Megyn Kelly's Perniciously 'Politics-Free' New Morning Show - The Atlantic - 0 views
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“The personal is political” is not merely a rallying cry of a women’s movement from which Kelly has, in public, disassociated herself; it is also the osmotic reality of an America whose president was elevated to the position with the help of reality TV, and in which late-night hosts are shaping healthcare policy for millions of Americans, and in which politics, for many, have daily consequences of life and death.
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As Megyn Kelly knows—as she knows perhaps better than most—politics infuse even, and especially, the things that claim to be apolitical. Even in the morning. Even in a faux-windowed studio in the middle of New York City. The weather is political. The water is political. Football is political. Alex Jones is political. The New Black Panther Party is political. Tamron Hall is political. Swimming pools are political. Santa Claus is political. The phrase “we all feel it” is political.
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Kelly summarized the previous segment’s discussion: “We talked a bit about this show’s impact, and culturally”—Kelly repeated the word for emphasis—“culturally, it had a huge impact.” And then she mentioned the famous interview in which Joe Biden credited Will & Grace with doing more than anything else to bring about the (extremely political) legality of same-sex marriage.
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Kelly’s first full segment found the host interviewing the cast of Will & Grace—a show that has remained relevant and beloved in large part because of, yes, its politics.
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Chicago, and particularly the crime rates of that city, have been a particular touchpoint for the Trump presidency. “If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on,” he tweeted in January, “... I will send in the Feds!”
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all of it building up to the final segment, the one Kelly had been teasing most excitedly throughout the hour: a serious-toned, news-magazine-style profile of Sister Donna Liette. The 77-year-old woman, Kelly said, lowering her voice dramatically, “faced with violence tearing apart her Chicago neighborhood … decided to do something about it.”
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Which is to say that Kelly’s choice of interview subject—the “nun taking back her streets”—was deeply political. It celebrated the work of a single white woman, working to “take back her streets” (her streets). It whiffed of “the girl was no saint, either” and “he just is white.”
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“How many murders do you hear about a week?” she asked.“Probably five or six or seven a week, at least,” Liette replied.“It’s like living in a war zone,” Kelly said. It was not a question.
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At her worst, though, Kelly has engaged in a particularly insidious brand of political argument: the kind that refuses to admit itself as politics at all. The kind sees things from a narrow perspective, but claims to be omnivisual. The kind that lobs grenades into the culture war and then innocently throws up its empty hands. The kind that says, before it talks of Joe Biden and Donald Trump and taking back her streets, “I am kind of done with politics for now.”