"This is as cynical as it gets,” one [ABC employee wrote of the Roseanne reboot premiere episode] “This is putting makeup and a million-dollar dress on pure, unabashed intolerance.”
"...According to an article in the New York Times, ABC executives met on Nov. 8, 2016, the morning of the presidential election, and discussed strategies to appeal to the heartland of America, a population they felt they had ignored with their recent schedule of multicultural sitcoms. The same Channing Dungey who would cancel "Roseanne" a year and a half later reportedly remarked that the network’s top brass felt as if they had forgotten a large portion of prospective viewers..."
"While most corporations are advertising multiculturalism and betting their money on progress and inclusion, ABC’s strategy was to reach every potential market, even if that meant receiving blowback in the process..."
"The show's writers and producers set out to portray the Conners as the sanitized family Trump voters believed themselves to be.
But in due course, Roseanne Barr, the authentic article, couldn’t maintain her cover and revealed herself as the embodiment of the racist and paranoid reflection Trump’s base feared when they looked into the mirror..."
“This is what happens when you get into business with racists and try to normalize racism as 'giving the other side a voice,'” an ABC/Disney personality told [Salon reporter Jared Yates Sexton] a few minutes after the cancellation had been announced. “There is no other side of racism.”
www.salon.com/...