When Michael Steele, the hapless chairman of the Republican Party, lost his bearings and called Rush Limbaugh's style ugly and incendiary, everyone knew it was the truth. But it was a perfect example of an inconvenient truth. The right wing has long used ugly, incendiary speech the way baseball players use steroids: to artificially pump themselves up. Limbaugh has taken to saying that he wants Obama's policies to fail because they spell the end of an America based on personal freedom. This isn't just a grotesque exaggeration; it disguises the very thing the right wing has been doing when it curtailed civil liberties in the name of national security.
Yet I know people who listen to Limbaugh every morning. They don't believe a word he says. They deplore his rhetorical sins. They detect the whiff of hypocrisy. Basically, they tune in out of sheer incredulity.
Limbaugh has been plowing the field of moral outrage for decades, but unlike Billy Sunday and the other hot-headed radio preachers who cashed in on social resentment in the Great Depression, Limbaugh threw out God. With no religious tradition to anchor himself, he can swing wider. Anything Limbaugh judges against is condemned, not by scripture, but simply by him being pissed off. Whatever Limbaugh hates -- however petty, personal, and arbitrary his animus -- is ipso facto wrong.
This represents a huge social shift in American values. Before the Eighties there were a handful of right-wing outlets on the air; now there are well over a thousand. They exist purely as steam vents. The common citizen gets to be pissed off by the millions, unrelentingly, without cease or solution, and in return, he is praised. To be outraged is to be morally superior.
The Limbaugh effect fueled the anti-morality of the Bush years. Under ordinary morality, the wretched plight of illegal immigrants, for example, must be considered along with the fact that they are breaking the law. Being poor, illiterate, and desperate, their human condition makes them more sympathetic than ruthless lawbreakers would be. But under anti-morality, if you hate immigrants because they are foreigners who don't look American enough, the argument is over. Your anger strips away tolerance, sympathy, and regard for "the other." Hence the almost imperial bearing of Limbaugh, the bland certainty that because he never stops being angry, he never stops being right.
The same goes for a wide range of "others" who mightily tick off Limbaugh's listeners: Muslims, feminists, people of color, gays, and environmentalists. There's no need to understand them or try and accommodate their views. Just put them through the wringer of Limbaugh's perpetual judgment and, poof, there's no problem anymore. Of course, the whole scheme is delusional. Problems aren't solved by remaining perpetually ticked off. Accords can't be reached when you demonize the other side.
By any sane account, Rush Limbaugh is dead weight when it comes to finding a solution to anything. Like Sarah Palin, his spiritual bride, he lurks in the shadow of the human psyche, expressing the dark anger, resentment, jealousy, and vindictiveness that society can never escape. And yet, the next time you tune into Limbaugh's censorious circus of insensitive scurrility, give him a kind thought. As far back as Mark Twain, the American character has been ornery. We secretly love rascals, bank robbers, tricksters, swindlers, hell raisers, and outlaws. And when we feel so inclined, we laugh at them. Rush Limbaugh may represent a toxic form of entertainment -- and the bile he spews bears no resemblance to true morality -- but the fact that America makes room for him is something to be proud of. I don't pray that he goes away. I pray that we can keep laughing, even if our grin is crooked, at the pranks of the eternal shadow who is our companion for life, whether we want him or not.
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Actually, it is not even social conservatism -- that would be perfect individual liberty and responsibility. Repubs espouse modified social conservatism -- individual liberty for those who look, talk and behave like them.
The death of this movement can happen in only two ways -- the 20 million will dwindle to a point of irrelevance and obscurity and the object of ridicule through demonizing by the main media, or through repeated severe losses in 2010 and 2012 elections.
It is clear that as the Republican Party degenerates, these voices become more hostile and vitriolic. Those of us who supported Obama for the elections have a new responsibility to take meaningful actions to make sure his reform program gets adopted. small acts of courage on our part can make a big difference. Everything from a letter to an elected official to becoming active in a volunteer capacity can begin to shift the nation in a new direction.
