t flip public officers round, however generally you possibly can. Generally that type of factor could cause public officers who’re in any other case behaving in methods which might be weak and improper to seek out their backbone and to alter their minds.”
After taking part in clips of Senate Republicans clearly not desirous to reply questions on Trump pardoning violent 1/6 insurrectionists, Rachel Maddow continued:
What they are going together with right here is one thing that they can not justify. And so, subsequently, they don’t have any method to fairly reply even very fundamental questions on it. And that seems to be vital. As a result of the abdomen churning, self loathing that each one of these senators felt at the moment, the disgrace and embarrassment that they felt at the moment as they had been requested and requested and requested once more in regards to the president of their occasion springing 211 individuals who had been actively incarcerated in federal jail, principally for acts of violence towards cops, whereas they had been collaborating in a violent assault on the U.S. Congress from which a few of these similar senators needed to run for his or her lives. The sensation they’re having, that disgusting feeling of getting to swallow this and attempt to provide you with some method to attempt to cease speaking about it as a result of they can not say something about it that does not disgust them and that is not viscerally improper.
That feeling of being unable to say something rational or true that justifies Trump throwing open the jail doorways for 211 actively incarcerated individuals, lots of whom had been there for violently assaulting cops. That feeling it created in Senators once they had been pressed on that. That sickening feeling, perhaps that, perhaps that’s what will save the nation.
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From a historic perspective, Rachel Maddow was appropriate. Disgrace used to work on elected officers. Public officers would generally change course and do the fitting factor if the general public and the media had been intense sufficient of their shaming.
Within the polarized atmosphere of 2025, does the media equipment nonetheless exist able to making use of disgrace? Mainstream media is owned by massive firms and billionaires who’ve already proven a willingness to not problem Trump and the Republicans.
We’ve got seen Home and Senate Republicans wait out the blowback from issues that Donald Trump has executed previously.
With mainstream media caving to Trump and Republicans dwelling in a bubble of conservative media, might shaming Home and Senate Republicans work in the way in which that Maddow suggests?
If pardoning and releasing violent criminals who beat cops and tried to overthrow the federal government solely resulted in 4 Senate Republicans publicly criticizing Trump, these odds don’t appear too promising.
Nevertheless, public disgrace is healthier than sitting round and doing nothing, and who is aware of, Trump might ultimately go to this point that even members of his personal occasion will condemn him in massive numbers.
We haven’t seen it but, however something is feasible.
What do you consider Rachel Maddow’s suggestion of utilizing public shaming? Share your ideas within the feedback under.
