A Liberal Deconstructs Conservative Talk Radio: 04/23/2018

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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If Intellectual Dishonesty Were A Super Power, Glenn Beck Would Be The Entire Justice League
It doesn't bother me much when a dumb person makes an argument that is intellectually dishonest. Honestly, the dumb person probably is just saying whatever dumb-ass thing that pops into their head. They don't realize they're wrong or even comprehend why their argument is disingenuous.

But Glenn Beck is a smart guy. Oh, he's not as smart as he thinks he is, but I'm pretty sure Albert Einstein wasn't that smart, either. But Beck is wise enough to know how to take a small nugget of truth and use it build a huge, rambling snark-filled argument that bears little resemblance to the truth. And Beck knows that he's doing it. Which is intellectually contemptible although entertaining to listen to if you pay attention to how he ties himself into verbal knots trying to ram a point down the throats of his audience.

One of Beck's rants today was about Kate Smith:

Last week, the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers announced they would stop playing her famous rendition of "God Bless America" during games and would cover up her statue outside the team's arena. The organization said it had discovered some of her songs contained racist lyrics and sentiments that were "incompatible" with their values.

The MLB's New York Yankees said they pulled Smith's iconic version of "God Bless America" on April 1. The Yankees said the song had been a fixture at their games since 9/11. Smith's rendition has been replaced with other versions.

Beck begins by briefly mentioning the 1933 song "Pickaninny Heaven," in which Smith asks "colored children" living in an orphanage to dream about a magical place of "great big watermelons." He wisely admits that by any rational standard, it's a pretty racist song. But he quickly moves onto Smith's 1931 rendition of "That's Why Darkies Were Born." Even though Beck keeps incorrectly claiming the song was co-written by Paul Robeson (it was written by Ray Henderson and Lew Brown), he is correct that a pretty good case could be made that the song was originally seen as a satire. Which is one of the reasons why African-American singer and activist Paul Robeson ended up covering the song after Smith introduced it.

But then Beck uses that kernel of truth to spin into a universe of misplaced snark and intellectual dishonesty. He compares the satire of "That's Why Darkies Were Born" to the humor of Mel Brooks and wonders out loud how long it will be before social activists go after Brooks for saying nice things about Hitler in the song "Springtime For Hitler." He then ties the move to the Left's alleged campaign to rid America of all of its norms. He then caps off the entire segment by claiming this entire episode is not about getting rid of Kate Smith's recordings from various sports arenas. This is about getting rid of the song "God Bless America." Apparently because the Left hates God and America. And isn't too fond of the word "Bless" either.


Rush Limbaugh Blames The Media? Gee, I'm Shocked
Rush spent a lot of time talking today about the electoral impact of a possible impeachment effort against Donald Trump. He noted that many Trump supporters believe an impeachment trial will be a positive for Republicans. The conventional wisdom is that since the Senate likely won't impeach the President, the effort will energize his base and aid his reelection campaign.

I do agree with Limbaugh that this scenario is wrong, but not surprisingly, we differ on the reasons why an impeachment trial would be bad news for Trump-even if it fails. While we both believe month-after-month of hearings would have a negative impact on Trump, Limbaugh argued that the negative impact won't be from the facts, but from the endless lies of the media. He argued that the reason why Bill Clinton hasn't impeached was that the media targeted conservatives leading the impeachment effort and also relentlessly misstated the facts in order to make it appear as if President Clinton was being unfairly accused of minor sexual problems. Limbaugh claimed the media is now against the President and so they will highlight every baseless claim brought up in the House investigation. "This is part two of the attempted coup," Rush claimed. "And you had better be ready for it."

This is the main argument Republicans will likely push if the House does decide to move towards impeachment. They'll claim the media is lying, that this is just the latest effort to remove a President who won fair and square in 2016. It's part of the reason why Trump and his surrogates have attacked the mainstream media so intensely in the past two years. Sure, some of it was sincere unhappiness with the media. But it was also an effort in inoculate Trump supporters from negative reporting during an impeachment hearing.


The President Was Absolutely Desperate To Cover Up How Innocent He Was
Sean Hannity is apparently genetically incapable of going more than 15 minutes on his radio show without complaining about the Steele dossier. I understand why he does it. The dossier is an easy target & it's safer to make an argument that the Mueller investigation was made possible solely because of the dossier's allegations than admit there were plenty of other reasons to suspect members of the Trump campaign might have been receiving help from the Russian Government. So every day Hannity plugs away at the Steele dossier instead of dealing with more relevant problems. Which is the political equivalent of driving a car that's careening off the road while arguing about who to blame for the nail you ran over in the road.

Newt Gingrich was a guest today and it's hard to find a more smug political blowhard in either political party. Given his background in the Congress, it requires some serious stones for Gingrich to argue that the Democrat Party establishment are making a mistake by not cracking down on the "socialist progressive" wing of the party. He also argued that impeachment talk is almost always a bad idea. But especially so when you have a President that is overseeing a strong economy. He is essentially arguing that Democrats should not do any of the things Gingrich did when he rose to power in the House. 

The weird thing about Gingrich is that if you listen to his political take on current events, he still sees everything through the same lens he did when he was the Speaker of the House. Which I suppose is a primary reason why he still has a place in conservative media, since they have been making some of the same arguments about the Left since the 1990s.

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