How Talk Radio Ruined the Republican Party

[Tyyr]

For the moment this is just a theory but hear me out. Back in the day the Republican party was about working for the people, trying to minimize government, maximize freedom, find solutions to problems and generally get things done. When an issue was brought up the GOP would explain their standpoint on it and back it up with facts and information that supported their party in an attempt to sway voters to their side. Scare tactics were not the main tool in the toolbox, demagoguery was left to the Left, and the voters were treated like rational human beings.

Then talk radio got going.

It's not like it hadn't existed before but it wasn't huge. Then Rush Limbaugh came along. Now at first Rush was like most of the talk show hosts, talked about issues, what was going on, etc. Then Rush figured something out. His ratings were better when he pounded on the democrats, much better. In fact the more extreme he got in his criticism the better things went, so he did. The man had a job, get ratings. Everything else was and is secondary. So he did it, he went and got them the best way he found and people listened. Lots of people listened.

The problem is that people stopped thinking. They just listened. "Well if Rush said it then it must be right." And they repeated it. It spawned another generation of talk hosts just like him, and another. Then they got into TV. Then they got their own network. People kept listening and people stopped thinking. They stopped remembering that these guys are entertainers first and their shtick is that Democrats suck. People forgot that and they took them seriously. Well how do things work out when you take a comedian's act seriously? Pretty badly.

Then the politicians got into it. Mud slinging and name calling and being a jackass in general isn't new in politics but it's being pushed to some of its most dickeheaded levels in recent memory. They had precedent, people liked it when you didn't just paint the opposition as wrong but as hateful monsters intent on destroying your life and tearing apart the nation. The cycle has managed to keep feeding itself to the point where both Bush and Obama have been portrayed as Hitler which just demonstrates new heights of hyperbole or a true lack of understanding of world history, probably both.

Unfortunately the fringe has only gained strength with birthers, people convinced Obama is a muslim terrorist, and people painting Pelosi as the devil*. Talk radio and now TV, ever in search of better ratings knows that giving these wing nuts a microphone is ratings gold. You don't have to agree with them or support them. Just let them act as crazy as they are for ten minutes and then later you get to wallow in another pile of $100 bills then go snort a line of powdered diamonds off a $10,000 a night hooker's ass. So now it's an endless cycle feeding itself. Real political discourse is dead and the Republicans got more and more extreme with it until the only thing they were concerned about during a matter of national importance was defeating Obama and the only thing they said was no.

Simply put, talk radio and TV needs to be put back in its place. Those people on it need to be viewed for what they are, entertainers doing shtick for ratings. They make for a fun listen and maybe a relief valve but if you're getting all your current events news from the political equivalent of Robin Williams you need your head examined.

*They're wrong, she's the antichrist.

[Foxbat]

Now that we get information in tiny chunks but in tremendous volume, we overreact to anything event remotely in opposition to what we believe, even if what we believe hasn't been thought out but has been 'ditto'-ed. Its mass overload of minutiae, taken out of context (there is hardly even any context nowadays in many cases) and spun in whatever way the user of the information wants. In the case of Talk Radio/TV, to get ratings...

The problem is, the problem itself is not going to go away. The masses are content to eat crumbs of information and formulate opinions based on that. I understand your thought process and I agree, but I'm not sure how we start making people have to think again. I don't want to step on anyone's right to not care enough, because they have the right to not care. But I want to them to understand that by not caring enough, you allow this process to perpetuate.

"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony." - Dennis (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

- As goofy as it sounds, Dennis is right, be it a farcical aquatic ceremony or a talking head on TV/Radio...

[Mikey]

First, I don't get your Nancy Pelosi reference. I'm afraid I'm not that tight with the Book of Revelations.

Now: excellent theory, and it certainly explains the likes of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc. - as well as their analogs on the left like Al Franken. Unfortunately, it doesn't explain the rise of people like Steele, Bobby Jindal, et. al. - people who aren't ratings whores media figures, but are actually politicians. As such, they should hold themselves to a standard of (at the very least) serving their politics. The problem isn't the fact that there are a few non-politicos who both spout craziness and align themselves with the GOP; the problem is that their are politicians of the GOP who spout either craziness or message-empty fear-mongering, or both. Rush can say what he wants; that doesn't force Rick Santorum to state publicly that homosexuality is "ruining the fabric of America." He did that all by himself. Likewise, it doesn't mean that people in the GOP should - even passively by their silence - add credence to the birthers, or the Muslim Obama theorists, etc., etc.

The point is this; the fact that Rush, or Moore, or Coulter, or Franken, or whoever, spouts off nonsensically, doesn't make it OK for the politicians to follow suit. If they can't hold themselves up to the fact that they are supposed to disagree with the opposition by offering alternatives and useful opposition, then their constituencies must needs do so. Therefore, the issue is not with just the politicians who embark on the empty fear-mongering and nonsense; it is just as much with the party at-large which supports them, much less refuses to fire them.

I recall a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, in which Calvin was quoting Karl marx: "Religion is the opiate of the masses." He asked what that meant, and the television in the corner said, "It means Marx ain't seen nothing yet." None of that absolves people of the privelege - and in the case of politics, responsibility - of independent, critical thinking.

[Tyyr]

At no point am I trying to absolve any of responsibility in this mess. I'm a conservative remember? All I'm trying to offer is a mechanism for the death spiral our political discourse is in. We could pull out if we really wanted to but people enjoy the demagogery and hyperbole too much. It's far simpler to label them Nazis than admit someone can honestly disagree about the best course for the country.

[Mikey]

I remember that you're a conservative who has distanced himself from the GOP. I understand the mechanism which you hypothesize, and it makes sense: sensationalism sells papers. Unfortunately, it does sweet F.A. of anything productive.

[Mikey]

Speaking of examples...

Fear-mongering and lunacy from the GOP? Surely you jest!

This is what I mean - if the Republican party wanted to nut up and be respectable, they'd put a muzzle on O'Donnell. If the Republicans of Delaware had any inkling of being more than reactionary sheep, they'd have put Castle in the race instead of her.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Speaking of examples...

Fear-mongering and lunacy from the GOP? Surely you jest!

This is what I mean - if the Republican party wanted to nut up and be respectable, they'd put a muzzle on O'Donnell. If the Republicans of Delaware had any inkling of being more than reactionary sheep, they'd have put Castle in the race instead of her.

Is there the smallest remote possibility that she is in fact just an actress making fun of the whole party?