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MSNBC news anchor, Rachel Maddow responded to the election results by declaring that she has been given “marching orders from the universe” to protect democracy from its own president-elect because “this is what we’re on this earth to do”.
“Half the country went to bed sad tonight but then woke up tomorrow fired up with a new sense of purpose,” she told viewers.
In reality, most of the country was watching someone else.
Ratings on Maddow’s weekly show and MSNBC as a whole have collapsed after Mr Trump romped home in the election, winning the popular vote and all of the seven closest battleground states.
Republicans also won back the Senate and would later maintain control of the House of Representatives.
Maddow, whom a magazine profiler once called the “wonkiest anchor on television”, is also one of its best paid and, according to Fox news, earns a reported $25 million salary on a five-year contract.
Bob’s Burger’s beats viewing figures
However, the news outlet reported that her pay had been cut from a high of $30 million as part of a new deal this month.
The pay cut comes as the bespectacled Democrat’s viewership is falling faster.
Her flagship Rachel Maddow show, which has been on the air since 2008, attracted just 1.3 million viewers when it aired on Monday, being beaten by episodes of Bob’s Burgers and Family Guy, tongue-in-cheek animated comedies for adults, in the same time slot.
Among the key 25 to 54 demographic, highly sought-after by advertisers, the show attracted a mere 84,000 viewers.
MSNBC as a whole has lost 47 per cent of its audience since election night compared to the rest of the year, data from Nielsen Media Research shows.
It averaged just 497,000 total-day viewers, of whom just 49,000 were aged 25-54.
Since the scale of Mr Trump’s victory became clear, the verdict of audiences has been swift and brutal.
CNN, a rival liberal broadcaster, has seen its own decline of 33 per cent in total-day viewers – which is significant, but less pronounced than MSNBC.
MSBNC is being dragged down – and its highest-paid and best-known anchor could be to blame.
Maddow speaks with an emotional and quasi-religious fervour about the causes she takes up.
She wears her emotions and political inclinations – the two are rarely separated – on her smart black blazer sleeve.
In a country that has moved further towards Mr Trump since 2016, Maddow risks being thrust into political irrelevance as she is abandoned by her Left-wing base.
Left-leaning viewers are either growing tired of progressive hysteria prompted by Mr Trump’s appointment, or growing wise to the fact that Maddow’s brand of patronising lefty preaching does not help the Democrats to win elections.
In 2018, amid reports that children who illegally crossed the border had been taken from their parents and kept in cages as part of the Trump administration’s “family separation” policy, she burst into tears.
“Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children –” she said before breaking off and placing a hand to her lips. “To at least three –” and stopped again.
