Do you remember the Washington Generals, a hapless team of basketball players whose role as foil was to be humiliated by the Harlem Globetrotters? The modern equivalent is to be the designated liberal on a Fox News panel - Juan Williams has done a lot of this, so does Bob Beckel.
George Will, as an anti-Trump conservative, will now fill the analogous role for MSNBC, according to Politico. On their liberal programming, he will be the 'tame' conservative who provides ideological balance while excoriating Trump.
The problem with this role is that, however eloquently you propound your views, your audience is people who have self-selected a channel with the opposite bias to your own. They are predisposed to ignore you, to laugh at your earnest attempts to explain your views as we once laughed as the Globetrotters made fools of the Generals.
I suppose Will needs to make a living or have a platform. There isn't a lot of demand for anti-Trump conservatives now except as a foil for liberals to put down.
It's a paycheck, but instead of preaching to the choir, it's preaching temperance to a saloon full of rowdy drunks, not very dignified or successful. He got used to it, I guess, on ABC all those pre-Fox years.
