Rush Limbaugh died the other day.
It doesn’t matter. We’ll be fighting against what he wrought in America for generations to come.
What Reagan was to politics, Limbaugh was to political rhetoric.
The medal of honor he received from the previous president would be tantamount to Richard Nixon giving James Earl Ray a recognition of service to his country. The separate-but-equal, segregated country these people long for. Back when America was great. Servile sycophants suggesting American flags should be flown at half-mast on the day of Limbaugh’s internment are carrying on the gas-lighting perfected by him. There is nothing they like better than to stick their thumbs in a liberal’s eye.
We are no better off without this man’s vitriolic, triggering voice on the airwaves. Just as we are no better off with the insufferable boor ensconced in his own personal Elba in Florida.
A pestilence of ignorance, intolerance and malignance still stalks the land. There is no shortage get-rich-and-famous-quick folks to carry the torch.
Today, February 20th, 2021, Democrats have the advantage in the House and the Senate, and they control the levers of power in the White House. In 2022, we have another round of elections. What usually happens in mid-term elections is the party out of power regains control over at least one of the two branches of Congress.
We can’t let that happen.
We have to stay motivated.
I’ve been wondering why, despite indications that the nation, as a whole, trends more progressive or liberal or tolerant, and favors things like absentee ballots and early voting, Planned Parenthood and contraception, universal health care, stronger, enforceable gun laws, legalizing marijuana, etcetera, that we continue struggling to make these steps.
I think the answer lies in Rush Limbaugh and hate talk radio.
Our right wing brethren listen around-the-clock to purveyors of propaganda perpetually trained on anything to “own the libs”. Just today I understand one of the far right media outlets have somehow managed to work one of President Biden’s rescue dogs into the daily narrative. Rush Limbaugh ragged on Chelsea Clinton’s “looks” when she was just a child in the White House, and his listeners lapped it up.
Right wing media - and sometimes mainstream media gets caught up parroting or echoing or feeding on the same narrative because of FOMO or a lack of due diligence - keeps their followers riled up. Not a day goes by that the shills for authoritarianism are not telling their devoted consumers that the liberals are coming for their guns, going to force them into interracial marriage, take away any and all of their rights, allow pedophiles to control their life and eliminate the Christmas holiday.
Not a day.
And that’s why conservatives go to the polls regardless of whether it’s a presidential election year or not. They’re pissed.
That’s why we can’t dislodge a significant number of Republican senators to vote for impeachment, even after their lives were also endangered on the 6th of January. Cranky Americans fired up by Fox News and all of its media stepchildren make sure to let their political representatives know that they are being watched. I also believe many of them have no compunction to use threats.
Hell, one of the new House representatives, who was an ordinary, god-fearing, gun-waving citizen just a few months back publicly stated she thought the Majority Speaker deserved a bullet to her temple!
Nothing like hate radio exists on the left. Nothing like Fox News exists on the left. And, if they did, no one on the left would tune in often enough to keep them afloat.
Back around the turn of this century, there was a new station called Air America. It was the left’s answer to hate talk radio. It featured Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo and, maybe, Thom Hartmann. I listened to it. Along with - maybe - 45 others. I don’t know. It didn’t last.
And that’s my point.
Our interests on the left side of the political spectrum are so diffuse. Bill Maher is the closest I can think of as the antithesis of Rush Limbaugh and - half the time - he’s pissing off liberals.
My other point being that the right is more readily motivated and are kept in a state of persistent agitation by right wing propaganda outlets and shock jock radio. They are kept in such a state of agitation a significant number of them were willing to drop everything they were doing and attend a rally that ended with a failed coup d’état and hundreds of them potentially facing jail sentences.
At least, I hope.
I’m still getting emails on a sustained daily basis from the Tr*mp campaign, the RNC, Niki Haley, anyone affiliated with those entities. Every email appears to be a literal or figurative call-to-arms with lots of red print, red boxes and hyperbolic exhortations. I imagine they continue to bemoan the election being “stolen” from them.
They are not going anywhere and - at this very moment - they are contacting their representatives and making their wishes known in no uncertain terms. Nothing was learned by the GOP from January 6th or the two impeachment trials. What they probably learned was that their constituents are more looney-tuned than they thought. More likely to carry out the threats they send them via mail, text or voice mail.
Our side is not very motivated. We’re exhausted. Numbed. Enervated. Eager to turn on, tune in and drop out. Just like some of us did in the ‘60s. (Unfortunately, I missed it.)
Rush Limbaugh’s death was my reminder to remind y’all that we’re merely in a lull.
Reactionaries never sleep. They are also clear as to who they are angry at every single day. If they somehow forget, the propagandists remind them.
And remember - a lie will get half way around the world before the truth gets its pants on.
I read an article this morning in The Atlantic about the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and it’s progeny - the Voting Rights Amendment Act (John Lewis Act) and the For The People Act. We should be hounding our representatives to enact these laws.
As we witnessed last November - voting matters.
Following the most recent election, lost in all the controversy afterwards and, perhaps, overlooked because prominent Republicans in certain states upheld the voting laws currently in place, Republican officials initiated efforts to make voting THE NEXT TIME AROUND more difficult.
Like I said, reactionaries never sleep.
Also, I was going to post the video of the Mars rovers and the incredible achievement of that endeavor and probably comment on how stupefying it is that we can do such monumental deeds but then fail so miserably on our own planet, but instead I give you an Aussie pup in a baby hamper?