Don Lemon was big on dropping f-bombs in a foul-mouth podcast shortly before ringing in the New Year.

He left CNN in disgrace, but has the luxury of repeating past mistakes in his new job as a podcaster in a self-styled format called, the “Don Lemon Show.” His lack of self-control -- not that he ever possessed much -- was in full display, calling Trump supporters “dumb f***ing idiots” and mocked their “stupid MAGA brains.”

Gee, Don -- that’s a little harsh, even by the absurdly biased standards of your former CNN colleagues. Lemon is in for a long four years, given what set him off in the first place. He was unloading on President-elect Donald Trump for having changed his position on a visa issue, now expressing support for issuing H-1B visas for highly-skilled workers.

“Oh no, immigration,” Lemon’s mocking narrative continued. “We can’t do the immigration because, you know, the immigration it triggers some people.” While this brief detour into immigration politics appeared to give viewers a slight reprieve from a steady stream of expletives, it was short-lived. “You’ve been co-opted because you’re in a f***ing cult. And you don’t even realize it.” In case viewers missed his main point, he added: “How stupid and dumb are you?”

Here's a more pertinent question. Didn’t Lemon get the New Year’s memo on the loss of media relevance? Corporate media is sinking in perilous waters of low ratings, so dispiriting that many feel as if they are on the Titanic. They have learned at the cost of losing their audience that turning journalism into a cesspool of biased coverage fails to reach the masses.

Lemon would be well advised to take notes on the changing landscape in a post-election world. Living in an echo chamber can prove fatal to one’s personal appeal and professional status. For instance, his colleagues at CNN must have felt shell-shocked watching their ratings plummet more than 40 percent to an all-time low of 488,000 daytime viewers, in November and fared little better with 700,000 evening viewers.

Newscasters for too long had relied heavily on outdoing one another with Trump-bashing. Newscaster Joy Reid, who still has a job at MSNBC, must have been concerned about her Trump-Hitler-comparisons falling flat given the frequency of the inane analogies. (She does deserve credit for resisting foul language.) As Trump gained momentum in 2024, she came up with a greater historic fantasy associating the Trump Jan. 6 protest being on par with Hitler’s well-known historic revolt called the, “Beer Hall Putsch.”

Her colleague, Claire McCaskill, a “political analyst,” was left with little to surpass this verbal stink bomb. But, in a moment “that will live in infamy” (to quote one historical figure), she came up with the winning journalistic falsehood: She alleged that Trump was “more dangerous” than Hitler and Mussolini put together.

Another way to interpret McCaskill’s political insights can be found in the ratings: MSNBC primetime viewers numbered a record low of 465,000 in November.

The “Don Lemon Show” appears to be on course to meet the same fate as his position on CNN. It doesn’t appear Lemon is taking into consideration the collapse of his professional sector including: massive layoffs (15,000 media jobs lost in 2024); corporate selloffs (Comcast reported to make MSNBC a separate entity), and salary reductions impacting such liberal luminaries as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who reportedly has agreed to reduce her annual salary from $30 million to $25 million over the next three years.

The $5 million reduction shouldn’t cause Maddow any real upset in the grocery store line or gas pump, unlike those Trump supporters whom she vilifies as “uneducated” and “white supremacists.” She was one of the ultimate Trump critics, whose TDS condition (Trump Derangement Syndrome) had once protected her big-fat salary.

Such dire winds of doom haven’t impacted Lemon’s personal style of reporting. He was right back to dropping his f*** bombs when he was confronted by media critics in the aftermath of his online rant.

Lowering his standards, once again (which is saying something), his response to “butthurt critics” was that their objections were “too f***ing bad.” It’s a good thing Lemon repeatedly refers to himself as both a “black” and “gay man;” otherwise, some may throw the “h” word (homophobic) at him for describing his critics as “butthurt.”

Regrettably Lemon’s vocabulary remains stuck in a rut: But that sophomoric approach to reporting can’t compare to his abysmal lack of political insight and refusal to move beyond the echo chamber where blatantly unprofessional reporting has become tiresome and not worth watching for an American audience.

Image: At via Magic Studio