Is Today's Political Climate a Direct Result of Talk Hosts, Beginning in the 1990s?

[Mikey Radio]

If the mods choose to move this to the politics section I'd understand, but I thought this "media analysis" article was interesting. It basically explains how Rush Limbaugh and right-wing talkers were credited with the GOP gaining dominance in the 1990s, so much so that Limbaugh got a "thank you" call from Newt Gingrich, and the incoming freshman class made Limbaugh an honorary member - but since that time conservative talkers and media outlets have moved so far to the right that they're openly criticizing anyone in the GOP who is at all willing to reach across the aisle, negotiate and compromise. This article makes the argument that those talkers and folks in the media are largely responsible for the current political divisions in the country, and indeed, the mess that's happening with the GOP and their inability to even elect a Speaker of the House from within their own ranks:

Republican Chaos Has Conservative Media Fuming. It’s Their Fault It Happened.

Talk radio and Fox News hosts created the political incentives that fueled Kevin McCarthy’s ouster and today’s speakership drama.

www.politico.com

The leaders of conservative talk radio and cable news have spent years assailing GOP congressional leaders — including McCarthy — and they are largely responsible for turning far-right rebels like Gaetz into stars. Going back to the 1990s, conservative media created the political ecosystem in which torching and targeting Republican leaders is good politics on the right.

In 1994, the burgeoning conservative talk radio empire provided crucial support that helped catapult the GOP to control of the House for the first time in 40 years. The contributions of talk radio were so great that the day after that fall’s electoral earthquake, a jubilant soon-to-be-speaker Newt Gingrich called Rush Limbaugh, the king of talk radio, and thanked him for helping Republicans. The Republican freshman class made Limbaugh an honorary member, and greeted him like a rockstar at their orientation.

Meanwhile talk radio, which would be joined in 1996 by Fox News, was a business. The goal was to get the largest audience possible to tune in for the longest possible time. And that demanded entertaining, engaging programming above all else.
Explaining why Republicans had to backtrack from promises and cut bipartisan deals, however, was neither entertaining nor engaging. It was dry, boring — and unsatisfying. Hosts therefore never hesitated to blast the GOP for such betrayals or to boost rank-and-file members trying to pressure leadership.

As former House Speaker John Boehner later explained to POLITICO Magazine, [Mark] Levin, whose show went national in 2006, “went really crazy right and got a big audience, and he dragged [Sean] Hannity to the dark side. He dragged Rush to the dark side. And these guys—I used to talk to them all the time. And suddenly they’re beating the living shit out of me.”

In Limbaugh’s mind, Boehner and his colleagues had “no interest” in defending conservative values because they “really aren’t conservatives.” Talk radio’s king made clear that because of the gulf between the sides, “There is no compromise. None! There is only concession. That’s all that can happen.” He repeatedly urged Republicans to stick to their principles even though they’d get blamed if the country went over the cliff.

 

[tall_guy1]

More than likely, yes, but the fact that listeners had a craving for that is another piece of the puzzle. In a way the more disatisfied people were, the more people wanted a voice against it.

 

[JJSPC]

The divide has been going on a lot longer than talk radio in the 1990's, and started with the two political parties themselves slowly embracing the ideologies they have today. Before George McGovern in 1972 the Democratic party was considered to be for the "working man" and Republicans were more friendly to "business interests". As time went on the Democrats decided to continue to go to the left of center and Republicans have also adjusted and gone right of center. You can argue the media has further stoked this, but television taking sides such as MSNBC on the left and Fox on the right has probably been more of an influence than radio. Rush and some of the other hosts merely gave some additional years of life to the declining medium of AM broadcasting.

 

[Delete My Account]

It certainly made it harder to be a moderate or a person with nuanced positions who could work across party lines. Also, I would argue talent became increasingly irresponsible and careless, which is now why you have the likes of Jesse Kelly or Bongino who are one inch, if that, away from calling for armed uprisings on their social media. The standards used to be higher.

 

[boombox4]

It's a case of the chicken or the egg, probably. Before Limbaugh et. al. there were conservatives, and before Limbaugh et. al. there were extremist conservatives. There also were political divisions that were a big thing. If you were a member of a political party (as I was in the 1980s, a card carrying young D), the political rhetoric was always there at the meetings at least.

The political partisans didn't have radio at the time, although there were some local hosts here and there who talked politics.

The more partisan folks subscribed to various newsletters, periodicals, and maybe even some national, partisan (and even extremist) newspapers. I remember seeing them at the massive news and magazine kiosk at the entrance to the Pike Place Market (in Seattle) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. There were extremist books from both sides of the spectrum that one could see in bookstores at the time as well. And they often had ads in them, advertising other books and periodicals.

I used to buy some of the leftist ones -- Covert Action Information Bulletin, Freedom Socialist, Worker's World, etc. as I knew a lot of people who shared those viewpoints, and I was curious about them.

So even the fringe variety of political divisions were always there. And mainstream politics has always been fueled by rhetoric, at least by the politicians.

