Yesterday on All In with Chris Hayes on MS NOW, former Republican Tara Setmayer delivered a familiar pre-midterm sermon.
Framed as an “ex-Republican” insider, she used the segment to attack GOP lawmakers, praise a handful of Indiana Republicans who opposed redistricting, and paint a dark picture of “Trump’s America.”
Setmayer said:
When their power is threatened, that’s usually when they are the least courageous. There were only a handful of Republicans, elected Republicans, who did this and they lost, either lost their seats or retired. So, um, good for the Indiana folks who did stand up and say no to the redistricting and said this is not what we want, but they may pay for it with their, with their seats, but you know what?
Some things are bigger then your elected office. There’s life after the elected office. And I think, you know, courage is contagious and people are willing to say and willing to risk their careers to do the right thing. Then maybe that will catch on to other people.
But that’s a big, if, you know, the power is very intoxicating in politics, but in Trump’s America, that’s what this is about. In Trump’s America, it’s about ballrooms and, and billionaires and bullying and this is what happens. And so, uh, people need to decide, is this really where they wanna go?
That guy that you showed in the beginning is, is a microcosm of the Trump supporter who has been betrayed. Donald Trump has betrayed every level of his, uh, of his base, from farmers to military to blue collar workers to the small business owner. He’s betrayed all of them because in Trump’s America, he doesn’t care about any of them.
He just cares about enriching himself and enriching his billionaire power brokers. And it’s playing out in the polls every single day. And he clearly doesn’t have a real strategy of actually doing anything that, that benefits the American people who he promised he would make life better for. Because this is not the posture of someone who actually gives a damn about the midterms and about improving people’s lives.
Setmayer, a paid MS NOW regular, presents herself as the former Republican insider bravely criticizing her old party. In truth, she is doing exactly what MS NOW pays anti-Trump former Republicans to do: deliver validation for the network’s anti-Trump storyline.
The segment framed Republicans who oppose Trump as courageous heroes, while those who support him are portrayed as power-hungry cowards. But redistricting battles are not moral crusades — they are routine politics practiced by both parties for decades.
TV shows are free to criticize Trump, reject redistricting maps, or oppose the GOP. But stop pretending this is news. It is paid partisan commentary wearing a “former Republican” costume.
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