A Liberal Deconstructs Conservative Talk Radio: 03/11/2018

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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This Is Why Conservatives Aren't Known For Their Comedic Skills
Hugh Hewitt is still in Asia, so his guest host this morning was Cleveland-based radio host Bob Franz. Franz is a solid talk show host, but he's also one of those conservatives who thinks it's clever to describe Democrats as the PODs (Party of Death). Or call Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez "Alexandria Kelly-Bundio Cortez." Yeah, he's a freaking laugh riot. 

Like a lot of conservatives today, he was appalled by this poll, which shows a larger percentage of Millennials and Generation Z people support ideas he believes are socialist:


Franz is convinced the only possible reason for these results is that younger people (and younger in the Republican Party means under 40) have been brainwashed by the media and the schools. That is the only rationale for how these results could have happened. It never seems to occur to him that perhaps some of these results are due to the fact that conservative policies are seen as a failure by many people who have lived through the post-Reagan years. Sure, some of their ideas are a bit goofy. But the conservatives who complain about all of this the most are Baby Boomers who were in college in the 1960s. In the same way that we didn't all end up living in communes, America won't end up another Venezuela. But these ideas will push the country to the left politically. And that's what really scares people like Franz.


'The Socialists Have A Plan...Now Subscribe To Learn How All The Details.'
When I think of Glenn Beck, the first thing that comes to mind is the vision of him during the closing moth of his Fox News Channel show. Surrounded by white boards and cutouts, frantically trying to illustrate how a number of other random facts and trends are connected in a way that only he could see. Beck always loved a good conspiracy or even the promise of one. And even though his cable television show is long gone, he hasn't changed. 

The first half hour of today's show spotlighted what he promised was the "real story about Democratic Socialism," along with a previously unknown blueprint that showed just how Post WWII communists took over countries like Hungary and Czechoslovakia. And HEY, they're doing the same thing here! And of course, there's news about Rep Ilhan Omar that you won't believe. But.....

Beck and his morning zoo crew didn't actually reveal any of this "unbelievable" information. Instead, they spent 30 minutes of the show hinting around the stories and then encouraging listeners to subscribe to The Blaze, Beck's streaming OTT video news channel. Now he's certainly allowed to hype his network. It's undergone a number of changes lately and I have no problem with him doing whatever he feels comfortable doing to keep it afloat.

But if you're going to spend *30 Minutes* claiming the United States is uncomfortably close to becoming 2019's equivalent of a Warsaw Pact country, then maybe you should treat your radio fans with enough respect to throw them a factual bone or two. 


Five Minutes With Dennis Prager
Of all the conservative radio talk show hosts on the air in 2019, I find listening to Dennis Prager to be the most difficult challenge. There is nothing more frustrating than listening to someone who has a blind moral certitude about every subject and that is Prager in a nutshell. He repeatedly discusses how he loathes "the Left," complains that they are morally contemptible, devoid of honesty and mental clarity. According to him, they are a blight on this land and he often mentions that he has come to that conclusion after studying the Left for more than 30 years. "I know far about the Left than they know about us," he brags. "Or even that he knows about themselves."

He makes it a point to differentiate between "Liberals" and "The Left," with the primary difference appearing to be that if you hold political opinions he has difficulty dismissing, then you are actually a liberal. But besides that labeling confusion, he has this confounding tendency to claim he is passionate about telling the truth and being honest in the same paragraph as he makes some hyperbolic claim that isn't especially honest or truthful. All of this leads to me only being able to tolerate about five minutes of his show at a time. Which in most cases is fine, since a longer exposure is likely to leave you with a blood pressure of 350/200.

As I flipped over to Mr. Prager today, he had some young lad on discussing how his local high school discriminates against young conservatives. And darn it, that discrimination is why he finds it so helpful to be one of the "PragerFORCE" young people who are out there promoting Dennis Prager's group of short videos he has named "Prager U."

Most of the Prager U videos are misleading at best & often built around cherry-picked historical facts. But hey, everyone is entitled to their opinion. What I find so galling is that Prager's entire radio persona is built around the drumbeat of "you can't trust the Left/the media is lying to you." Which then gives him an excuse to push his Prager U videos and ask for money to help his cause. It's all a big circular con and not all that different from people who argue traditional medicine is ineffective and then offer to sell you a grab bag of expensive supplements that will make you all better.

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

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