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Flame » in reply to What Rush says about the Palin revelations.

I've just finished reading that entire Limbaugh transcript.
ER — (archived)

Fascinating. Olbermann has a long way to go before he can even come close this guy. Limbaugh is a skilled, no, a gifted propagandist.

But let's forget about the ideological component a for moment and just deconstruct this text for its propaganda effectiveness. Limbaugh is no dummy, and there is no way he actually believes the song he's singing. He is servicing a distinct political demographic, providing them with a world view they can coalesce around. He has chosen Palin as the archetype of this kernel of believers, and he is perfectly ready to not only demonize the Republican Party to do it, but even the bulk of the conservative movement. He long ago abandoned the mainstream Right and is pandering to a new constituency, one based on populism and disgruntled working class conservatives. Well, it's not a new constituency, really, they are the hardhats and Moral Majority crowd of the Nixon days, the Reagan Democrats, now growing by leaps and bounds and suffering as their jobs head overseas and to immigrant labor or are lost to automation and the deindustrialization of our service economy. They need someone to blame their troubles on.

What exactly is he up to? My first instinct is that he is simply solidifying his audience to protect his own job. He wants people listening to him next year and the year after, and he knows most conservatives eye him with bemused contempt and only tolerate him for his effectiveness. But does he know something we don't? Is this new constituency going to try and challenge the mainstream Republican apparat or try to take over the conservative movement? Is there a takeover coming on the Right, or are conservatives splintering into a shatterbelt of competing subgroups? Perhaps it is a reaction to the perception the GOP may be starting to become too moderate, or perhaps this is the last redoubt of the Neocon castle, it's outer walls now overun by gibbering hordes of liberal Orcs.

All I know for sure is we've come a long way from Bill Buckley and Barry Goldwater.

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