It's quiet in here... too quiet.
(excerpt from Ron Williams - The Delaware Journal)
The past dozen years produced more political vitriol than the previous 30 years, primarily from Republicans.
I attribute it foremost to conservative talk radio. It was the talk radio format of Rush Limbaugh, along with Readers' Digest's printed version, that promoted then-House Minority Leader Newt Gingrich's Contract With America. The contract -- part political gimmick, part political awakening -- led to rallying 10 million determined Republicans, who did away with Democratic control of Congress.
What the contract couldn't do was vaporize Bill Clinton. Clinton parried everything Republicans threw at him. The voters, who obviously included millions of Clinton Republicans, kept his poll numbers up and him in office. The robust economy that Clinton rode didn't hurt.
Talk show clones
The only tools -- obedient stooges -- that Republicans had to battle Clinton's steady popularity were their radio talk show clones. It didn't take long before the Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys, Ann Coulters and Mike Gallaghers were off and babbling the Republican Party's daily talking points. It marked the beginning of a publicly embraced political hatred of Democrats and liberals never before experienced openly in the electronic age.
That hatred by the silent conservative majority of Americans was always there, of course. But the message had no way out of its soccer mom confines. The liberal side of news organizations labeled them Neanderthal kooks, and mostly ignored them. And there was the overhanging fear of being branded a racist for holding traditional conservative views. Many of them just kept quiet. Many didn't vote out of sheer frustration.
Talk radio took those repressed conservative values out of neighborhood woodsheds and launched them into daily public discourse. Conservatives found a new sense of political emancipation; a sense of direction forged by blustery radio.
They and their brotherhood on Fox television defined "liberal" as evil, Democrats as clueless, and Reagan conservatism as gospel
The talkers seldom define their hate personally. Instead, they preach how Democrats "hate" George W. Bush, how liberals "hate" Tom DeLay.
How much of the national talk show strategy was actually devised and propagated by Limbaugh and Gingrich is unknown. More likely it simply proliferated with the stable of Limbaugh wannabes.
The party-bashing strategy worked so well that Democratic liberals, now self-described as progressives, got into the act with Air America radio. It proved that both sides can play the game. Al Franken and Randi Rhodes overwhelmed their airwaves with blistering attacks on George Bush's IQ and Dick Cheney's spooky persona.
The trouble with the liberals' version of these radio electioneering wars is they're standing on an orange crate, while conservatives blast their hate messages from the Empire State Building. The 2008 election will define the next decade.
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060215/OPINION05/602150348/1106
(excerpt from Ron Williams - The Delaware Journal)
The past dozen years produced more political vitriol than the previous 30 years, primarily from Republicans.
I attribute it foremost to conservative talk radio. It was the talk radio format of Rush Limbaugh, along with Readers' Digest's printed version, that promoted then-House Minority Leader Newt Gingrich's Contract With America. The contract -- part political gimmick, part political awakening -- led to rallying 10 million determined Republicans, who did away with Democratic control of Congress.
What the contract couldn't do was vaporize Bill Clinton. Clinton parried everything Republicans threw at him. The voters, who obviously included millions of Clinton Republicans, kept his poll numbers up and him in office. The robust economy that Clinton rode didn't hurt.
Talk show clones
The only tools -- obedient stooges -- that Republicans had to battle Clinton's steady popularity were their radio talk show clones. It didn't take long before the Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys, Ann Coulters and Mike Gallaghers were off and babbling the Republican Party's daily talking points. It marked the beginning of a publicly embraced political hatred of Democrats and liberals never before experienced openly in the electronic age.
That hatred by the silent conservative majority of Americans was always there, of course. But the message had no way out of its soccer mom confines. The liberal side of news organizations labeled them Neanderthal kooks, and mostly ignored them. And there was the overhanging fear of being branded a racist for holding traditional conservative views. Many of them just kept quiet. Many didn't vote out of sheer frustration.
Talk radio took those repressed conservative values out of neighborhood woodsheds and launched them into daily public discourse. Conservatives found a new sense of political emancipation; a sense of direction forged by blustery radio.
They and their brotherhood on Fox television defined "liberal" as evil, Democrats as clueless, and Reagan conservatism as gospel
The talkers seldom define their hate personally. Instead, they preach how Democrats "hate" George W. Bush, how liberals "hate" Tom DeLay.
How much of the national talk show strategy was actually devised and propagated by Limbaugh and Gingrich is unknown. More likely it simply proliferated with the stable of Limbaugh wannabes.
The party-bashing strategy worked so well that Democratic liberals, now self-described as progressives, got into the act with Air America radio. It proved that both sides can play the game. Al Franken and Randi Rhodes overwhelmed their airwaves with blistering attacks on George Bush's IQ and Dick Cheney's spooky persona.
The trouble with the liberals' version of these radio electioneering wars is they're standing on an orange crate, while conservatives blast their hate messages from the Empire State Building. The 2008 election will define the next decade.
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060215/OPINION05/602150348/1106