Conservative Commentator Megyn Kelly Is Out for Revenge
By David Andrew Stoler, Feb. 28, 2023
Megyn Kelly has always been a bit of a puzzle. Her intelligence and even-handedness led her to a great law career, a superb performance as presidential debate moderator in 2015, and the unlikely combo of eponymous shows first on Fox News and then NBC. But wherever her quick wit and confident manner have led, her tendency to go rogue in the most racist, trans-, and homophobic ways possible has shortly followed, leading to her eventual ouster – albeit with a $30 million parachute – from NBC’s Megyn Kelly Today.
Her podcast, the Megyn Kelly Show, is no different. A clear success – it has racked up more than 700k subscribers on YouTube alone – it provides Kelly ample opportunity to do what she does best. Sandwiched between ads for swim spas, off-brand mattresses, and Shen Yun, is the occasional solid take – but that take is almost always immediately followed by score-settling, left-bashing, and, mostly, just plain whining.
It’s All So Unfair . . . to Me
Nothing pushes Kelly into her Janus bit faster than that which reminds her of how unfairly she thinks she was treated by NBC. Witness her reaction to the recent controversy surrounding CNN morning show anchor – and former Kelly competitor – Don Lemon. On Feb 16th she had an epic takedown of Lemon in which she used facts to bolster her case, namely the “past-prime” ages of many of the greatest women in history, including three currently serving on SCOTUS. But her Lemon arguments quickly lost focus when she ended up doubling down on the biggest plank in the Republican platform: complaining about woke culture. Said Kelly, “We’ve seen person after person…get fired because they caused offense – mere offense – when it comes to race.” Thinking of anyone in particular, Megyn?
The next week, talking to Glenn Beck, Kelly couldn’t let it go: CNN should “grow a pair,” Kelly said, before calling Lemon uncancelable. “He is protected. A Black, Gay, Liberal man gets the protections that the rest of the America doesn’t.”
Of course, the very next day, after all the ranting about Lemon’s comments re: women’s primes, Kelly devoted nearly an hour to discussing…how women can get back to their primes. This before returning to Lemon and, again, the real thing that irks her: that NBC canned her, while “CNN has supported [Lemon] all these years…. He is in a protected class, a couple of them.”
Woke Warrior
Kelly is, above all, a preeminent “media personality” who knows her audience, and the fact that she was booted for her racist views dovetails nicely with the current Republican focus on the culture wars. Episode 496 features a moving interview with young North Korean defector Yeonmi Park – but Kelly betrays her real motivation for the piece when she compares American wokeism to the DPRK. “Talk to us,” Kelly says, “about what your first exposure to ‘Wait why are they saying this and why this is eerily reminiscent of where I came from?’” It is only then – over an hour into the interview – that listeners find out Park is actually the author of a recent tirade against wokeism.
Similarly, episode 499 is nominally about the Alex Murdaugh murder trial, but before Kelly can turn her keen lawyer’s eye on Murdaugh she can’t help but take a few stabs at “owning the libs” with right wing podcast king Ben Shapiro — bringing it all back in the end to…Don Lemon, of course.
What’s It All About, Megyn?
Kelly’s popularity continues to climb – the number of subscribers to her podcast on the Castbox platform rose 11 percent in the fourth quarter of last year. And her appeal to the Right is clear: an intelligent woman with a bone to pick with woke culture brings both the facts and, for some, the yuks. Still, one has to wonder about Kelly’s end-goal here: fallen from her perch as arguably the leading newswoman in America, is she more concerned with thoughtful reporting, selling mattresses, or using her platform to get back at those who’ve wronged her? Fact is, minus the thoughtfulness she sounds a whole lot like her favorite recent ex-president: out for revenge.
David Andrew Stoler’s writing has appeared in the Guardian, Politico, and McSweeney’s, among many others. He is the founder of misanthropictures, an independent film company whose award-winning work tells the stories of the traditionally underrepresented.
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Kelly is, above all, a preeminent “media personality” who knows her audience, and the fact that she was booted for her racist views dovetails nicely with the current Republican focus on the culture wars. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
