How much of an ass do you have be before even CPAC kicks you out? Let’s call that unit 1.0 Loomer.
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That is actually kind of impressive in its own way.
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A truly, epic level of assholery is still assholery. I refuse to give either the individual asshole or the collective asshole (CPAC) any credit at all.
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Well, we can no longer sit back and allow vaccines to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
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- Defund schools.
- Provide free textbooks full of libertarian garbage.
- Profit?
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Not 3. Profit, but
- Indoctrinate
- Profit
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So, I sometimes listen to Rush Limbaugh’s program to help me try to figure out what motivates the people on the right. I can’t always manage it. When he’s at his absolute worst, I usually turn back to NPR, but on Thursday, the day after the Cohen testimony, he was working overtime trying to spin it in the best possible way.
And at one point, he takes a “caller.” I put that in quotes because I am not convinced that this particular caller was who he was representing himself as. I suspect Limbaugh may use scripted actors to pose as callers to dramatize a particular point that he wants to riff off of. So this “caller” was named Gerald who was a liberal from Massachusetts, and he was supposedly calling to chastise Limbaugh for supporting Trump, who was exposed by Cohen as being of poor character, and the fact that Cohen was such a sleazeball and was hired by Trump pretty much demonstrated why Trump was an awful person.
But Limbaugh’s response kind of answered a question that has been puzzling me for months… How can 30% of the people stand behind Trump, after everything that he’s done and said and been accused of?
So Limbaugh admitted that Donald Trump is a flawed individual, but despite everything, he still supported him, and will continue to support him, no matter what. Here’s what he said…
Donald Trump is the only thing standing between your side getting power and destroying the country as I know it. So I don’t care who he hires. I don’t care what he’s got going on as his personal fixer. The guy has to succeed, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t mean this at you personally. I mean liberalism and the extremism that has happened to the American left, I’m scared to death what they’re gonna do to this great country if they get unchecked power. And Trump right now is the only guy standing in their way.
…I can defend a guy like this because Hillary Clinton represents the absolute destruction of the United States of America as founded. Ditto Barack Obama. So on a big scale of things, Gerald, as to who’s worse and who’s the bigger problem and who represents what can best be fixed if need be, it’s Donald Trump by a long shot here who has the least problems presented to me as an American citizen, compared to the people on the left, from Joe Biden to every one of these wackos seeking the Democrat Party nomination.
These are scary, scary people who don’t know very much at the same time. But that’s my answer to you. And I say that unabashedly and with no shame, with no guilt, with absolutely no fear, no apology, no regrets. I firmly stand with Donald Trump and those he is attempting to defeat
Assuming that what he said is true (and I realize that it’s a huge assumption), it pretty much means that no matter what dirt gets dug up about the Trumps, the 30% that has hung firm with him are going to support him regardless. There is no reasoning. There is no discussion or point that you can make that will convince them otherwise. And Limbaugh is giving them the talking points on how to rationalize continuing to be in the cult.
(I would link to the transcript of the show where I took the quote from, but I don’t really want to drive any traffic his way. Here’s a link to the archive.org version of it if you want to read the transcript for yourself.)
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The part that sticks out most is the assertion that H. Clinton and Obama “destroyed” the nation. WTF? There’s reality challenged and then there’s Limbaugh. He’s a movie projector on Oxy.
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Well, I mean, the fact that he’s still riding the Clinton/Obama hobby horse is pretty telling. I don’t know anyone who still sees Hillary as a viable candidate in the next election or ever. And yet she is still on the list of bogeymen to vilify. And I don’t know why Obama is still on the list, either.
By the way … as for my suspicions about Rush’s “callers,” there’s an article from 2011 that also doubts their reality.
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These are the bogey men that activate the base. The black man who stole the office and the woman who almost did the same. They are not white men. I remember hatred for Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, but not this kind of demonization, apocalyptic imagery, end of civilization shit. They use them because they work.
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Fake callers have evolved from someone at the station sales team to many, many services that do it - and many of those are pre-recorded that you fill the response in. Just listen to the many, many iterations of a radio morning show offering to buy roses for someone and then that person buys them for their affair instead of their partner and the partner confronts them. That whole bit is now bought from a company that makes he sound bites because it guarantees there will be no FCC fines.
Talk radio is really messed up.
EDIT
Oh it even has a Wikipedia article.
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The fake callers thing was exposed years ago. It’s part of every morning radio call-in show, why wouldn’t it be part of “national” radio programs that aren’t even broadcast, but aired?
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It’s the same 30% who are always the single issue voters. Abortion, guns and gawd.
I wonder sometimes what would happen if they just got their way with those things, what would become of them, as voters. Horrible I know but, what if? Would they just crawl back into their hollows, cabins and trailer parks and disappear?
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Heh. They’re moving so fast to the right, that everything to the left of them is red shifted.
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I won’t wish his death, but I hope it takes his mind off politics.
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BTW:
This isn’t aimed at you personally, but your post provides an appropriate hook for something I was thinking about the other day…
A lot of liberals make a point of monitoring right wing media in order to keep track of what the “other side” is thinking.
How many of y’all take the time to make the same sort of outreach to the left? How often do you explore media that is leftwards of your comfort zone?
At the very least, it’d be good if folks would occasionally expose themselves to things like Democracy Now, Intercepted, The Katie Halper Show, or Citations Needed. If you’re a bit more adventurous, try Moderate Rebels or Eyes Left. If you really want to get into it, have a poke at It’s Going Down or Revolutionary Left Radio. Etc.
MSNBC, the NYT and so on present a severely limited view of the ideological spectrum. Almost nothing to the left of DNC orthodoxy makes it through the filter of mainstream American media.
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And that’s putting it nicely.
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And on the flip side…
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Weird. I thought Eisenhower already made a ‘technology in exchange for cow lips’ deal in the 1950ies. Did they fail to renew the contract?
I think that this is a valid point, but I guess I am less interested in delving into news programs from my left side than I am from my right. I’m not really looking to confirm what I already believe, and about stuff that I feel powerless to do anything about.
I listen to short bursts of Limbaugh when I’m in the car, and I read the conservative subreddits for basically two reasons… The first is to assess threats against ideas that I support, for chinks in the armor. Most times, I come out the other end feeling more secure, and dismissive of the wackadoodle right, but occasionally they show me the flaws in my logic.
The other reason is more of guilty pleasure, and that is to read and hear about their rage and tears when they suffer an obvious defeat. Those times are few and far between, but if I am being honest, that is the main reason why I do it. Listening to Mark Levin is another good source for hearing utter right-wing rage. The stuff he’s furious about tend to be issues where the left is winning the debate.
But I also scan the Politics and WorldNews subreddits, and I like to think that they do a pretty good job filling in the gaps that MSNBC and the NYT leave out. In general, I stick to the headlines and click the links to the source articles, but avoid the comment sections, though sometimes I’ll delve in and sort by controversial, for reasons mentioned above.
It may be flawed, but I’m less interested in the conflict and bickering aspects of it, and I am less interested in changing their minds. That’s why I gave up Facebook.
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