The biggest political mistake in history. It's the radio, stupid.

[Mr. Sparkle]

We have another election disaster, even if Biden wins. Even if he wins McConnell will probably be back running the senate obstruction for the next two years. Democrats LOST seats in congress.

James Carville’s famous “It’s the economy, stupid” directive to Bill Clinton campaign workers helped win in 1992 but 2 years later Democrats lost the House for the first time in decades and the Republican congress thanked Rush Limbaugh by giving him an honorary seat. It’s been the radio, stupid, for 30 years. Carville recently updated his advice to “It’s the COVID, stupid” but no, it’s still the radio, stupid.

Just heard Claire McCaskill wonder out loud how we got here. According to her and others who never got the “It’s the radio, stupid” memo, Democrats have to work harder to connect with the dittoheads who think, for instance, Democrats are now communists working hand in hand with the FBI and CIA deep state to destroy Trump. Then Robert Gibbs says Democrats have to look in the mirror. So they live in cities and maybe watch Fox to check on RW media and have no fucking clue. Mc Caskill lost her seat because she thought the immigrant caravans were a legitimate issue instead of something from the ass of a few hundred professional liars coordinated for years to attack immigrantss and distort the immigration issue to force voter suppression legislation.

Media is now concerned that Democrats have to learn how to communicate and appeal to Trump voters. You know why Trump ‘appeals’ to a large chunk of the American electorate? It’s the radio, stupid. You know how to respond to Republican lies? Preface every response with “Well, that’s what Limbaugh says but….” Andrea Mitchell asks David Plough what are Democrats doing wrong if a scumbag (paraphrasing) like Trump can get nearly 50% of the US vote. It’s the radio, stupid.

Like just about every Republican politician the last 30 years Trump piggybacked 1500 unchallenged radio stations. Radio stations that are licensed to operate in the public interest but spent most of the year calling COVID a ‘Democrat’ hoax, like the global warming ‘hoax‘ they’ve been yelling about for 30 years. Wake up Americans, especially you who live in cities with lots of options on the radio dial, and you who think you can ignore talk radio because you believe it’s just another part of the free speech spectrum and if it makes your head hurt you just turn it off or put on another CD.

Like GW Bush, Trump is another candidate who would never have gotten anywhere near the White House, much less get close in a national election, if Democrats didn’t completely ignore 1500 coordinated radio stations yelling over and distorting any national conversation on any major issue Republicans want to dominate. Can anyone find a single poll relating Trump support to talk radio? Even after Trump spent two hours on the Rush Limbaugh show recently? It’s the radio stupid, because it dominates the primary, secondary, and tertiary buzz in at least 40 states with 80 senators.

And now the same city-dwelling music-listening TV-watching book-reading analysts who have completely ignored the only unique political advantage Republicans have are wondering what happened and are going to tell Democrats they have to do more to appeal to the bullshit coming out of the asses of a few hundred professional liars on 1500 radio stations reaching 50 million people a week. Media will now ask every Democratic politician how they are going to appeal to that vast chunk of the population that has been soaked in 30 years of unchallenged exaggeration, distortion, hate, and lies.

What’s that radio advantage worth with simple math? If the Republican Party, or Putin, would pay $1000 for a one hour talk radio infomercial, 1200 radio stations x 15 hours per day has been worth $90MIL/week or almost $5BIL/year to Republicans. For 30 years. It’s not the money in politics, stupid. It’s all FREE. It’s paid for by radio advertisers and endorsed by universities (including these 87 institutions of higher education) and professional sports teams that broadcast sports on them.

Now all those radio stations that have been blaming local and state Democrats for bankrupting businesses for COVID and using it to wreck the economy, are pivoting to do what they did for Florida in 2000. This morning (Wed) at 12 EST Limbaugh is yelling with royal I’m-never-wrong royal certitude that Trump already won and Kamala “Kommie” Harris (the “Ho” of “Joe and the Ho” — it rhymes!) is wrong to say every ballot has to be counted, insinuating Democrats are cheating by counting ballots instead of votes…

Suicidal dying Limbaugh sets the tone for all other Republican messaging because all Republicans know he’s coordinating with the Trump White House. Those radio stations and their owners need to be held responsible for the violence their lies may direct at election officials, politicians, and media. All those companies and schools and sports teams need to be asked if they support Trump, racism, COVID inaction, and global warming denial.

