Eric Boehlert: Why there won't ever be another Rush Limbaugh -- thank God

[babylonsister]

Why there won't ever be another Rush Limbaugh — thank God
A right-wing void
Eric Boehlert
1 hr ago


Before Fox News there was Rush Limbaugh. Before Breitbart, InfoWars and QAnon, there was Rush, purposefully polluting American minds for profit. Today's billion-dollar, name-calling conservative media traces its origins to the rise of Limbaugh's three-hour radio show. But now, with the host's passing this year, the nationally syndicated program represents a propaganda void that's unlikely to be filled.

That's not to say there will be fewer, less dangerous conservative voices in the media, spreading deliberate lies and dividing Americans. There won’t be a shortage there, particularly on cable TV, online, and with burgeoning podcasts. But it does mean that in the increasingly fractured media landscape that the uniquely powerful and national position that Limbaugh occupied on the AM dial will not be replaced.

snip//

Limbaugh helped save AM radio when he emerged as a talk radio star in the late 1980s at a time when AM stations had lost out to the cleaner, less static sounds of FM radio. At the same time, in 1987, Ronald Reagan's Federal Communications Commission repealed the Fairness Doctrine, which had required stations to present politically “balanced” programming. That meant Limbaugh could bash Democrats for three hours nonstop every day. Fast forward three decades and Limbaugh's death arrived alongside AM's slow motion demise.

"Once a leading platform for popularizing conservative candidates and policies, talk radio is on the verge of becoming background noise, drowned out by a cacophony of voices on podcasts, cable TV and social media," the Washington Post reported this year.

The pandemic also hit talk radio hard. "2020 is the year that in-car AM/FM radio has hit the proverbial iceberg," Radio World reported. "The COVID-19 pandemic and its related lockdowns severely curtailed regular commuting journeys, where much of consumers’ radio-listening originates."

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https://pressrun.media/p/why-there-wont-ever-be-another-rush

[Girard442]

1. Over the years I've watched people try to recreate Limbaugh's success and fail.

Hate to say it, but it looks like the dirtbag actually had talent.

[MatthewG.]

2. He had two talents.

Rush had two talents. He had a genuinely good voice for radio, one which he honed by practicing vocal control. And he was extremely good at blathering on and on, for hours at a time, filling the airwaves by sounding passionately engaged without making logical arguments.

Other than that, he was utterly useless, and I think he probably did more harm to American culture than anyone else in my lifetime.

But I wouldn’t call him totally talentless, true.

[Ilsa]

4. He had an ability to effortlessly express ridicule

and nastiness for things for which people had no control, and call it "entertainment." He expected his listeners to do the same in real life, knowing it would make workplaces, home, school, even church more vitriolic. He insulted children and tweens, especially when they were going through awkward stages.

He was truly a worthless human being, and towards the end of his career, his sponsors were figuring it out and leaving him in droves. Still, listeners heard about eight minutes of ads for every five minutes of him rustling papers into the microphone.

I am bothered by the fact that a dear friend who was a RL listener, even though he was disabled on one half of his body due to cerebral palsy, thought it was okay to use some of Rush's insults, exact or similar, calling one actress "horse-face" and Chelsea Clinton something else. He never expressed bigotry toward anyone except for using RLs insults, treating them as entertainment. RL made people uglier on the instead.

Al Franken's comedic book on RL was probably too kind. I wish I could throw feces on his grave.

[babylonsister]

5. He normalized and gave permission to

people to express themselves the way he did. mf45 now seems like a natural extension, at least for those people.

[Ilsa]

6. Breaking down barriers to open hostility and rudeness that

would get any normal person fired.

[Blue Owl]

3. K&R

[Midnight Writer]

7. "talk radio is ... becoming background noise".

Around here it is background noise. You hear it everywhere. You turn on your radio, there it is. Change channels, there it is.

Go to the hardware store, the feed store, the sandwich joint, to your job, and there it is.

Step out in your yard on a nice day, you hear it blaring from the neighbor's place. People sit in their cars in parking lots, windows open, talk radio blaring. People working in their gardens, roofing crews, the city truck mucking out the sewers. All blasting hate radio.

And worst of all is talking to folks who will echo and repeat the exact shit that is on the radio.

It is now the norm, so commonplace that people don't even think about it as it invades our lives, like sunshine or soft breezes.

Like background noise.