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US Fascism Has Arrived Thanks to 30 Years of Right-Wing Talk Radio Dominance
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this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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Talk radio is essentially a person telling you what to think and feel. It can't even be classified as learning because it's being done to you when you listen. It's a confirmation bias circle jerk. Democrats tend to be educated and educated people usually are repelled by the format.
I think NPR does a good job providing talk radio type material that isn't repellant to people with critical thinking skills.
Do you consider their offerings substantially different than talk radio?
NPR usually has a diversity of views and the dialogue isn’t as 24/7 emotional.
I think the big thing with conservative talk radio is that it’s the verbal equivalent of Micheal Bay - 24/7 PAY ATTENTION RIGHT NOW. Think Alex Jones’s incoherent screaming rants as he plays air raid sirens. He does have guests/callers, but any views that he doesn’t agree with will get shouted down. (He has the illusion of disagreement with more explicitly racist guests - he won’t boot you off if you start talking about the Jews, but will pretend he’s a little uncomfortable). But it’s lots of yelling, and THEY ARE TRYING TO CUT YOUR SONS PENIS OFF! Pretty sure that format goes back through Rush to Hicks.
NPR doesn’t really tell you what to think. It comes across as left leaning because the Overton window in the US has been pushed so far to the right that our Democrats have the positions that Republicans did 20 years ago, while our Republican Party is fantasizing about purges. But NPR has calm, reasoned discussions between folks of all political persuasions. You can even hear it in the voices - it’s a common punchline how calm the reporters are.
It’s not the talk format - it’s the content and presentation.
I was forced to endure Rush Limbaugh (I think) while riding with my Dad. That show was just Rush ranting to himself, constructing straw men, then tearing them down over and over again. No real facts, sources, or guests. Just Rush yelling into the mic the entire time spewing garbage.
So ya, it can be a lot different.
Same, and I'm sorry. It was Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage for me. I remember realizing my father was an idiot at an earlier age than I might have otherwise because the arguments those two morons made were obviously so, so bad yet he just ate it all up.