Both propaganda machine (full of conspiracies) that brainwashed so many (mostly uneducated or those who continue to be corrupt) people.... we now call them MAGA.
I would argue that intentionally manipulative propaganda and disinformation have only one end—to mislead and indoctrinate vulnerable individuals. It is malicious and dangerous. Factual evidence-based information and opinions are the foundation of a healthy, functioning Democracy.
An Orwellian Ministry of Truth is propaganda and disinformation meant to dominate, “control,” and dehumanize individuals. I agree—we certainly don’t need that. It’s propaganda and disinformation cloaked as Truth. However, Hate Speech is criminalized in this country for a valid reason—
It incites violence or constitutes a true threat. Hate crime laws criminalize acts motivated by bias against a person's race, religion, ethnicity, or other protected characteristics.
Rather, the fate of the nation was decided on June 14, 1946, when Donald Trump entered this world!
If there is such a thing as time travel, I wish someone would go back in time, and cut his father’s dick off!
If the wealthiest were not so wealthy and the rest had more opportunity & resources, we as a nation would not have this problem. Grotesque wealth & many who fail at basic survival are the major causes of today where most wealthy are out to become more so no matter how many they kill along the way.
The first time I listened to rush was during my morning commute. He wanted Bill Clinton impeached, which seemed excessive considering he hadn't been inaugurated yet.
That's when I decided that whatever party he belonged to, I'd be against it.
I couldn't SEE the future, but I sure FELT it.
Yep. My older brother was lost to Limbaugh in the early 90’s. In 2015, he admitted he didn’t believe anything Limbaugh said at first. Then he added, the more I listened, the more I believed. The very definition of brainwashing.
I sometimes used to listen to Limbaugh until he said on air that he wasn’t interested in being honest but wanted “his team” to win. Basically he would lie or not tell all that happened as long as it made “his team” look good. I never listened to him again.
I wish Democrats would attack conservative media like Republicans attack every other form of media. HRC did it for half a second in 2016, and the response from conservative media was surround sound screaming (which is how you know it worked).
Everyone in this country knows someone who has fallen into this dark, nonsense-filled rabbit hole. One of my best friends fell into this rabbit hole, and it took me six years to get him out of it.
I don't say this to give anyone hope; it's more caution because that's not scalable for the tens of millions of Americans trapped in this cesspool of content.
You nailed it. There’s a huge misconception about the types of people who fall into these rabbit holes, but from experience, there is no specific demographic. Everyone is at risk.
More importantly what I find to be part of the problem is some people are unable to determine fact from fiction. unwilling to educate themselves and or so self absorbed…
Rush was never right. I remember how he started, attracting guys to A.M. radio with his funny canned schtick. It was weird hearing his show morph into a daily toxic screed, and guys kept right on nodding their heads. Strange what can ooze up from the heartland.
100% Fox is promoting their the best source for News ,first of all their not news they were put on to promote and protect the ultra rich its a fact through hate,fear,lies & psychological mind games !
Indeed! My family was obsessed with Rush. And until the day she died in 2022 Mom believed women were Al having abortions at 9 months & after BECAUSE SHE SAW IT ON THE NEWS (Fox). So FKN sad..for all of us!
I put it up there with citizens united and ending the fairness doctrine. I know it’s what radicalized my extended family, and filled them with intense hate.
The 1996 Telecommunications Act which deregulated radio, allowing a few companies to buy the entire radio spectrum in many markets, is a big piece of the puzzle.
Sure, but we also know that the us was founded on white supremacy. This is simply the culmination of centuries of racist leadership - at every level of government. That is why rush and fox have an audience.
💯 Stephen Miller wrote a report on a book by Rush Limbaugh in high school. Mark Robinson "found out I was a conservative" after listening to Rush Limbaugh. Now there are thousands of Limbaugh wannabes on the air.
I still blame NBC for making that orange clown a national TV icon; Tony Schwartz for writing THAT book; Moscow Mitch for the felon’s GOP nomination; Murdoch for Fox News; Garland for sitting on Jack Smith’s prosecution & report; John Robert’s for SCOTUS’s corruption; MAGA for hateful stupidity
All of the above. Mitch is old and bumbling now, but he was a huge force in many of the years he served. Both to push legislation thru and to obstruct.