It is the radio, stupid. An incredible amount of progressive activism is undone every day by a few hundred idiots and liars on 1500 radio stations. A few media mentions of Republicans using radio in the Florida Latino community to label Biden a socialist and communist are the only references I’ve heard to radio. Guess what. 20 Limbaugh radio stations in Florida depend on 5 Florida universities to attract advertisers to pay for those radio stations to call Biden a communist and criminal. Roger Stone once boasted in an interview how he used talk radio to stop the 2000 vote recounts. Sam Nunberg says he listened to “1000s of hours of talk radio” for Trump in 2014 yet in all the media interviews no one ever asked him details that might associate that to coordination with Russian interference. All those same radio stations are now going to scream bloody murder about ‘late’ vote counts favoring Biden, and the counting has to stop, etc., like they did in 2000.

There is a solution ....

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/4/1992127/-The-biggest-political-mistake-in-history-It-s-the-radio-stupid

Credit to certainot over at the Daily Kos for a great article

[Captain Zero]

1. My brother a democrat drives around all day listening to that crap and it bends his mind

I think we just need anything from our side to compete in the same time slots.
It certainly doesn't have to be a wonky show. In fact probably better if it's not.
James Carville could get it done with the resources.

Have people like him and this LT. Gov of PA. We have them in the party.

[brush]

5. Restoration of the Fairness Doctrine will help remedy this.

Going tit-for-tat with leftist radio may just further widen the divide in this country.

[fwvinson]

6. Starting in 1980 I was on the road all over this country for about 30 yrs.

When you can't pick up FM radio, which is anywhere outside of a city limits, only thing is AM radio. Since Regan this empire was built on this propaganda network. I've been yelling at the radio ever since.

[FoxNewsSucks]

2. Decades ago, republicons looked at Nazi Germany

and said "Hitler needed a better platform to catapult the propaganda"

So the bought and built one.

Hate Radio, Fox "news", OANN, NewsMax all of their social media presence.

It works. It's effective. Democrats need to break it up, or build their own to counter it.

[KPN]

12. Exactly. tRump did it himself with Radio America this

past summer and it’s exactly what he’s done and part of why he leapt on Twitter. Different venue/forum, but same purpose and result.

[brush]

3. Good points that need to amplified loudly and clearly to our strategists.

Restoration of the Fairness Doctrine should help with this, right?

A reality that of course magnifies the importance of the two upcoming Georgia Senate races.

[c-rational]

4. Good post and good read. The solution segment is important. Shed sunlight on who advertises

Last edited Sun Nov 8, 2020, 03:28 PM - Edit history (1)

and supports these "subverters."

[mdelaguna]

17. I hope the right people read this and take it to heart nt

[Hoyt]

7. For radio to have an impact, you have to have people who push the button to listen to that crud.

If listeners wanted to tune into to liberal channels, there would be more stations than just NPR (which one can debate whether it's liberal, but it definitely is compared to Limbaugh, Hannity, etc.).

I used to love Air America back in the george war bush years. But they went bust, even with a lot of contributions.

[mrs_p]

8. Agreed. From those I know who

Listen to that drivel, RW hate radio (and FOX) confirms their bias rather than converts them. I do think there is a strong correlation to radicalizing white conservative men and radio, though.

[KPN]

11. Exactly.

[soothsayer]

9. Air America! Gosh that seems forever ago

Lynn Samuels too, I miss.

[FoxNewsSucks]

14. Air America actually succeeded

in ratings and effectiveness. They also didn't have a billionaire who would prop them up with $50 million /year for ten years the way Rupert Murderdoch did with the Fox "news" Sewer.

But guess who owned nearly all of the stations they were on - Clear Channel, which was a property of Bain Capital.

When righwingers saw how effective it was in the 2004 elections, they moved AA to low-power stations and blacklisted corporate advertising. Now the handful of broadcast stations still airing liberal programming are just the independently-owned ones.

