If the Republican Party existed except as a club of groupies and
roadies for the rabble-rousers on radio and cable, it would rouse
itself from its narcotized self-satisfaction of second best and give a
speech that the Turfers, Birthers Tea-Baggers and all the other
amateurs of dissent must sit down and listen to the reason of
statesmanship or else leave the halls of Congress. The GOP would tell
the snipers that this is a somber, modest political party, not a cruise
ship to the seventh grade. Somewhere in the outline of this speech,
this make-believe worthwhile Republican Party would include the
language of liberty and restraint. And then this never to be given
speech by a non-existent leader to the never again to be dignified
Republicans would build to a quiet conclusion that very much resembles Edmund Burke. “But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.”
The comments quoted above are some of the strongest I’ve read that castigates the Republican Party and its leadership for basically handing over the reins of the party to far-right radio talking heads and fringe issue groups like the birthers or the tea baggers (probably, in fact, one and the same group). But these comments didn’t come from any Democrat or progressive and they weren’t contained in an e-mail from President Obama’s political group or MoveOn.org. They were written by a conservative, and not just any conservative, but one with a nationally syndicated radio show, John Batchelor.
For all of those on the left who like to joke about how the Republican Party has become the party run by talk show hosts, and one host in particular, the reality is that it’s not a laughing matter any more. Worse, unlike a political party, these right-wing talking heads and networks like Fox News channel, have a much different focus – for them, it’s all about the Benjamins.
And we’re quickly nearing a tipping point where the desire of talk radio and Fox News to make money off of conspiracy theories, wild innuendo and bald-faced lies is actually endangering the well being of the nation.
It’s not just a matter of being opposed to President Obama’s policies any more – it’s now all about destroying him. So we have Glenn Beck calling him a racist, Rush Limbaugh comparing him to Nazis, and Republican members of Congress and others adamantly denying that he hasn’t a right to be president because he wasn’t born in the U.S., despite the mounds of evidence and repeated investigations that have shown the contrary.
And, as I noted above, this desire to destroy President Obama doesn’t seem to be rooted in any patriotic desire, but in the need to keep the ratings up and the suckers happy. And perhaps what is most surprising, it is other, more thoughtful (and maybe scared) conservatives who are pointing this out.
Recently on David Frum’s New Majority blog, there was an eye-opening post about what’s been happening with talk radio. It isn’t pretty. Revenues are down 30-40% in many markets. The title of the posting is informative: “Talk radio gets angrier as revenues drop.”
In this environment, radio hosts believe that anger is their only path to survival. “If you’re not the most extreme person on the radio or making the most outrageous headlines,” says [ Scott Fybush, the proprietor of North East Radio Watch], “there is going to be some portion of the base that is going to ignore you and move onto someone who is more extreme.”
One of the most civil voices in talk radio, Michael Medved, explains the economic pressure upon the industry. He told NewMajority: “In this [economic] environment, you have something of a push to be outrageous, to be on the fringe, because what you’re desperately competing for is… P-1 listeners [those who tune in most frequently]. The percentage of people on the fringe who are P-1s is quite high,” he explained. As a result, talk radio hosts are feeling more pressure than usual to yell harder, scream louder, and insult further. Talk shows “are fighting for an ever- smaller pie, [which means that] you’ve got to be even louder about it because you’re trying to get the attention of an ever-smaller niche,” said Medved.
But here is the money quote:
The fact of the matter is that the survival of news talk radio “depends on ratings and revenue, not on getting people elected, or even on bring right,” says [Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers Magazine].
Gawker offers this interesting graphic that shows how as the Republican Party has plummeted in approval, the ratings of Fox News have rocketed in almost inverse proportions. As Andrew Sullivan notes:
The tension between the business interests of the conservative-industrial-complex and the Republican party is real. There is a huge amount of money to be made by selling to a segment of the country that alienates the critical middle that every party needs to occupy to remain a national force. And so the success of the movement risks the failure of the party. And the failure of the party – its permanent isolation from power – only fuels the resentment and alienation that make so much moolah.
This is the GOP’s Fox problem. You ride that fox; it eats you in the end.
Don’t you love it? It’s not about getting Republicans elected or even giving your audience correct information … it’s all about the benjamins. So feel free to lie, make the most outrageous charges ever, encourage the crackpots to tilt at their windmills, just as long as the bucks are coming in who cares?
There is a long list of things that are wrong with this. I won’t touch on them all, but how about these two – possibly putting the life of the president at risk by encouraging some “patriotic” nutjob to believe that taking out Obama will “save” the country; allowing the many problems – be it health care, global warming, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, fixing the economy, etc. to remain festering and unsolved.
As I’ve noted, there are conservatives who realize that “this way, madness lies.” But I fear that they may be fighting a losing battle for the soul of their own party because of the crazies who are always louder and more sure they are right, no matter how wrong they really are.
And when the good of the country is replaced by the need to keep the customers satisfied and dollars rolling in, then the Republican Party is in a sad state indeed. It is, as Mr. Burke said so many years ago, “the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.”