I absolutely agree with this. Much of what is happening today could never happen without right wing propaganda. Limbaugh was particularly hateful, but Fox has the bigger megaphone. Fox is courtesy of Rupert Murdoch, an immigrant, who made a billion $ through hate.
Newt was instrumental. Palin, Tea Party, which was an obvious, thinly veiled racist-based movement in response to the Obama victory. Then Roger Stone, Alex Jones, and all the frightened boys of the Patriarchy coalesced with White Nationalists & Christian Supremacists. Perfect storm of racist fucks.
I listened to Rush for a short time in the 90’s. He always had stories that were too crazy to believe so I quit listening. My family who are full blown MAGA now continued to listen to him & never questioned anything he said. He was the beginning of something ugly. They bought into it I didn’t
It most certainly would’ve kept the entire AM band from turning into a right wing cesspool, stopping Limbaugh in his tracks which was the catalyst for all this.
AM radio was nothing like what it became after the fairness doctrine went away and Limbaugh was unleashed. Sure, there were always kooks but they were all over the spectrum and most of the band was taken up with popular music. Limbaugh and his ilk focused it decisively right wing.
Limbaugh was on the air with his content while the policy was in effect. The change to AM came more from consolidation later on well after that policy ended.
I hired a young Oregon State University grad in 1991. Oregon native, college wrestler, smart as a whip. Friendly and everyone loved him. But everyday he listened to Rush Limbaugh. I thought it was a phase. It got to him though, and now he lives in Boise, Idaho, true Trumper. A shame.
I accidentally tuned into a local talk show while driving and the host was talking about this exact time slot of being in college in the 90’s and his friends turning him on to Rush Limbaugh. I never realized this was a thing.
I thought then Limbaugh was just a buffoon but I was 20 years older than that cohort. It stuck with them and unfortunately made a lot of dough for the radio networks so they doubled down and never let up.
Which was a foreign billionaire putting his money into driving America to the right, and then rant about "other" immigrants who want to change our country... FTFOOH!
It’s confusing to me for sure.
Feel free to elucidate or not. We are all busy.
To me the current relevance is how do we claw back truth in reporting before it is annihilated.
So many people watched their previously humane loved ones become irretrievably radicalized by fake news. Can it be stopped?
I would go back to when Reagan cut a deal with Iran to hold US prisoners until he was elected so he could take credit for their release and make Carter look bad. That's the beginning to me.
Before that - Nixon did much the same. //
In late October 1968, Nixon gave Haldeman his orders: Find ways to sabotage Johnson’s plans to stage productive peace talks, so that a frustrated American electorate would turn to the Republicans as their only hope to end the war.
Yes, Anna Chennault, a senior Nixon advisor, was sent to S Vietnam's embassy, told the S Vietnamese gov to pull out of the Paris Peace Talks,to refuse to speak with Johnson because Nixon was going to give them a better deal. There's documentary, but I can't find it.
There were rules in television that required both sides of a debate to have equal time. Reagan struck it down when he should have expanded it to other areas. That and allowing all the dark money into the elections are the main reason we are so divided today
I’ve wanted, for awhile now, to ask my father when he started listening to Rush Limbaugh to try and pull him back to a time before all the hate, but he won’t talk about it.
Me too, Jess. My sibling died in the early 2000s, they had become a fascist as my mother said because of Rush Limbaugh. Now I cannot have conversations with their wife and grown child. they’re just too far gone.
Don't leave Newt Gingrich out of the equation. It was he, in the 90s.,who decided the way to fight , was to demonize Democrats themselves, to get done in the mud..rather than debate policy..where Republicans were always on the wrong side !!
We used to have a delivery guy come in once a week where I worked, and I thought he was absolutely gorgeous. He was funny and smart, I was smitten. Then, one day, he had his radio on to Limbaugh and said he listened to him religiously. After that, he wasn't attractive anymore.
Horrible and so true. I have been saying it for years. If you get your news from a source they says “only we will tell you the truth” it should be an automatic red flag that they are lying.
