The Political Myth of 'Nice'

Of course it wasn’t nice when Mrs. Clinton referred to the president's supporters as “deplorables” before the election. It wasn’t nice when the “p*ssy hat” brigade led by the likes of Madonna marched on the mall after the election declaring she’d “thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.” It wasn’t nice when Brett Kavanaugh was accused of rape during his Supreme Court confirmation without a shred of evidence. It wasn’t nice when high school student Nicholas Sandmann was publicly and falsely smeared as a racist on network and cable television news.

Just this past weekend, the hashtag #WrongTrump was trending on Twitter after the death of the president’s younger brother Robert was announced. The comments weren’t nice either. “Why does God keep missing?” “I hope it was corona.” “One down, one more to go.” But probably the least nice event of the past four years was a Bernie Sanders supporter driving to a D.C. area baseball field to assassinate Republican members of Congress practicing for a charity game. Congressman Steve Scalise was nearly killed. Not nice.

The award for the most fictitious display of nice in the era of Trump might have to go to Ellen DeGeneres. To be clear, I personally enjoy her comedy. I had no reason to doubt she’s any different than the nice lady she’s always portrayed on her talk show all these years. That is until an explosive expose was released describing rampant nastiness, name-calling, racism, sexism, etc. happening behind the scenes on America’s “nicest” talk show.

It’s been reported the executive team on the show has been removed. For a clue as to just how vicious those who run Ellen’s show can be, you need look no further than the Twitter account of her executive producer Ed Glavin who is one of the most virulent, hostile leftists you’ll find on Twitter. It’s pretty hard to believe that a guy who’s that nasty and partisan publicly doesn’t behave that way all day long at work and with the blessing of the host of the show.

Ellen is said to have issued a letter of apology to her show’s staff promising to learn from her mistakes and that it “breaks her heart” to learn of the hostile environment on her show. It seems almost impossible to believe something so mean could be happening on a show hosted by a woman who is so nice…unless of course, she’s not really that nice either.

In 2016 she acknowledged the tragic suicide of a Rutgers student after he wrote he was taking his own life because he was harassed for being gay. Ellen said it was after that she decided to end each show going forward by imploring her audience to treat each other with kindness.

One year later, Matt Lauer – yes, the Matt Lauer who is also accused of doing some not nice things with subordinates at NBC – asked Ellen why she wouldn’t have President Trump on her show. “Because I’m not going to change his mind,” she told Lauer. “He’s against everything that I stand for. We need to look at someone else who looks different than us and believes in something that we don’t believe in and still accept them…”

Was the irony of that statement lost on both of them? Probably. But you can hardly blame them for missing it. It takes a lot of work and focus to pretend to be so nice.