Rush Limbaugh and the echo chamber that broke American politics

[DonViejo]

A historian of talk radio explains how the medium became a powerful alternative reality machine.

By Sean [e-mail]@vox.com Feb 26, 2021, 9:00am EST

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Whatever you think of Limbaugh, he was the face of modern right-wing radio and his success coincided with a conservative takeover of an important but largely invisible force in American politics.

Glance at a list of the top 15 talk radio programs in the country and you’ll notice something immediately: All but a couple are conservative.

If that sounds surprising to you, it shouldn’t. Conservatives have dominated the medium of radio for well over half a century, and while you might think of radio as a relic of the electric age, it remains a powerful force in American politics.

It’s hard to appreciate the reach of talk radio if, like me, you don’t listen to it and don’t know anyone who does. Although the industry has been ailing over the last several years, tens of millions of Americans still listen to it each week (a precise number is hard to come by, but it’s massive) and many of them are listening to a lot of it. For better or worse, talk radio does as much to shape the reality of millions of Americans as any other medium in the country.

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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22151088/rush-limbaugh-trump-talk-radio-fox-news-paul-matzko