I've always thought that these two are of the primary reasons we are in this mess. Also, around the time of Fox's debut, Newt Gingrich really divided the House.
Propaganda is effective. We have to recognize this and combat right wing podcasters. And if we ever regain control of the country, I think going after the right wing podcasters that led to this situation is necessary.
It’s true. What’s baffling is that Dems have not caught on or don’t care and haven’t done anything to address it. It’s maddening! Our dem strategists SUCK!!! It’s like they’re paid by GOP to give Dems bad advice. Dems come across as timid, cowed and uninspired
Yes, some are fighting NOW. I’m talking about long term strategy. They’ve had decades to address right-wing media bias and social media misinformation and come up with something to combat it. They go on interviews to complain but what have they done to address this misinformation?
I can’t answer that as I am not in the thick of the scene. I know AOC and Elizabeth Warren have made statements about honesty and transparency, but I am with you that there is no strategy to (for instance)shut down Fox 🤷♀️
I get your frustration- my husband feels the same way! But I know that if we want to be ruled by laws and not by an autocrat, then people within the system have to fight lawfully. And there is Bernie who never shuts up! In the districts with Republican everything, we have to elect democrats!
We struggle here with voter suppression. Most epe who
Might vote D are either not registered or don’t vote. We do offer early voting, absentee is much more difficult.
If Death is in fact the end of consciousness, as in no spiritual afterlife (Heaven, Hell etc, just null, no self-awareness) it’s still better than him being alive in this plane of existence
My mom moved from DC and a huge network of church friends, friends from their moves at 50 to rural MO when my dad retired in 1990. She was bored so would put on Rush for 3 hours a day. Within a few years she was not the mom who raised me. I blame him for the collapse of her self and my family.
The beginning of mass exposure to propaganda on a routine basis. Come drink at the fount of lies because anger gives you a dopamine bump.....over and over. But you have to keep increasing the "dose", ie the lies have to become more ridiculous and preposterous to keep their hair on fire.
💯 Fox News is the source of the problem with our democracy because the indoctrinated republicans to never hold their candidate’s accountable… the lies don stop!!
I remember listening to Rush day in and day out, and then I started finding myself so shocked at what he had to say that I had to turn him off. He lied a lot and twisted the truth… but it all made sense, just not factual.
Let's not forget about Newt Gingrich and his use of CSPAN during all those off-hour floor speeches filled with lies and udder bullshit. Where else do you think they got most of their clips for segments?
My FIL loved Limbaugh and had FOX News blasting all day long. He took the MAGA insanity to his grave two years ago at 94. I often wonder where he’d stand today with Trump’s policies and agenda. He was a decorated Korean War vet and extremely intelligent retired engineer.
Same here but with my ex. The Reagan bumper sticker came 1st. Then he told me about some radio guy named Rush Limbaugh. Had I stayed with him I often wonder whether I’d have changed him or the other way around.
I remember being in Asia in 1993 and Rupert Murdoch had Star channel in China which was playing on AFRTS (Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. You could get it in all US bases. I’ve always wondered how he
turned that into to Fox News.
You’re right, and you weren’t the only one. At the peak of Rushmania, some restaurants had Rush Rooms, where customers could get their daily indoctrination while dining.
The hate, the contrived anger, the hushed whispers about neighbors "getting something we ain't", the gaslighting, the racism, the christian extremism and hypocrisy, and deep desire to meet civil discourse with violence was always there. Rush lit the candle for the moths; FOX built the bonfire.
Yep, it was. When Rupert Murdoch decided on literal world domination, he and Roger Ailes started what would become the rabid right-wing juggernaut that created and empowered today's Republikkkans.
That's another thing that needs to be addressed: foreign and fascistic influence on our press.
So true in both instances in regard to some of my family, as well. They thought Limbaugh was so brilliant, trump had to be smart cuz he was rich and his only fault was speaking before thinking, and now can't get their nose outta Fox's ass. Pathetic!
People always talk about time traveling to prevent where we are now. Good points to start. Reagan. The eugenics movement of the late 1880s. The ethnic cleansing of indigenous people. All of this. But getting rid of Reagan would have been good. He’s the reason Fox News can lie with near impunity.
