Roseanne Barr was never one of us — it’s not even clear she was ever with anyone, given her long trail of verbal wreckage and political incoherence. For months now we’ve been subjected to the narrative that the success of the “Roseanne” reboot on ABC was proof of an under-served conservative audience in the middle of the country, eager for a show that speaks their language and acknowledges their concerns. It is true that such a cohort exists, one that is tired of sitcoms taking aim at their values and closely held opinions on a nightly basis. What is not true is that “Roseanne” spoke to “conservative” audiences, which is a media shorthand for “those people” and it always has been. She is a populist, and a particularly repugnant one at that.
Do conservatives banter about beheading bankers and enforcing wealth redistribution? Barr does, and on Russian television to make it worse. Do genuine conservatives think Bush organized the Sept. 11 as an inside job? Barr apparently does. Have you ever met a practicing conservative at the William F. Buckley book club who was sure that the Boston Marathon Bombing was a false flag attack? Don’t even get me started on the burnt Jew cookies controversy.
The truth here that only a few pundits have acknowledged is that Barr doesn’t represent conservative Americans, the people who by and large are still vanguards of patriotism, free markets, faith, and smaller government. Van Jones and Glenn Beck both came to this conclusion (albeit through different paths) and it rings true in a time where populist rage is consuming the Republican Party constituency and remaking it in the image of Donald Trump.
The instinct to defend Barr is predictable and smacks of the lessons supposedly learned in 2016 about how far tribalism can carry the American voter, despite indecency after indecency. Trump could move his supporters and still does today with anger about the flimsiest attacks by the Left, which are as abundant as ever.
The “Roseanne” series was also under attack from the beginning of her reboot when the first episode aired and Barr’s character was doing an election victory lap on mainstream TV. This rallied right-wing media to the show’s defense, despite clear signs few of those ardent defenders even watched the show. The negative reviews ranged from the indifferent to the livid that “Roseanne” was mocking Hillary voters and working through uncertainty about Muslim neighbors, despite “don’t judge a book by their cover” being one of the most long-standing themes in family television. It was like an alternate reality where a show’s main character couldn’t be faced with their own prejudices and overcome them, where that trope was reserved for villains. The critique of the show itself didn’t really make sense — criticism of Barr always carried weight.
I don’t buy the idea that arch-liberals at ABC were waiting for any reason whatsoever to fire Barr and cancel their show that crushed ratings, since it raked in piles of money for the network. Before the reboot’s debut, the spots for 30-seconds ads were poised for a $166,573 payout. After the resounding success of the new season, projections were well into the $400,000s.
What makes a show profitable is the real estate for ads — declining annual viewership sometimes doesn’t even matter. Just look at the Super Bowl. ABC was enjoying a sudden perch at the top of TV ratings, with “Roseanne” taking down “The Walking Dead” by the end of the season.
Remember the Laura Ingraham boycott? Hulu, Johnson & Johnson, and SlimFast all tucked and ran after David Hogg made their presence on the program known. “Roseanne” was going to spiral into advertising mayhem within a day after the 2:30 a.m. tweet from an apparently Ambien-popping Barr.
What is clear to me is that ABC under Bob Iger and Channing Dungey had either an emergency PR plan or incredible decisiveness. In the world of PR, you better believe that ABC is as prepared as companies like Starbucks, who handled their recent racial controversy with extreme deftness and speed. ABC knew its risks with Barr on their roster, hedged for big gains, but had a contingency plan to bail out. This is murky moral territory if you practice conscious capitalism. Barr was never a culture fit for ABC/Disney to begin with, any serious background research would have yielded this knowledge, but she was profitable for the time being.
Barr is now fired from ABC, dropped by her agent, and being relegated back to a life of professional irrelevance. Fans and supporters of the show who saw something in “Roseanne” that network television is actively neglecting have every right to be disappointed, while the news will come as a surprise and will no doubt be obscured by revisionist history across our mixed media and news environment.
Remember: Only a small segment of the country even uses Twitter or follows what happens there. Leaders, pundits, and influencers on the conservative right, particularly those who call themselves conservative, have a duty to be honest about what Barr said, rebuke whataboutism, and point out that she was never truly one of their own.
Barr is a populist, a right-wing socialist, and a racist. Let her go.
Stephen Kent (@Stephen_Kent89) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the spokesperson for Young Voices and host of Beltway Banthas, a Star Wars & politics podcast in D.C.