That "nobody wants to listen to librul media" is a myth.

[KPN]

10. I have to agree that Republican/right-wing

dominance of radio waves is a huge contributor to “how we got here”, i.e., almost half of all voters going for tRump. I have to drive a long way to get anywhere from where I live in se oregon. When I do, I scan the radio bands for NPR or some other palatable “news” source. I usually find nothing besides 15 or 20 radical right-wing talk shows spewing hate, lies and condemnation of every and anyone who lives by a different set of values, views and “facts”. I’m not kidding when I say 15 to 20. Once in a while I get lucky and land on an NPR outlet, but not a single progressive, liberal or even moderate station (well, NPR). Doesn’t matter whether I’m on a 1, 2, 4 or 8-10 hour drive, whether I’m heading N, S, E or (when returning) W. It’s always the same and has been for 10 or 15 years now. Before that, we were outnumbered 15-20 RW talking heads to 1 or maybe (rarely) 2 rather than the 15-20 to 0.

This isn’t the only explanation for “how we got here”, but it surely is a blind spot and a big one. Not once have I ever heard a party leader express any recognition, let alone concern, about our relative lack of presence on radio airwaves. Perhaps they have, but I certainly have never seen or heard it.

[soryang]

15. I agree

I wrote this a month ago:

"As an OTR driver, at first, I didn’t have anything but the CD player and terrestrial radio. It was pretty miserable. Other than the occasional NPR station there was nothing but evangelical and conservative stations except in the major metropolitan cities. It was such a relief when the satellite radio service XM came out. But similarly i think there were four conservative talk channels compared to the one progressive channel which later became Sirius/XM left. Because of the conservative channels, i became familiar with Rush, Savage and the others. Calling them conservatives is elevating their status, they are run of the mill fascists."

The conservatives have a radio media monopoly outside the major cities in the US. Thinking that people who live in non urban areas, have a choice as to what they hear or have the opportunity to critically evaluate the nonsense they've been listening to all their lives is naive. The absence of alternative broadcasting was a reason for public funding of NPR. Public broadcasting is always under attack by the right, and there is a reason for it, it is the only alternative to their radio broadcasting monopoly.

[farmbo]

13. Why do you think the GOP won't fund Broadband in Rural Areas?

Just like rural electrification in the 1930s, we have the capacity to bring Broadband to every home in America. It took FDR and a Dem. Congress to get it done in the 1930s.

Today's Republicans always blow smoke about rural broadband but nothing ever happens when they're in power. This (certainot's opinion piece) is why.

The radio airwaves in rural America are now a toxic brew of RW hate radio and (tax exempt!?) radio preachers, all of whom literally build their programming around hatred and mockery of Democrats and progressive policies. Worse, they feed their White listeners a steady diet of victimhood, fear, and resentment against 'the others'. And they're on everywhere in Rural America--coffee shops, car dealers, muffler shops, and in everybody's cars and pickup trucks-- shaping the conversation every day.

Why would the GOP allow highspeed internet to compete with their current media monopoly in rural America?

Watch any political yak show today and you'll invariably hear the self-righteous pundits whining that '...the Democrats need to be talking with Rural America".

Well, as certainot has righteously articulated, you talk to rural America on rural/ small town radio stations.
They do it, and we don't.

[soryang]

16. ++++++++

exactly

[LiberalLovinLug]

18. Use Reverse Psychology

I would suggest that Democratic leaders use RP on the public and media.

Suggest that in order to come together we must listen to each other. And that if Repubican voters feel that most of the media is too much slanted towards liberals, they will address it. And suggest setting up a new fairness doctrine so that conservative radio has a shot to be heard just as much as the liberals. So there will be new rules about having on the same percent of conservative and liberal hosts.

Call their bluff. Use their own brainwashing against them. It might work on the "uneducated" as Trump calls them. Even while Mitch and Lindsey are screaming how its horrible idea, their base may see it as a gesture from a more moderate President wanting to reach out.

Even though we on this side will know "wink wink nudge nudge" that, other than a few very liberal coastal cities, it will add more Democratic points of view to many folks that never hear them.