How did we get to: "I disagree with you, so you should be executed?"

[ChoppinBroccoli]

12. But The Difference Is He Was Beamed Into Everyone's Home

If you turned on your AM radio during the day, chances are you heard him. I was in high school when he hit my local AM station. And my dad, a lifelong Democrat in a family that had been Democrats for GENERATIONS (there are old stories of my family sitting around the dining room table talking about "that bastard Taft" ), listened to him every day, started repeating his talking points, and turned Conservative for a number of years. Only in the last few years of his life did he return to the fold (and it happened after I had gotten an education and learned the intricacies of policy and was able to explain to him why Republican policies were harmful). I was able to turn him just in time for him to vote for Obama twice before he died.

My point being that the availability of Rush Limbaugh's brainwashing, and the effectiveness of it, was what made him so much more dangerous than those who came before him. And based on my own personal experience, his appearance on the radio marked a clear line of demarcation between civil discourse and what we have now.

I would also say that Limbaugh's popularity opened the door for Fox News, which hastened the brainwashing.