Friday, February 23, 2024

When the GOP Dial Got Stuck

I wrote this: “The problem is that at least half the country is being fed a largely fictional narrative, every day, and accepts it to be true. That’s the Fox News Effect.

“I realized 20 years ago that if lying propaganda could be substituted for news, this country’s ruin would follow in short order.”

And I got this thoughtful reply from Mouse Detective on the Washington Post website: 

“Same here professor. Believe it or not, I grew up in a Republican family, and used to listen to Rush Limbaugh every day. I remember during the first Gulf War, he was always enraged at CNN, and wanted them muzzled for reporting what happened, and whined about the “liberal media,’ 

“I remembered what Ben Franklin had written about an informed electorate, and felt uncomfortable. It took me awhile to leave but I have never looked back. 

“That was before Fox ‘News,’ but it was universally accepted by Republicans that the media was biased in favor of liberals. I thought that was BS, and that you had a rich buffet of choices from both extremes to the middle. But I think that was a time when many Republicans began to choose only far right sources. AM radio was loaded with Rush wannabes and I think that’s when my generation got stuck. There, but for the Grace of God go I! I don’t think I’ve voted for a single Republican since about 1995...”

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