“If you find it too annoying or frustrating or uncomfortable to sit for eight hours and listen, you can resign tomorrow and go get another job.”

If you’ve watched any of the impeachment trial on TV this week, you know that it’s been an incredibly boring affair. In spite of this, the hosts at MSNBC, who are deeply emotionally and professionally invested in the outcome, are annoyed that members of the Senate aren’t sitting on the edge of their seats.

Chrissy Clark writes at The Federalist:

MSNBC Pundits Blast Dianne Feinstein: If You Can’t Sit There For Eight Hours, ‘Resign Tomorrow’ Towards the end of night two of the Senate impeachment trial, the Washington Post reported Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., left the trial over an hour before its conclusion. Washington Post Reporter Paul Kane said Feinstein exited the Senate chambers through the carriage entrance into an awaiting car at 8:45PM. On Wednesday, MSNBC Hosts Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes criticized senators who left the impeachment trial early, questioning their devotion to their country. “We also live in a country in which we ask every citizen to serve on juries. Most of those people have other jobs they have to take leave from. If the trial goes for a long time, often they don’t collect their paycheck from that and are given a meager amount of money relative to what some of those people might make,” Hayes said. “These peoples’ job is to do this. This is literally their job. If you find it too annoying or frustrating or uncomfortable to sit for eight hours and listen, you can resign tomorrow and go get another job.”

Watch below:

A similar thing occurred at CNN where not sitting still and listening through the entire session earned an on-air scolding from the news desk:

What does it say about this impeachment effort, that members of the media are angry with senators for not being as invested in it as they are?

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air makes a good point about the age of many of these people:

I’m torn. On the one hand, Chris Hayes’s populist argument in the clip is appealing. If average Americans can be forced to sit attentively through a trial while on jury duty, our rulers should bear the same burden. On the other hand, allowances must be made in a gerontocracy, buddy. If we’re going to elect octogenarians to Congress — and we do, routinely — then we can’t complain when sleepy time interferes with their duties.

Of course, senators are not the only ones who are tuning out. If you’ve been following this on cable news, you have probably heard people talking about the sagging ratings. Joe Concha, the media reporter for the Hill, recently pointed this out on Twitter:

Primetime numbers from last night on impeachment are really telling in terms of American apathy/fatigue/frustration of the whole process as we move to the Senate: Total average viewers from 8:00-11:00pm: Fox News – 3.51 million; MSNBC – 2.53 million; CNN – 1.51 million. — Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) January 22, 2020

It’s rather ironic that people are concerned about ratings, isn’t it? It reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons where Homer becomes an astronaut. At one point, the folks at NASA become panicked about their current mission and it turns out it’s all about TV ratings:

This all serves as a reminder that people who live in the DC/media bubble forget that average Americans often have very different priorities than them.

Featured image via YouTube.



