Via the MRC, I’m afraid to leave the computer for five minutes lest I miss the next viral clip of anti-Trump one-upsmanship on MSNBC. Rick Stengel wants to compare supporting Trump to supporting apartheid? Well, Donny Deutsch will see that claim and raise him by calling all of Trump’s supporters accessories to mass murder.

How is today’s extended Two Minutes Hate on Nicolle Wallace’s show going to top this?

This is the same guy, by the way, who said this just a few weeks ago:

“It is time for the Democrats to wake up. We are playing against cheaters and liars or stealers.”

He went on to offer a different rendition of former first lady Michelle Obama’s slogan, “When they go low, we go high.” Deutsch said, “When they go low, we got to do whatever we have to do.”

“We may not have won the battle of impeachment, but we’re going to win the war of putting him in jail whatever we have to do and we’re not going to necessarily play fair,” Deutsch said. “For all the intellectuals out there whose hair is going to go on fire, ‘But we’re becoming like them. We’re becoming like them,’ we cannot lose the next election. We will go back 50 years.”

That’s emblematic of where MSNBC is going, assuming they’re not already there. After two and a half years of complaining about Trump violating norms of liberal democracy, they’re now shifting towards Deutsch’s position that norms are for suckers when you’re facing a threat as dire as Donald J. Trump. That’s the Joaquin Castro doxx-list episode in a nutshell, really: Normally it’d be unthinkable for a congressman to nudge his supporters to harass little-known people for the crime of donating to an opponent, but these are no longer normal times, it’s said. Anything goes, and must go in the name of saving the republic. Should that idea spread and blood end up being spilled, rest assured that MSNBC will deny that there’s any on its own hands.

Although Scarborough’s 2015-16 ass-kissing of Trump is common knowledge, it’s less well known that Trump and Deutsch used to be buddies. I’m embedding a second clip below, from April 2016, as a reminder. It’s Deutsch presciently predicting that Trump would not only go on to clinch the nomination but that he’d beat Hillary Clinton, and to all appearances he’s quite pleased at the prospect. Joe and Mika don’t seem dour about it either even though by that point all of the hallmarks of what kind of presidency Trump would have were already well known. Trump warning of immigrant rapists bringing drugs across the border; Trump calling for a ban on Muslims globally from entering the U.S. until we can “figure out what’s going on”; Trump hinting darkly that riots would ensue if he lost a floor fight for the nomination at a brokered convention; Trump gloating that the military would obey his orders even if they were illegal. It was all common knowledge in April 2016 and yet “Morning Joe” was still captivated by the outsider who had upended the system. Don’t ever forget.