Jason Chaffetz is a Trump lapdog and right-wing nincompoop, but he is not “Fox News”, even though his message is tailor-made for Fox readers/listeners.
Does anyone remember Air America Radio?
Of course not and why should you? Progressive talk radio isn’t needed. The left is surrounded by leftist talk. “Reality has a well-known leftist bias.” Stephen Colbert said that all the way back in 2006 at the White House Correspondents Dinner. The line explains everything. The progressive left can grump about politicians making compromises, as if that’s not the definition of politics, but people in reality have no real need to be yelled at about the reality that is all around them. People with any amount of sense can be informed about reality in every type of reality-based, i.e. mainstream, media. A surfeit of leftist talk exists.
Screechings and fearmongering from the right are nothing new and no invention of talk radio. Father Coughlin in the 1930s had tens of millions of listeners. The farther right he drifted, the more supporters he picked up. That’s just as true today. Trying to be a rational conservative gets one a spot on the New York Times op-ed page. Trying to one-up the craziness of the farthest ultra-right-the-libs-are-Satan folks gets one to the heart of the heartland and millions of followers and dollars.
Coughlin was taken down because an establishment existed in the 1930s and came together from all sides. He lost some of his powers but it took World War II to make his views unpalatable to the average listener.
We’ll need an equivalent of a world war to get the 70% of America to agree that the 30% of crazies need to be shut down. Or maybe something worse. After the end of the war came McCarthyism. Right-wing crazies with actual power. Craziness and fearmongering are renewable resources.
I can’t wait until he says that to a judge’s face.
Nah. The left skews much younger, and young people don’t watch news on TV.
I never noticed that reference to Trump, and it is amongst my favourite songs.
FoxNews: “It became necessary to destroy democracy to save it.”
When we lefties talk about the right ending democracy, it’s because of conservatives’ using “legal” methods to insure minority control - or at least veto power - of state and federal legislatures. Conservatives make no secret of these tactics.
Note that I’m making no mention of the real crazies who actually want to terminate elections should Donald J. Trump finagle his way into the White House again. Even though those concerns are real imho.
When Republicans talk about ending elections, they are voicing their fears of a coming permanent Democratic majority that will indeed be able to enact policies supported by the electorate. We can certainly argue about whether that’s even a possibility but it’s what the right fears most with the two generations poised to dominate elections in the decades to come aligned solidly with the blue team.
Fire up one of these puppies: