The Off-Mic Moment That Changed My View of Larry Elder - he does it for the $$$

[tenderfoot]

Meeting Elder face to face at the KABC studio on La Cienega in Los Angeles, I was immediately caught off guard. He was low-key and civil, even amiable. Was this an act, a set-up? Once the show started, he sounded more like the Larry Elder I recognized: brash, self-righteous. Still, he didn’t ridicule or even challenge me or my story the way he had a few days before. It turns out he didn’t really need to — his callers did all the debating, with more than a few actually weighing in favorably about “The Butt.” It was off the air, during the commercial breaks, that Elder dropped a bomb. Between the small talk, he told me casually that he had understood my essay just fine and all of its main points. In other words, he got it. “But if you and I agreed, there’d be no show,” I recall him saying. “We wouldn’t have this!” He gestured to the lit-up phone lines with a kind of glee.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/09/09/larry-elder-debate-radio-california-republican-510563

I never saw Elder again, but the encounter has stayed with me. I don’t expect him to ever change course, or character, and certainly not in an age in which Republicans of all colors have to toe the Trump line to win any election. In California’s second recall election in the past 20 years, Elder’s Blackness might make him stand out from the pack, but only superficially; the truth is, he’s as conformist as they come. Choosing self-serving, conflict-driven entertainment and ratings over subtlety and intellectual honesty is what conservative media does all too often, and it’s become required in conservative politics, too. Elder made a predictable choice, to the permanent detriment of Black people — to all of us — a long time ago. At this very crucial point in its own progress, California deserves more than an act. It deserves integrity. I did too.

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1. I have little respect for black republicans because IMO...

they make a selfish choice to take their right wing stances, and that choice is what benefits them over what they can do to help their people.

Elder didn't say it in so many words but he did indicate it by saying if he didn't take the positions he does there would be no radio show and no callers into his show.

[FoxNewsSucks]

2. Elder's not the only show like that

Even the drug-addled gasbag Limbaugh (who is thankfully still dead) likely knew a lot of the things he said were bullshit, but that's what kept the phones lit up and the ratings high. Most importantly, that's what justified his insanely high pay.

I no respect for any minority republicon. Bad as it is, at least Elder and his ilk have a reason - it's a living. But the minority followers who swallow everything from Team R? They disgust me now.

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3. I agree it's the motivation for talk so hosts and pols.

It's a role for them to get themselves ahead and damn what it does to their own people/voters/listener.

It's cold calculation and one I myself wouldn't make. But I thing that's the difference between the republican mind and that of progressives—selfishness v empathy.