Warnings that progressives need to compromise rightward or lose big in 2022 midterms are misplaced.
Limbaugh’s death was a seismic, politically devastating turning point for the GOP and Trump, and the analysts completely missed it — like they did talk radio’s political role the last 30 years.
Manchin, Sinema, and other conservadems are making a big mistake. The Age of Limbaugh is over. He won’t be there to rationalize and make excuses for their sabotage of Biden and the Democratic Party and redirect the blame. He won’t be there to convince their constituents that it wasn’t their fault that the Gulf stream stopped and Europe’s temperatures suddenly dropped 10 degrees. The made-to-order pro-corporate constituencies that Team Limbaugh created to enable and intimidate ‘moderate’ Democrats are going to scatter. And if Manchin and Sinema are threatening to escape to the GOP they’re going to be sorely disappointed in their long term minority status, made worse by infighting and ongoing investigations of Trump treason and other crimes.
Recently Rachel Maddow (great show) demonstrated the problem with ignore-ance of Republican radio. On two nights I heard her report on the Dominion lawsuit and Rudy Giuliani’s deposition, insinuating Facebook and maybe Russian sources for his claims of a stolen 2020 election. She and others have suggested that Nov 19 2020 event was a major trigger for the Jan 6 insurrection. Were her researchers aware that the Giuliani/Powell press conference was timed to start with the Limbaugh show? Limbaugh talked all through the ‘conference’, echoing Giuliani and Powell attacks and lies. He had a script and knew what they were going to say.
Much of the global warming denial constituency that enables Manchin was created over 3 decades of RW radio. In 2009 Russians hacked East Anglia Climate Institute scientist emails and then Wikileaks did its thing. Limbaugh called some of the emails taken out of context proof that global warming was a hoax and within a week had created ‘climategate’ for mainstream media — just in time to derail Obama at the Copenhagen climate conference. Putin made many more oil and gas billions thanks to Limbaugh.
From Mother Jones 2017/12
7 Years Before Russia Hacked the Election, Someone Did the Same Thing to Climate Scientists
“Why does this story sound so darned familiar?”
Someone needs to tell Manchin he’s working for Putin too, not just the Kochs.
And who got Limbaugh to spend weeks pushing Tea Party Republicans vs establishment Republicans into near debt default in 2011? How many of the rich Americans Limbaugh used to serve wanted that then and want to risk it again now?
Limbaugh called ‘Lord’ Conrad Black an advisor and mentor. Black pushed for Russian acceptance into the G8.
Limbaugh’s death greatly reduces the effectiveness of the only unique advantage Republicans have had. Limbaugh was the closest thing Republicans had to a consistent moral and intellectual ‘leader’ over those 3 decades. Pitiful but true. He taught them how to rationalize their bigotry, corruption, and hypocrisy and blame everything on Democrats. Conservative, corporate, fundamentalist, and Russian influence in US politics has been significantly weakened and progressives are acting as if nothing happened.
Much of the extremism showing up now in Republicans may be part of a grieving process. They lost their leader. The dittohead/teabag/trumper GOP base is uncertain what to think or say, although some recognize Trump as a torchbearer. Whether they got it directly or indirectly, maybe Limbaugh had a moderating effect on radical Republicans, teaching them they could ‘own the libs’ instead of shoot them.
Over those 30 years of the Age of Limbaugh Republican politicians became increasingly dependent on nationally and locally coordinated (unlike Fox) RW radio stations to win primaries and elections. Thom Hartmann repeated my simple math that quantifies Republican radio’s importance: if the GOP, the NRA, Trump, and Putin would pay $1000 for a one hour radio infomercial, 1200 stations x 15 hrs/day are worth $90M/week or almost $5B/year. All that is FREE and endorsed by advertisers, ad agencies, at least 87 universities, and the numerous professional sports teams that use it.
