Twenty-five years ago, Representative Joe Scarborough was a Gingrich Republican, swept into office in the Republican wave of 1994. He was, in many respects, one of the most radical members of that freshman class, and a leader of the ’90s equivalent of the Freedom Caucus. In the 2000s, he became a standard-issue conservative talking head. MSNBC hired him to be vocal proponent of the Iraq War on a channel that had developed an untimely reputation for leaning a little too far to the left. (They cleared out poor Phil Donahue, a critic of the war, to make room for him.)

On his original MSNBC show, Scarborough Country, a transparent O’Reilly Factor clone, he was a gleeful right-wing culture warrior, devoting segments to the evils of feminists and the shameful behavior of the cursed Dixie Chicks. (Here is some representative Scarborough Country dialogue: “Pat Buchanan, let me go to you. It looks like, according to this New York Times article, that illegal immigration is exploding in Arizona and across the southwest. Do you think President Bush’s amnesty work program for illegals may be to blame?”)

Since then, Scarborough has been reborn as Morning Joe, the genial and reasonable host of a chat show beloved by liberals (who go on television a lot) and moderates (who go on television a lot) and nonpartisan journalists (who go on television a lot) alike.



Nine years ago, Joe Walsh was a Tea Party Republican, swept into office in the 2010 GOP wave. He was perhaps the most media-friendly member of that new class of Republicans, and a reliable right-wing voice on any given subject. One of his own GOP colleagues described him to BuzzFeed’s Kate Nocera as one of the most “vitriolic, partisan members of our conference.”

Walsh’s legislative career was short-lived—two years later, he lost his reelection bid to Tammy Duckworth. By 2016, however, he had reemerged as a pro-Trump, right-wing talk-radio guy, who regularly tossed off inflammatory racist comments for attention, still referring to President Barack Obama as a Muslim. You might recall Walsh letting it be known that he’d be “grabbing his musket” in the event Hillary Clinton won the election.