And don't forget, the internet was around in some form, even in the early 1990s, when "flame wars" were a thing. This is internet pre-WorldWideWeb. There were still considerable numbers of people who used it. With the advent of the IBM PC and the 1200 baud modem you could access all sorts of local and national bulletin boards and participate in political divisiveness all you wanted. I'm sure there were a lot of political arguments on the bigger sites like AOL and Compuserve, although I never used those platforms. I'm sure that had an effect on the national discourse.

All that conservative talk radio did, in my opinion, was put the conservative rhetoric, propaganda, ideas, whatever on another medium. AM talk radio provided a new outlet for conservative confirmation bias.

Today we see it going from radio to internet podcast.

But the divisions themselves have always been around. The use of mass media like radio and the internet made them more apparent, and social media gave anyone with a keyboard the ability to scream at others and namecall, or try to spew their hate to potentially thousands of other people.

Although many think conservative talk radio was the problem, I think the internet was, and has been, a bigger problem for fueling divisions. I personally think the divisions are a reflection of society in general. Even if talk radio hasn't existed, the divisions would still be there. After the internet became common, all bets were off.

 

[JJSPC]

Very true about right or left wing periodicals and books. With the decline of newspapers and magazines so quickly the past few years we kind of forget about the reach they once had. Milwaukee had it's own Socialist newspaper from 1911-1939. Before my time, but growing up there I remember seeing a store called Militant Socialist Books on Lisbon Avenue in the late 70's/early 80's. So yes, all before AM talk radio.

 

[bturner1]

I would say the political climate of us vs. them was always around but never mainstream as now because media had not given either side the attention on such a massive scale. While I do not believe it began with Limbaugh, Rush saw the disenchantment with the right and simply said what that group was thinking, monetizing it. Both political leanings embraced the Limbaugh playbook and began rhetoric on a local, regional and national scale 'forcing' people to choose one side of the fence or the other. As mentioned, Fox, MSNBC and such were merely reflecting what they saw as a successful way to monetize an audience with hosts that had great research on their side by enabling them to say what listeners felt.

What I find interesting is how riled up people get on both sides over a subject (their flavor of politics) that they cannot change nor affect. I always found expending energy on that which I cannot change as unproductive and a waste of time. For most of us, we alone are not going to change things and since we can't why get so upset about opposing views without the decency to at least listen to that view and try to understand how and why it was formed. We might decide we must agree to disagree but that's no reason to lessen the value of their opinion or verbally attack the view that differs from yours. If anything, it has become okay to act like children versus a standard where we acted like adults.

I can't say radio has caused us to be the way we are now but I will say folks like Rush realized his destiny was in saying what a group of Americans felt at a time they craved a voice. It surely has influenced the way politics operates on a personal level at least.

 

[anotherguyTN]

It definitely seemed to get worse though on the far right after Trump was elected president, which made them more vocal.

 

[TheBigA]

This article makes the argument that those talkers and folks in the media are largely responsible for the current political divisions in the country, and indeed, the mess that's happening with the GOP

My view is the talk radio is a verbal version of the WWF. It attracts basically the same audience for the same reason: To see physical conflict done by people who are mostly cartoon characters in grease paint and satin shorts. Wednesday's debate was a great example.

 

[davideduardo]

Let's keep in mind that polarized talk stations generally get something around a 5 share or less in most markets. And when you look at the "cume" (meaning "circulation" of the station(s)) it is generally even below 5%. A few people listen a lot. But those stations are not bringing more polarized people into the population... they are "preaching to the choir".

 

[tall_guy1]

Let's keep in mind that polarized talk stations generally get something around a 5 share or less in most markets. And when you look at the "cume" (meaning "circulation" of the station(s)) it is generally even below 5%. A few people listen a lot. But those stations are not bringing more polarized people into the population... they are "preaching to the choir".

Joe Rogan kind of seems like a gateway drug to the far right, though.

 

[Delete My Account]

My view is the talk radio is a verbal version of the WWF. It attracts basically the same audience for the same reason: To see physical conflict done by people who are mostly cartoon characters in grease paint and satin shorts. Wednesday's debate was a great example.

But why did that only seem to work for one side on radio? I don't hear a lot of even the "cartoon" version of the left represented by a real human being on most talk shows. That character is generally painted by the conservative host. There's fewer "Hannity and Colmes" type scenarios anymore.

 

[TheBigA]

But why did that only seem to work for one side on radio?

Conservatives are more dogmatic. They all agree with one list of things. Liberals have a wide variety of issues with no real consensus. Radio needs a consensus, either in music or opinion. In talk, only one group can deliver a unified audience. Trying to give both sides ends up pissing off one or the other, which is why it doesn't happen much any more.

In the old days, you either had celebrity talk, such as Larry King or Michael Jackson. Or there were advice show, such as Bruce Williams or Sally Jessy Raphael.

 

[TexasTom]

But why did that only seem to work for one side on radio? I don't hear a lot of even the "cartoon" version of the left represented by a real human being on most talk shows. That character is generally painted by the conservative host. There's fewer "Hannity and Colmes" type scenarios anymore.

