MSNBC is set to host a live political event shortly after Labor Day, and if imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, then Fox News should be red-faced with gratitude for how closely this strategy—and tagline—mirrors its own.

News broke earlier this week that MSNBC will host a live event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on September 7th, allowing obsessive viewers of the progressive-leaning channel to see their favorite network stars in person. And if the event, billed as Democracy 2024, sounds familiar, it’s because Fox News has been using that precise tagline for its general election coverage, evidenced by the promo embedded above.

Mediaite’s write-up of the MSNBC press release includes the following details:

The network is hosting an interactive event in Brooklyn on Sept. 7 that will feature MSNBC’s biggest names discussing November’s presidential election for attendees. The event will take place at the Brooklyn Academy of Music at 7 p.m.

MSNBC Live creative director Luke Russert, the son of Tim Russert, will moderate two sessions focused on the election. The first will feature MSNBC stars Jen Psaki, Chris Hayes, Joy Reid, Alex Wagner, Andrea Mitchell, and Katy Tur leading a discussion on the election and the “critical stretch of the campaign.”

Steve Kornacki will also be at the first session breaking down the latest polling data for the audience as he does on the network, always with an election map and stacks upon stacks of paper accompanying him.

Now, the idea of being in a large theater in Downtown Brooklyn filled with MSNBC obsessives is every bit as freaky to me as going to The Villages for a live taping of Fox Nation’s Patriot Awards, though I admit to becoming misanthropic in a large crowd of precisely like-minded people.

And while there are few terms to work with that sum up the political year that we are in better than “Democracy” and the year that we are in, taking a long-established tagline used by a competitor is a pretty clumsy move, sure to borrow mockery and complaints from said competitor. To wit, a Fox News insider ridiculed the move, saying, “This reeks of MSNBC’s usual desperation but sadly not surprising given they’re incapable of having an original thought.”

Of course, it’s newsworthy that MSNBC is leveraging their most adulated talent into a live event. However, the strategy reeks a little of the “conference revenue stream” tactic intended to save magazines with newfound revenue. (It did not.) Fox News started hosting live events five years ago in 2019, and it appears to have successfully launched its sponsor-friendly Patriot Award franchise. One can see what MSNBC is getting at here as cable news ratings continue declining, even if it is a rip-off.

However, MSNBC’s apparent flouting of any respect for a long-established tagline by a competitor for their own game suggests that programming executives are bereft of original ideas and are left to copy the homework of their more successful competitors.

Imagine if Fox News launched a new morning show hosted by former House Republican turned contributor Jason Chaffetz called “Morning Chafe” as a direct competitor to Morning Joe. That would receive deserved mockery (outside the talcum powder industry), and for good reason! It’s a stolen idea, not unlike Mac and Me being a McDonald’s sponsored rip-off of E.T.

The post If MSNBC’s ‘Democracy 2024’ Event Seems Familiar It’s Because Its Ripped Directly from the Fox News Playbook first appeared on Mediaite.

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