Driving from Kentucky to Texas with a broken CD player in the car wasn't fun. In the days before cell phones and the internet, that meant relying on the radio for entertainment in the car. But towns large enough to support an FM radio station with decent music are few and far between in the Ozarks of Southern Missouri. So I settled on an AM station in Poplar Bluff, hoping for Paul Harvey or some middle of the road music until I got closer to a larger place. That's when I was first introduced to Rush Limbaugh.
I had no idea who he was, nor did I know at the time that he was a network syndicate based in New York. I thought he was some Arkansas or Missouri bumpkin who was just mad at the world because he didnt think he was getting his fair share of it. It did not take long to decide that it was time to change stations. Even in the early days, he was blaming all of America's problems on "the libs," the government elitists in both parties, but especially in the Democratic party, the women's liberation movement which he labelled with the affectionate term, "feminazis," violating journalistic principle. He was openly racist, mocking African American accents, associating them with socialism and communism and claiming that any black civil rights move was intended to "take over" the government and turn it into an even bigger welfare state.
But, you know, you can get away with that sort of thing under the first amendment.
In an educated, civilized society that is heavily influenced by Protestant Christian values, someone like Limbaugh should have failed to gain enough of a following to attract enough advertisers to his program to pay the bills. His audience was a niche, a group that, at its peak, numbered about a million and a half people over the course of his two hour daily broadcast. But unfortunately, there are not quite enough educated, civilized, politically mature Americans to prevent it from generating income to sustain it and to profit its founder, taking him from being a broken-down deejay to a multi-millionaire.
Unlike some of those in extremist right wing media, I believe Limbaugh really did believe the trash he talked. His central theme, in virtually every broadcast he ever made, regardless of the political position he took, was hate directed toward those who disagreed. Anyone who doesn't accept his view of politics is a "lib," and "libs" are the enemy. That's not just a figure of speech, that's exactly the point he made for all of the years that he was on the air. The "libs" are the enemy, and they include the "drive-by media," "femi-nazis," Democrats, Rinos, African American and Latino political activists, and the educated.
And, according to Limbaugh, there can be no compromise with the enemy. If the liberals aren't in the majority, then the objective is to shut them out and not consider any compromise that would avoid gridlock and bring about beneficial legislation. In Limbaugh's mind, it was better not to get your own bill passed than it was to do it by compromising with the enemy. He took every Republican from Bush I to Trump to task on that principle.
Limbaugh was behind the January 6 insurrection as sure as Trump gave the speech that lit the match causing the isurrection. No, he wasn't there, but his perspective on politics and his influtence within that far right, extremist fringe of Republicanism certainly was.
The Prevailing Themes on Which He Build an Audience
What constitutes the defining aspects of being American, in Limbaugh's view, is the predominantly Caucasian society that has developed here as a result of colonization and displacement of the native population. Of the genocide of Native Americans that resulted from white, European settlement, Limbaugh once said, "What are they complaining about? They all own casinos."
So to be an American, as far as Limbaugh was concerned, was to accept and assimilate into all of the aspects of white, Anglo Saxon, Protestant culture because that is the dominant culture in the United States. America is a land of freedom and opportunity as long as everyone acknowledges that it is built on a Caucasian racial and cultural foundation.
He saw the racial and social issues that characterize the African American community as their failure to accept and assimilate into the dominant white culture and not the result of literally hundreds of years of discrimination that denied the descendants of former slaves equal opportunity for success. He claims that "liberal immigration policy" when it comes to allowing immigrants from Latin America into the country are a danger to the preservation of representative democracy, and the propensity for them to fall into old, cultural habits that lead to dicatorships increases as the number of Latin American immigrants increases. Can you believe that? It was an ongoing theme of his.
He saw liberals as enemies of representative democracy, believing, or at least widely dissemniating the idea, that they are connected to some sort of "new world order" that pushes racial and ethnic equality and is bent on removing the nationalist "qualities" of being American as a way to bring about this equality. The "other side," those who are advocating for equal rights under the law, are "the enemy." In Limbaugh's mind, they represent an illegitimate perspective that should not be protected by free speech, even though they are fellow Americans, and are all the beneficiaries of the same constititionally guaranteed rights. In his view, there can be no negotiation or compromise, because these people are out to destroy what he has defined as being American culture and values. Limbaugh's America is not a land of racial, ethnic and cultural diversity, it is a country where accepting the cultural domination of the majority race is a requirement to bring about a sense of unity as a nation. In his view, unity can only be achieved when minority culture and political views submit to the majority and assimilate into the culture.