We cannot underestimate the power and influence of Rush Limbaugh and his brand of outrageous, angry rhetoric. it impacts the very people who need change the most: white men who form nearly 92% of his listening audience. All too often the social base for this political trend are lower middle class people who are police officers, firemen, low-mid level supervisors on factory floors, construction laborers etc... We may not be able to cause change in them but by advancing innovative policies, championing civil, respectful discourse and a flexible approach to the issues facing us, we may convince their children, wives and grandparents to consider another way.
And I do think you should listen to the program a time or two to get the full measure of it. Not really to understand the host, but to grasp the sickening enthusiasm and incredible stupidity of the callers who breathlessly agree with him.
When you add Faux News their army may reach 100 million, while Obama has just 3-4 million wired. It may take him campaigning every day for his entire term just to offset the power of the right wing's disinformation juggernaut. But I think he can do it. It is all the hope we have left, but it is real hope which the entire world shares as they watch us try to reverse what the right wing has done.
When it comes right down to it, our pocketbook is the ultimate reality check. One can vent and foment at perceived wedge issues all day long, but a quick as it takes to get a pink slip, miss a mortgage payment or lose your 401k because of mounting medical bills you'll vote for your self interests immediately.
The voodoo, trickle-down economics of the 80's and 90's just can't be defended any longer. Change will come whether it's Obama or someone else. It might get worse before it gets better but rest assured the hey-day of debtor nation is coming to an end.
Question really will be, "how long before we wise up and rise up to the occasion, disregarding what the talking heads tells us to believe?"
I would nominate this for a "huffpo pick" if I knew how.
You are "spot on" in what the right wing has spawned. The "disinformation empire" (excellent characterization) is vast, comprising various degrees of dissension and various levels of rhetorical approaches with which to compose their comment. It is the sheer size of the beast that makes it so effective.
There is another Blog on HuffPo that notes that a recent study concluded that a vast majority of voters find Limbaugh offensive and state that they do not agree with his comments. What the cited study failed to consider (I believe) is how many of those same individuals listen to one of the other outlets of "right wing" ideology. It would not be a significant stretch to imagine that someone could find Limbaugh intolerable while finding many "valid" perspectives being issued by Hannity, even though their messages are much the same to the "average liberals" eyes.
With the promotion of the "wedge issues" that the Republican Party has encouraged, it sometimes only takes one of the "small pellets" to do enough damage to have the desired effect.
Really good point. I live in the mountains and don't get the radio out of Boise that carries Limbaugh, but when I lived in the valley I tuned in regularly while I was driving, simply because talk radio always has something new instead of the thousandth replay of "Stairway to Heaven" I'd get on other stations. So I'm one of the alleged "20 million listeners" that Limbaugh claims - but I listen only to laugh, deride and ridicule what used to be 80% and now is 100% of what he says. So even if one accepts the audience numbers he claims, huge numbers of those are not dittoheads - they're the opposite. He influences a nominal audience that is becoming smaller all the time. However, as he goes further off the farm those few are becoming more frightened and vengeful. Now it's a race between how quickly he can alienate so many he becomes irrelevant, and how fast he can incite his die-hards to violence.
The best way to get rid of this hate is to stop the money going to the people who are paying to have this guy on, money talks; of course someone would have to write down a list of these companies for those of us who stopped listening to this guy years ago.
Love, light and kindness,
Eleni
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If I would have to give up to give up civil liberties, I would rather do it for national security than for socialism.
I love Rush! Frequently, in order to make a point absolutely clear he does it in a blunt way, he dispises political correctness. (which is fine with me).
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The US has had socialism since before we became independent of the UK
Limbaugh's stock-in-trade is manipuating the the poor fools who believe in him; his rants are the essense of immorality. Those who have functioning brains and despite this, listen to him, should recognize that they are raising his ratings and therefore are cooperating with his sick nonsense. They should be ashamed of themselves.
We are all learning.