General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How was the GOP able to demonize Hillary Clinton to the extent they did? [View all]NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)with RW radio, all those RW newspapers and columnists, plus Fox News. If Rush says something, all the rest of them follow his lead and repeat his daily talking points almost to a fault. Once the anti-Hillary talking point makes the rounds there, the mainstream media then picks up on the story - even if they debunk the BS, the fact that it's been reported meant it was newsworthy. Repeat enough of the BS talking points over the years and some of it starts to sink in (the Clintons are too smart/too scary to be caught - "Slick Willie" wasn't just a sexual innuendo for Bill Clinton, it was also that he was too slick to get caught in RW eyes)
Not to mention, they have all those Scaife, Koch and other big money funded think tanks that generate BS books as well - Clinton Cash anyone?
If Democrats get talking points, they're not nearly as good at repeating them and staying on point. And, they're certainly not consistent about using them over the long-term, either.
and, the RW media machine can get fired up really quickly as well - after she testified before Congress for 11 hours on Benghazi and made the GOP look like fools, Hillary Clinton's poll numbers hit all time highs. But, the RW machine was able to quickly bring her numbers down with questions about her emails and the Clinton Foundation.
(And, the same thing would have happened to Sanders if he won the nomination - he would have been torn down in no time by the RW machine. His honeymoon to the USSR would have been a major issue, but Trump's Russia ties would also have been ignored until it was too late like they were with Clinton... the financial issues at the college his wife worked at would have been huge, but Trump's bankruptcies barely would have been talked about...)