WashPost Columnist Calling for a Shutdown of Conservative Talk Radio?
When former Bush chief speechwriter Michael Gerson wrote a column for The Washington Post headlined “Cancel this reality show,” it sounded like just another anti-Trump column. Or is Gerson calling for a shutdown of conservative talk radio?
It’s understandable that establishment Republicans would despise the dynamic of conservative radio talkers trying to yank party leaders to the right. But shutting them down? Does that sound like reasonable moderation? Here’s how Gerson wraps up:
In this election, we have seen something remarkable. A candidate who reflects the views and values of conservative media was able — with a plurality and a fractured field — to seize the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. But the political universe of conservative talk radio does not constitute anything close to a majority of voters in the general election. In fact, this cartoon version of conservatism tends to alienate key groups of voters, including minorities, Republican women and the college-educated.
Much (not all, but much) of the new conservative establishment feeds outrage as its source of revenue and relevance. It is a model that has been good for Limbaugh and Fox News but bad for the GOP. Republicans are now caught in a complicated electoral dynamic. What their base, incited by conservative media, is demanding, the country is rejecting. A choice and a conflict are becoming unavoidable. Trump’s angry nativism — newly restated in Arizona with a few twists — is a talk-radio shtick, correctly viewed by most of the electorate as impractical and cruel. It is less a proposal than an offensive, unhealthy form of ideological entertainment. And this show needs to close.
My take:
Establishment republicans own the last 60-70 years of the dumbing down of society, from feckless efforts to no resistance at all to the onslaught of the Left’s continuous assault against the civil society. During the Reagan years, conservatives had to fight their own party, and losing to some extent because of them, the momentum in turning the tide against full throated statism.
With the Bush years, both Sr. and Jr., the government grew and GOPe hard heads solidified their rule of the party, rejecting Reaganism, while the civil society, from school boards on up to city councils and regional state apparatuses caved to the Leftists’ agenda.
You need a coherent sustained movement that whittles away at the arguments of the anti-American Left, the GOP elite were never equipped to do that, in fact, they made it their creed to object to doing just that, by throwing in with every tin hat loon leftist initiative, perhaps managing to some extent their excesses, but allowing the tide to continue in one way till the Left has solidified their rule.
We are now facing a systemic collapse from their (the Left’s and go-along GOPe) efforts.
I’m not a full throated Trump fan (I backed Cruz) but I’ll vote for him now, as well as forgive his far fetched blatherings and hurtful smears of Cruz, his wife and father (I don’t blame Ted if he doesn’t), for Trump and his surrogates have done far less to hurt this nation than the jackasses of the GOPe.
How dare they sit and lecture us….ever again.
establishment republicans have failed us..not themselves. the last 60 years have been very, very good to their bottom line.. look at the stock market.. up, up, and up. these fuckers have been throwing elections for years now because the checks continue to cash. bob dole? john mcain? please…establishment republicans love things the way they are because they are getting rich. when is the last time a republican did anything for the working American…they work day and night to come up with ways to sell us out…dont get me started on the friggin democrats.