The Heritage Society, Koch Brothers, and other right wing organizations and individuals have been working towards this White Christian Dominionists society with the Oligarchs owning and controlling everything for 50 years. This is the culmination. We must stop them. GOP will never recover.
Mark Cuban needs to buy Fox, not-news, fire them all, and rebuild it with people who are interested in reporting what is really going on in this country and around the world.
I believe that with my whole heart. I've watched it happen and I've been told that I was overreacting and being ridiculous while screaming about what they were doing 💔
My Mom started watching Fox in her later years. I never made the connection until she passed as to why she was so afraid, especially at night. Republican propaganda pushes fear. Disgusting!
After a visit with my aged parents and the bs of Fox News. I am limiting my visits and being forced to listen to their crap lies and things my parents believe. I dont recognize them anymore.
Let's not forget Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America. Nor should we forget Eric Cantor who promoted the "oppose everything" plan after Obama was elected.
There was always rag magazines and newspapers at the checkout counter. When the rag stories hit the airways, people no longer could tell the difference between information and bullshit. The television wouldn’t lie, would it?
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Sure yeah, but I think it got changed when they were able to deflect disinformation lawsuits because "everyone knows they aren't actually a news site and only exist for entertainment". Didn't even have to change their damn name.
My grandmother would leave NPR to play for white noise and started listening to Rush. After almost ten years she started to agree with him. I never understood why other than that she had tried to do everything her own way and it didn't work out so she gave up.
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If there is such a thing as time travel, I wish someone would go back in time, and cut his father’s dick off!
That's when I decided that whatever party he belonged to, I'd be against it.
I couldn't SEE the future, but I sure FELT it.
Look at Clinton's election map from 1996
It's been downhill since
Nixon's administration in 68 planted seeds
Newt arriving 10 years later continued
Then Reagan
It’s easy to ridicule conservative media for their blatant bias and disinformation, but their audience creates the market for that kind of content.
Makes me sad 😔 really
I dedicated an entire show to this topic
We need to find creative legislative solutions to the problems of propaganda in our society
https://open.substack.com/pub/biggovernment/p/fractured-airwaves?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1vj4ca
I got clear memories of Rush Limbaugh running a list of people who died from AIDS as a comedy segment.
Gah 🤮
https://gboop.substack.com
https://jandjmarketplace.etsy.com/listing/1877792886
Nixon and the southern strategy or
Really, when America was founded on literally owning people and genociding others in the name of Manifest Destiny.
It’s always been shit.
Feel free to elucidate or not. We are all busy.
To me the current relevance is how do we claw back truth in reporting before it is annihilated.
So many people watched their previously humane loved ones become irretrievably radicalized by fake news. Can it be stopped?
We all are still watching it happen.
Please end the madness.
Make it stop.
In late October 1968, Nixon gave Haldeman his orders: Find ways to sabotage Johnson’s plans to stage productive peace talks, so that a frustrated American electorate would turn to the Republicans as their only hope to end the war.
One of the rules were that if you said something negative about a public figure, you had to give them a platform for a rebuttal.
Career trolls would exploit that.
Limbaugh was a part of that plan - the media propaganda arm.
Some say it started with Reagan.
I think it started with Nixon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine
The fate of our nation & its bloodiest war, together with our ongoing racism turned on the Missouri case Dred Scott v. Sanford.
(The pleadings of the that case are on display in the Supreme Court of Mo library in Jefferson City)
Might vote D are either not registered or don’t vote. We do offer early voting, absentee is much more difficult.
that guy in the background knew the score
In this case, it would have been someone else if not Rush and Fox.
turned that into to Fox News.
That's another thing that needs to be addressed: foreign and fascistic influence on our press.
-rigid thinking
-inflexible
-paranoid
-authority-seeking
-Insular
-Defensive
-aggressive
And I have to believe it was intentionally designed to activate them over a generation or two.
They share no news
They indoctrinate.
Thank you for your time.
It always will be.
That's why we must never ever ever give fascists an inch. Everyone else can argue about policy. Fascists must not be tolerated.
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Long game, well played by the bad guys, I have to say
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine