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REPORT FROM A RED STATE: Button #2 on my car radio is set to the local Fox News station. I set it several months ago so I could hear what many people of my local population listens to. So today, I was headed out on an errand that would take about 20 minutes of driving, and I punched button #2.

Rush Limbaugh was talking at the time. And oh boy, that guy is pretty smooth. He was on a rant about the “drive-by” media, which he says carries only propaganda. And most of it is Democrat propaganda. Apparently, you can only get the real truth by listening to him. And other people on Fox News.

My hand was on my phone to call in and ask him a question: Rush, how can ABC, CBS, CNN, Huffpost, Reuters, and MSNBC all manage to coordinate their propaganda so well? But the only place to get the real story is Fox news? How do they do that? It must be a huge conspiracy.

But I put my phone down, because I knew that Rush’s screener would never put me through. He would figure out right away that I’m a lefty with too many smart-ass questions. So I hung up. But I continued to listen.

Rush repeated several times, “This election was clearly stolen.” Yeah, I keep hearing that from Donald Trump. But nobody has come up with any proof. Which means the theft was VERY cleverly done. How did they do that??

Rush also said multiple times that Trump should not concede. He said that Democrats are breaking down the Constitution and trying to start a revolution. Wow, THAT really is news to me. I had no idea.

But Rush assured us that the chief reason Trump is hanging on and refusing to concede is to keep law and order and prevent the revolution from starting. Trump is saving us!
Then, Rush spent a lot of time discussing Trump’s legal possibilities for overturning the election, which he admitted are VERY slim. As a listener, I was left with a heightened sense of fear and anxiety. The president of my country is telling me that a war will start on January 20th. What should I do?

On the way back from my errand, a different voice was preaching to the faithful, telling us the Covid pandemic was mostly fake, and giving us more than a dozen reasons why we shouldn’t wear masks or use “socialist distancing,” (sic). My, my, what incredibly smooth propaganda.

--Eduardo

mischl 8 Dec 10
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5 comments

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1

I agree. One thing the far right does well is emotional appeals to fear. At the root of the problem is a lack of critical thinking and an increased receptivity to bullshit. But it's human nature. I see it as an inevitable result of the ability of anyone to use the internet as a platform coupled with the way we have been trained to express observations by a press that knows fear and sells. We are trained in catastrophic thinking by a news that makes violence and murder appear commonplace and teaches that our world is ultimately threatening. So people cling to an identity delineated by an "other" that will violently take what they have. And the far right appeals to this because it is based upon it. The propagandists like Rush probably feel this acutely and respond from that place with extreme emotion and fear. Besides "selling" for them, it's also what they believe. I am quite sure that Rush, in his heart of hearts, truly believes he is doing the public a service. In a way, I pity him. Feeling so much constant hate and fear must be horrible. Sadly, people listen to him and act in service of his hate, which paints him with the darkest guilt.

Rush is a clever dude. He has copied the techniques of Joseph Goebbels and made a career out of it. I'd be willing to bet a six-pack that privately he chuckles all the way to the bank. Because he knows that he has a flock of believers over which he has tremendous influence.

1

Florida is, no doubt, a crazy state. Maybe because you have everything from the crackers, to the Cubans, and finally all the transplants from the Northeast. Such a varied group of cultures and ideologies. Like Cali, it's very diverse.

Yes, but we have an enlightened throng of progressives, especially younger college educated people, who are slowly, ever so slowly, changing the political landscape here. I met a lot of them in this latest campaign.

@mischl I'm sure that group exists in Florida. The ? is, same as here in Iowa, will they get fed up with all the backwardness in most of the state and leave for one of the more progressive parts of the country or not? If they leave, Florida will not change. Here in Iowa, the progressive types either leave or move to one of the university towns so they are not surrounded by ignorance and conservatives.

2

My twin sister gets her talking points from fox and oann. We live 3,000 miles apart, we chat only when she is headed somewhere in the car. It's a dysfunctional relationship and while she agrees trump is immoral and not a Christian - she is a believer - her strong right ideals probably did not allow her to vote for Biden. I get off the phone and feel I need to go into recovery.
I use to listen to the local AM radio for Seattle Mariners or Seahawks games but if a game is not on it's far right Rush and a bunch of others who have NO plan but are sure the left is out to get them and their guns.
That is what a lot of the people who live in my area listen too. Months I contacted the station and told them I will no longer be listening (right before the baseball season was canceled/altered) to the broadcast of games due to their lack of factual information they continue to put out to the public. Hate speech, trashing everyone who does not agree with the right but providing NO plan of their own is a disservice to us all.
My check in for the right is the National Review. We process hearing versus reading differently, it is easier on my fragile left/progressive/humanist spirit to read what they are thinking than to listen.

One of my favorite rules of self-protection is: You can't choose your relatives, but you can choose your friends. I don't have any true siblings; only half-siblings. (My mother remarried and procreated.) But ALL my half-siblings are right-wingers who, even before Trump was elected, are comfortably estranged from me.

@mischl At 20 I move 3,000 miles away an never looked back. I could block her calls and I do think about it but . . .
The social compact we make with people we choose it rewarding and wonderful.

1

I can get the same effect by hitting myself over the head with a hardcover copy of the book "A Very Stable Genius". It's actually less painful in the long run.

I live in a concrete house. So I have numerous walls I can use for self-punishment. I'm SO looking forward to the Painful Genius being out of the White House.

2

Well, I'll admit.... I too have a Fox pre-set button on my radio. Need to know what the enemy is saying. But it's like #20. For 5-minutes every day or so I listen in. That's my limit. Indeed, it's amazing. How do people listen to that crap? And some actually believe it!

One might infer from this previous election that about 46% of Americans fall for that shit.

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