Maddow: Far-right media has never convinced Americans that conservatives are good
On Monday night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow looked at a series of right-wing radio and television personalities — from Father Charles Coughlin all the way to Tucker Carlson. She urged viewers to look at the group as a whole and their impact on history.
"What you see over, and over, and over again, and I don't know why this hasn't sunk in and become a thing we make fun of these guys for — it becomes quite clear dominance inside far-right media doesn't turn into dominance anywhere else," said Maddow.
Coughlin was someone Maddow discussed in her award-winning podcast Ultra, which is now on track to be an actual documentary. He was able to pull in 30 million-person audiences to his radio show. But when he launched a presidential campaign for Republican William Lemke, all Coughlin could get was 2 percent for the lawmaker.
She moved on to Rush Limbaugh, who was a huge voice for conservatives on the radio. But when they tried to give him a television show, no one watched. Even ESPN offered him a sports commentary gig, but that didn't work either, and he was relegated back to the AM radio slots.
Glenn Beck was next, with his tears and chalkboards crafting conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama on CNN. He was a darling to the Tea Party and brought together thousands to worship him at a Washington, D.C. revival. Liberals didn't like him and launched boycotts against advertisers that gave Beck money. He became so toxic to advertisers that the network lost money.
Bill O'Reilly followed, with his angry screaming into the cameras and wagging of his finger. After a number of sexual harassment lawsuits that cost the network a combined $13 million, advertisers also pulled away. O'Reilly was out.
Then came Tucker Carlson, who was ousted with about 10-minutes' notice after promising his viewers he'd see them on Monday night.
None of these far-right media personalities has managed to do much in the long term. Even with the help of several Fox hosts, Donald Trump still couldn't get reelected in 2020.
"You know, in the '80s and '90s, they'll never compete with Coughlin, and the broadcasters huge in the '80s and '90s they'll never compete with Coughlin. And the broadcasters in the '80s and '90s were more dominant in their time than any of the flavors of the month broadcasters are dominant now," Maddow continued. "So, we have a dominant figure, almost always there's someone dominating, but the magnitude of their dominance, their overall importance to the media, right-wing media ecosystem shrinks as right-wing media over time diversifies and becomes a lot of different things and something that exists on a lot of different platforms. So, they'll never be somebody as big as the biggest guys of the past were."
"You can fill Chicago on a Labor Day weekend in 1936 with your sweaty fervent screaming supporters, but you can't get your candidate William Lemke to 2 percent in the polls on election day," she continued. "A few weeks later, you don't get your pet candidate Lemke elected to anything. You don't get to call football games on TV for the NFL. You don't lead a hundred-year-long messianic religious revival. You don't persuade Americans to start tanning their testicles en masse."
While success in conservative media is lucrative, it doesn't translate into success anywhere else.
She pointed to the importance of understanding the power of conservative media and that their only power only exists within that ecosystem.
"And conservative media and the conservative movement tend to drag the actual Republican Party around like a rag doll that's missing a limb or two,' Maddow explained. "I mean, the Republican Party is comparatively very weak, very disorganized, and has no idea how to talk to people. The Republican Party has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. I mean, look at the headlines and the other news from the right now. News that's not about the conservative media, news that's about the Republican Party. Keep in mind we are a democracy, and your success as a political party depends on people liking your ideas and voting for them. Look at what they're running on right now. Look at what they're doing in governance and think about the popularity of these things with the average American look at the headlines right now."
She pointed to the GOP legalizing child labor and making it acceptable to make it legal for conditions the children work under to remain as dangerous as is financially expedient for the company. Republicans in Missouri want to shut down all public libraries. Others are trying to kill health insurance, and more want to make it legal for predatory lenders to trick students into loans. Republicans are blocking rape victims from getting the abortion pill after being raped.
"I'm sure Republicans all over the country, not only banning abortion, which is radically unpopular in this country but now in multiple states they are changing the rules of how laws can be made in those states so the people who live in those states will no longer be able to vote for abortion rights even if that's what they want," Maddow explained. "I mean, look at it in terms of their high-dollar candidates the guy polling second for the Republican nomination for president right now is hoping to coast to the White House on the popularity of him just signing a total ban on abortion and also instituting book bans and attacking Disney. What, no puppies to kick?"
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is the leading candidate facing 34 felonies in one case, possible indictment in Georgia and a civil suit beginning on Tuesday.
See her full commentary below or at the link here.
part 2
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