Delete comment from: Captain Capitalism
Excellent analysis. If one were to listen to let's say Sean Hannity or watch FOX News all day, they would have blindly believed that Romney would have won in a landslide when he obviously didn't have much of a chance to begin with, especially with his connection to Clear Channel and what that has done to the radio industry. I feel that there's a Hegelian dialectic going on with talk show hosts, which is why I've stopped listening to a bunch of them frequently. At the end of the day, I get the impression that subconsciously they wanted Obama to win because that would have given these people much more to talk about.
In addition to this, I think people have grown tired of listening to pundits like Rush Limbaugh and listening to the same talking points over and over. They become unlikable because of the kinds of stuff that they say that usually becomes blown out of proportion on various websites. Here's a type of statement I'm talking about.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jul/18/rush-limbaugh/rush-limbaugh-claims-link-between-batmans-bane-and/
These people drive potential audiences away when they say absurd, obtuse, and frankly ludicrous statements like this that make them look like out-of-touch, angry radical populists rather than sane people like you who can actually get their points across, be blunt and not appear to be insane at the same time. I think geniune conservatives and libertarians need to distance themselves from people like Hannity, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck or other kinds of pundits that make our cause look like a bunch of angry, misanthropic nutjobs who say outrageous stuff just to sell their products.
The best thing about Obama I can honestly say right now is how he appointed Chuck Hagel to be the new defense secretary and how we're not getting into some unnecessary war with Iran for nothing and in the name of "patriotism," something that the neocons love to use as a propaganda tool. Those are people we also need to distance ourselves from, as a lot of their rhetoric goes all the way back to liberalism if you've ever watched that BBC documentary called "Rise of the Politics of Fear."
Feb 13, 2013, 10:03:49 PM
Posted to The Market Failure of Talk Radio