A Liberal Deconstructs Conservative Talk Radio: 04/09/2019

Each day I listen to random conservative talk radio shows to get a sense of the mood of conservative voters. And to get a heads-up on what the "Fox & Friends" morning show will be discussing tomorrow. Plus, it's just pretty damn funny.

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Bring On the White Boards
One of the iconic images of Glenn Beck during his Fox News Channel career are the photos of a frenzied Beck scrawling out these complex conspiracy theories across a studio filled with whiteboards. "This is all connected!" he proclaim. "Can't you see how this is all part of a plan!"

Those of you who miss that version of Beck would have enjoyed the first hour of his radio show today, as he teased an "investigation" that he promises to reveal on his subscription-based video network The Blaze later this evening. Based on the flimsy hints he provided, it has something to do with immigration and apparently how the latest increase in immigrants attempting to cross the Southern border of the United States is all part of some sort of conspiracy. Of course, George Soros is involved but he also promises to show much of the immigration is being organized by a Chicago-based church filled with "community organizers." So it sounds as if we'll be treated to some version of the Jeremiah Wright/Barack Obama secret agenda to destroy America.

More interesting to me was that Beck said this wave of immigrants is the final piece of a puzzle he laid out for viewers while he was on Fox. He compared immigration for Central America to the wave of Muslim immigrants that swept across America. According to Beck, this is all part of some worldwide plan to destroy "the America we know and love." This is a variation of Rush Limbaugh's "all those New Yorkers came to Florida and ruined the state." They argue that these potential immigrants and asylum seekers are just tools of a Left that hates the United States. They don't have a legitimate reason for seeking asylum and even if they did, we can't let them in because they'll ruin America.

The fascinating part of this argument for me is that Beck prides himself on being a student of American history. And yet he refuses to acknowledge any parallels between this claim of "they'll change America" and similar claims made against immigrants in past generations. Based on Beck's claims, you would think that the 19th Century and early 20th Century was filled with Americans saying "Welcome, our Irish and Italian brothers! We know you'll be great citizens!"  



And In Today's "Mike Gallagher Is Upset" Update
Mike Gallagher keeps insisting that he sees a blow-out for Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential election. And while it's too early for we mere humans to make an election prediction, I can pretty much guarantee that if Trump wins re-election, it won't have anything to do with any theory Gallagher mentions on his radio show. He's a true believer and like those people who still believe Paul McCartney is cranking out great new music, Gallagher sees every issue through his Trump fanboy lens.

Gallagher spends a fair amount of time mocking the large number of Democrat Party presidential candidates and he throws around the term "Democratic Socialist" so frequently that you'd think the phrase was now sponsoring a portion of the show. 

But I sincerely think Gallagher and indeed other conservative media pundits who argue the Democrats are moving too far to the Left spend too much time focusing on OAC and other easy targets while missing the real story of 2019. The Democrats aren't just moving to the Left, the party is embracing a new generation of politics that probably looks very scary to conservatives who have spent their adult lives living in a post-Reagan conservative bubble. This piece in Vox uses the rise of Pete Buttigieg to explore how politics are changing in the Democrat Party:

Gallagher spends the majority of each show reminding listeners just how "radical" the Left has become. He finds some small individual nugget of stupidity and uses it to paint all Democrats as Leftist crazies. And while that argument might help keep the base rallied, it's certainly not going to win over any new converts. It also doesn't allow Gallagher or his listeners to see where the Democrat Party is headed away from the national spotlight. The movement of the party to the Left is a reflection of where large parts of the country seem to be headed. And in some ways, the 2020 election is a referendum on that shift as much as it is about Donald Trump.



Did Someone Say 'No Collusion?'
While a lot of conservatives have become at least wary of what might come out when the full Mueller Report is released, Rush Limbaugh is all in on the "no collusion" narrative. He doesn't believe Donald Trump has done anything wrong. At all. And he insists that when everything is released, the Mueller Report will bear that out.

Limbaugh spent the first part of his show airing clips from Attorney General Barr's testimony today in front of a House committee and according to Limbaugh, Mueller hasn't contested Barr's contention that Trump is innocent and has been fully exonerated. Even though not even Barr is claiming Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong.  He's just contending the President couldn't be charged. But listening to the Barr clips and then hearing Limbaugh explain the hidden meaning behind Barr's comments was certainly an interesting experiment in cognitive dissonance.

And of course, Limbaugh didn't play some of Barr's more problematic statements, like the one where he attempted to explain why he didn't put out the summary of the report Mueller's team had included. Barr claimed he didn't release it because he because he "didn’t want to put out pieces of the report." But by its definition, a summary is designed to be released as a piece separate from the report. You know, kinda like Barr's summary. Barr also side-stepped the question when asked what Mueller meant that Trump was not exonerated on obstruction. “That’s a statement made by the special counsel. So I’m not in a position to discuss that further until the report is all out, and then what is meant by exonerate is really a question that I can’t answer, what he meant by that." I'm no lawyer, but that doesn't sound much like "the President was fully exonerated of all allegations and there was no collusion."

I'll continue updating throughout the day. And check back in tomorrow.......

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