But, if this really is the America that constitutionally protects individual freedom and believes that "all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," then acceptance of and assimilation into the majority culture is not only unnecessary, but would, by definition, also be un-American. That's not liberty, it's a form of racial discrimination.
The Goal is Making Money, Not National Unity
Limbaugh, and the train of wannabee right wing media personalities that have followed along, made a personal fortune off peddling hatred. It was to their personal benefit, not to the country's benefit, to keep people stirred up, behaving and specifically voting in a way that perpetuates this particular worldview. As long as they have a following, and are listening to the broadcasts, advertisers are putting up money to keep it on the air. And they have a paycheck and all the perks that go with it.
How patriotic is that? Continuing to foster divisiveness that has people at each other's throats, openly threatening Civil War, believing that fellow Americans are an enemy, instead of just exercising their rights as a citizen to voice a different view, which is the essence of American culture is unAmerican. It is the ethnic and racial diversity of this country, the fact that people have brought their culture with them and in the United States, have the liberty to live as they choose, speak whatever language they choose and express themselves as they choose, that brings about true unity. And it's what makes America the great country that it is.
It is not in the best interests of the United States to keep the bigotry, prejudice and hatred going and growing. it seems to be in the best interests of most of the commentators and personalities of the extreme right wing media. And while you hear debate with facts and opinions from those in the media who are considered favorable to the left, they don't call their opponents enemies and they don't suggest that they shouldn't have the right to free speech or to express themselves by voting.
So How Do We Change This?
As I said at the beginning, if we had a society in which most people were genuinely educated, in which they understood and practiced the true mission and purpose of their faith, and gathered facts before making decisions, this kind of media would have trouble gathering enough listeners to make a difference Unfortunately we don't have it, and as long as so-called commentators can make a buck off misinformation and pandering to fear, extremists in the media will have an audience that generates revenue for them. When Limbaugh started, he was more or less the only national outlet for right wing propaganda, and now he's been followed by several others who more or less have to share the same niche. Some have not been able to make it financially, since the media outlets that they use also need to make money to stay in business, but it has also led to some of them becoming even more extreme, raising the level of their rhetoric and getting pretty far out there to keep the money rolling in. That's the pitch that led to January 6th.
Politically, this gets handled by the right the same way they handle the right to bear arms, taking it completely out of its constitutional context, which includes responsibility, and interpreting the second amendment to mean that you can own any gun you want, as many as you want. Free speech means you can say anything you want. But inciting an insurrection is not protected free speech under any originalist interpretation of the constitution, and the first step in fighting this is to make sure that arrests, convictions and jail sentences continue to await those who participated in January 6th, along with all of those who promoted and supported it. Those who were the primary organizers of it, like Steve Bannon and the former President, need to be convicted of the most severe crimes and jailed for long enough sentences to make the point. A decade would not be long enough.
There are multiple avenues for spreading falsehoods, conspiracy theories and the hatrred that goes with it. Those should also be channels for countering it. I wish I could remember the name of the journalist who used to come on one of the powerful, midwestern AM radio stations at night who picked up on Rush's falsehoods and lies, skewed facts and conspiracy theories, did his research, and countered everything he said with the truth. I think there were also some "anti-Rush" broadcasts in some of the larger East Coast cities, and in Washington, DC. It goes against the principles of progressives and liberals to design something that is completely biased, but that may be the only way to limit the effectiveness of for-profit political hate speech.
Bring Back the "Fairness Doctrine"
Somehow, the profit needs to be taken out of propaganda. We're Americans and we should be very good at figuring out how to make propaganda much less profitable while rewarding journalism that is fair and balanced, without violating any free speech principles. I've heard that a return to the Fairness Doctrine of "free and equal time" requirement that the FCC once had in place, which required broadcast stations to provide free and equal response time to any political statements or programs, would be a good way to accomplish this. Limbaugh's ability to ramble on for two hours a day would never have been possible prior to the de-regulation of broadcast stations if his network outlets had been required to offer two hours of progressive, liberal programming at prime time as a balance to his show.
Use friendly venues to promote truth. California Governor Gavin Newsom made an appearance on The View December 6th and laid out the scientific facts about COVID, the omicron variant and the effectiveness of vaccinations. From that appearance, news sources had information to cite, including the fact that California has the highest percentage of vaccinated adults in the nation, and as a result, the third lowest positivity rate, and a rapidly declining death rate. That's a good place to start. The View is the most watched program on daytime television.
The conservative right in this country constantly claims that it believes in the rule of law. If that's the case, then the courts need to enforce it. And that includes in cases where the boundary between responsible free speech and irresponsible subversion are clearly defined.
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