Limbaugh’s 3 hour daily show on 600 of the loudest radio stations in the US set the tone for all talk shows on those stations as well as 1000 other Republican radio stations. Very few of Limbaugh’s loyal listeners (dittoheads) could get past the few daily orchestrated callers and kiss their leader’s ring so they called other hosts, call screeners, producers, and managers to repeat Limbaugh’s lies and make sure all talkers on 1500 radio stations were on the same page. Limbaugh even provided a daily transcript to help.
The Limbaugh replacement wannabes all likely learned their politics from Limbaugh. They know Democrats are godless socialists trying to take their ‘god given’ freedoms and destroy American democracy and trickle-down capitalism. They know everything Democrats do is bad and any Republican who compromises with them is a traitor. When not selling the latest GOP talking points they will blame Biden and Democrats for everything.
Dan Bongino, one of Limbaugh’s replacements on 300 Cumulus radio stations, very recently threatened to quit over the company vaccine mandate (you go Danny boy!). From www.washingtonpost.com/… Nov/18/2021.
Conservative pundit Dan Bongino threatens to quit radio giant over vaccination mandate
‘I don’t see this going forward as a workable arrangement,’ Bongino said of his radio distributor’s vaccination requirement
Maybe it’s a cover and he’s getting screamed at by dittoheads for not doing Limbaugh right. Or the audiences aren’t tuning in. Or advertising dropped off.
Here are another couple of the other Llimbaugh replacements, on 400 stations:
Limbaugh used to lay out a regular smorgasbord of talking point lies, denials, and rationalizations RW media and authoritarian audiences could pick through every day to help them reduce complicated issues into simple certainties and help them judge the world in blacks and whites. Can Bevis and the Buttheads do that?
Can these second-rate liars intimidate Republican politicians and leaders the way Limbaugh did? Are Republican leaders going to trust the new blowhards to spin events and bad news the way they want? Will Russia be able to influence them with the same intermediaries? Can they sell lies with anything near the same Limbaugh levels of royal certitude? Will they all agree with each other? Will other Republican media tools on radio and Fox parrot these bozos like they did Limbaugh? Can these twits sell global warming denial like Limbaugh? Will they?
After Mitch McConnell briefly turned on Trump after he lost the 2020 election Limbaugh dissed him by revealing that McConnell had called him after many elections whenever Republicans either lost or failed to regain the senate to assure him that Democrats would need 60 votes to pass anything. Will McConnell be calling Danny, Clay, and Buck for anything? Can any Republican politician trust them to keep their mouths shut about such things?
It’s possible Manchin and Sinema have little interest in future politics and have been guaranteed big paydays in they lose their next elections. Or they may be betting global warming ain’t that bad, republicans will retake the house and maybe senate, Trump will make a comeback, and their power plays will set them up as prominent players.
It’s more likely that without top Trump supporter Limbaugh to keep that $5B/yr free propaganda advantage on track the GOP will begin a long term decline as truth and facts start catching up to them. And the Manchins and Sinemas and ‘moderate’ democrats helping them obstruct Biden will be known as irrelevant corrupt dupes who delayed action on global warming, causing more species extinction, death, and destruction. And found no future in the Democratic or any other party.
With Limbaugh rotting in some mausoleum somewhere that might be inevitable but Democrats can also accelerate the process.
Democrats and their allied organizations can:
- urge investigation of Russian use of political talk radio the US and other countries
- make it commercially disastrous for advertisers and ad companies to support Republican talk radio
- push 87 universities as well as pro sports teams to look for apolitical alternatives to broadcast sports on. Regardless of legal issues or complaints from Republicans, one or two universities or teams, or famous athletes, could start a cascade of community debates that frighten off large numbers of advertisers and accelerates number 1
- develop the MIT prototype for using artificial intelligence to automatically record, transcribe, and analyze large samples of political talk radio in the US and elsewhere so the lying and repetition can be quantified and is no longer ignored. The potential use of AI will also accelerate 1 and 2.
Two recent developments will force the ad industry to democratize RW radio. Push it.
The biggest political mistake in history. It's the radio, stupid.