It's an interesting question -- and in left-leaning discussion forums I regularly see whining about the lack of a progressive or liberal counterpart to right-wing talk radio. And it's hard to know for sure what the answer is. A number of years ago, there was an attempt at a national talk radio network that skewed left, which was "Air America". It wasn't especially successful, but it may have been crippled by poor distribution -- it wasn't on a huge number of stations and many of those stations had poor signals.

The "conspiracy" take on this is that the owners and management of the radio groups skew right and intentionally blackballed the service. A variation on this is that advertisers weren't interesting in advertising on talk radio stations that skewed to the left. Another take is that "Air America" just wasn't run very well and failed to produce compelling programming. A third take is that it is relatively easy for talk show hosts to fire up a right-wing audience with heavy doses of anger and fear, and that simply doesn't appeal to left-wing audiences in the same way -- that would suggest that maybe left-wing talk radio could work, but only with a substantially different approach from right-wing talk. The problem is that no one ever did figure out what would work.

My suspicion is that it is bits and pieces of several of those things. As someone who is pretty liberal myself, I can say that I have no desire to listen to some ranting talk show host even if I might agree with them politically. That just seems tedious, and not at all entertaining. But I also did notice that when left-wing talk radio appeared in markets, the format got pulled despite ratings that were better than second and third tier right-wing stations (and those right-wing stations generally had better signals), which does suggest some resistance to the format on the business side (ie, management that didn't believe in the format or advertiser resistance that made it hard to sell).

 

[bturner1]

I have always contended conservative radio is based on a shared set or moral values (both from a religious and political standpoint). The result is various degrees of conservative listeners bound by a common moral compass. Listen carefully. Criticism is first rooted in morals and they expound. I might add, there are non-Christians in the mix but they too subscribe to the same values.

 

[Mikey Radio]

I have always contended conservative radio is based on a shared set or moral values (both from a religious and political standpoint). The result is various degrees of conservative listeners bound by a common moral compass. Listen carefully. Criticism is first rooted in morals and they expound. I might add, there are non-Christians in the mix but they too subscribe to the same values.

The 50 thousand ton elephant in the room, of course, is that no true Christian who truly believes what's in the bible (without picking and choosing only the sections and particular passages of they personally use - and in some cases manipulate - to validate their own prejudices and points of view) and follows what Jesus actually taught, would be able to, in good conscience, support or align themselves with today's republican party and what it's become. It's quite literally the antithesis of what Christianity and Jesus' words and actions teach us.

 

[tall_guy1]

The 50 thousand ton elephant in the room, of course, is that no true Christian who truly believes what's in the bible (without picking and choosing only the sections and particular passages of they personally use - and in some cases manipulate - to validate their own prejudices and points of view) and follows what Jesus actually taught, would be able to, in good conscience, support or align themselves with today's republican party and what it's become. It's quite literally the antithesis of what Christianity and Jesus' words and actions teach us.

The pro life thing is all they hold onto, then hold that over Dems

 

[wadio]

It's an interesting question -- and in left-leaning discussion forums I regularly see whining about the lack of a progressive or liberal counterpart to right-wing talk radio. And it's hard to know for sure what the answer is. A number of years ago, there was an attempt at a national talk radio network that skewed left, which was "Air America". It wasn't especially successful, but it may have been crippled by poor distribution -- it wasn't on a huge number of stations and many of those stations had poor signals.

The "conspiracy" take on this is that the owners and management of the radio groups skew right and intentionally blackballed the service. A variation on this is that advertisers weren't interesting in advertising on talk radio stations that skewed to the left. Another take is that "Air America" just wasn't run very well and failed to produce compelling programming. A third take is that it is relatively easy for talk show hosts to fire up a right-wing audience with heavy doses of anger and fear, and that simply doesn't appeal to left-wing audiences in the same way -- that would suggest that maybe left-wing talk radio could work, but only with a substantially different approach from right-wing talk. The problem is that no one ever did figure out what would work.

My suspicion is that it is bits and pieces of several of those things. As someone who is pretty liberal myself, I can say that I have no desire to listen to some ranting talk show host even if I might agree with them politically. That just seems tedious, and not at all entertaining. But I also did notice that when left-wing talk radio appeared in markets, the format got pulled despite ratings that were better than second and third tier right-wing stations (and those right-wing stations generally had better signals), which does suggest some resistance to the format on the business side (ie, management that didn't believe in the format or advertiser resistance that made it hard to sell).

Another possibility is that the left-wing message is often based on fear and negativity while right-wingers push a more hopeful message. It's "The Earth" is Dying vs. "Make America Great."

Which is correct is not the issue for this discussion. It's which is more entertaining.

 

[TheBigA]

Which is correct is not the issue for this discussion. It's which is more entertaining.

Neither. Government and public service aren't supposed to be entertaining. They're supposed to functional.

 

[wadio]

Neither. Government and public service aren't supposed to be entertaining. They're supposed to functional.

Then Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Newsmax, and talk radio stations should all shut down. Like it or not, people tune in to be entertained.