Category Archives: Hate

Dehumanization: the language of Hate

 

Anne Applebaum understands well the language of dehumanization. Extremists around the world have used it because they know it works. It allows ordinary people to become vicious killers. Even, in some circumstances genocidal killers.

This is how Applebaum described such language:

“This kind of language was not limited to Europe. Mao Zedong also described his political opponents as “poisonous weeds.” Pol Pot spoke of “cleansing” hundreds of thousands of his compatriots so that Cambodia would be “purified.

In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them. If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.

It is profoundly disappointing to see such dehumanizing language used by the former American President Donald Trump. It is even more disappointing to see such language electrify a large part of the American public. Until recently such language was not common in American politics, but ever since the arrival of Donald Trump on the scene it has become common.

Applebaum pointed out how George Wallace, whom she called a “notorious racists,” did not use such incendiary language when he advocated for “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” He never spoke about blacks as vermin.  He did not say they “poisoned the blood of the nation.” No that is the language of Donald Trump.

Similarly, Franklin D. Roosevelt who sadly ordered the corralling of Japanese Americans into internment camps and he called them “enemy aliens” but never parasites or vermin.  All of this changed with Donald Trump. As Applebaum said,

“In the 2024 campaign, that line has been crossed. Trump blurs the distinction between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants—the latter including his wife, his late ex-wife, the in-laws of his running mate, and many others. He has said of immigrants, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country” and “They’re destroying the blood of our country.” He has claimed that many have “bad genes.” He has also been more explicit: “They’re not humans; they’re animals”; they are “cold-blooded killers.” He refers more broadly to his opponents—American citizens, some of whom are elected officials—as “the enemy from within … sick people, radical-left lunatics.” Not only do they have no rights; they should be “handled by,” he has said, “if necessary, National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”

 

According to Applebaum the use of such dehumanizing language by the former president is no accident:

“In using this language, Trump knows exactly what he. Is doing. He understands which era and what kind of politics this language evokes. “I haven’t read Mein Kampf,” he declared, unprovoked, during one rally—an admission that he knows what Hitler’s manifesto contains, whether or not he has actually read it. “If you don’t use certain rhetoric,” he told an interviewer, “if you don’t use certain words, and maybe they’re not very nice words, nothing will happen.

 And if you do use such words too much happens!

 Dehumanizing language is the language of hate. Its use by political leaders is sickening. Those who use it  clearly belong in the “basket of deplorables.”

Nonsense on Steroids: Hillary Clinton Child Trafficker

 

In the fall of 2016 Right-wing talk radio was consumed by a bizarre conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton and an evil cabal of liberal elites like Tom Hanks were supposedly involved in trafficking young children for sex while worshipping Satan in the basement of a Washington Pizzeria. It was nonsense on steroids but that did not stop conspiracy purveyors like Alex Jones from spreading these vicious lies in the service of his leader Donald Trump. And right-wing radio was abuzz with this rubbish.

Less than a week before the presidential election of 2016, Jones interviewed a private investigator and conspiracy theorist about this crazy conspiracy theory. Supposedly, also involved were disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner, the Clintons and a private aircraft called the Lolita Express.  This was the craft that took many young girls to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean. The island was often referred to as the island acquired local nicknames such as “Island of Sin” and “Pedophile Island” not entirely without reason. The mere mention of this island or Epstein was enough to send American conservatives into rapturous hate.  This was a vast and constantly metastasizing conspiracy theory, fertilized by insinuations from Rush Limbaugh that the Clintons, while Bill was governor of Arkansas had Vince Foster, a party worker, murdered. There are many constantly evolving and growing versions of the nastiness that went on there.

Alex Jones calls these claims from the investigator “seismic, historical, wow.” Breitbart Radio devoted a whole segment to this conspiracy theory. Right-wing radio was energized like never before, and, of course, this also energized Trump’s supporters just before the election and there was nothing Hillary Clinton could do about it. Breitbart Radio alleged that Hillary Clinton went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. They said Bill Clinton went there at least 20 times, and Hillary Clinton at least 6 times.

As Justin Ling said on his CBC podcast The Flame Throwers,

“New elements are getting bolted on to this conspiracy theory. Suddenly Clinton is part of a Satanic Cult. Children are being sacrificed and they are begin kept in a secret location.”

 

It did not matter that the conspiracy theory was wildly false.  It sent nasty dust into the air to cover Hillary Clinton with outrageous allegations that were impossible to counter and ushered in nasty rumours that spread through Right-wing radio and the Internet like wildfire.

Yet this bogus claim, had serious real-life consequences. One rabid listener to all the crap on Jones’s show and right-wing radio, Edgar Welsch, from South Carolina, took it all seriously and after leaving his wife with a voice mail message that he was likely going to die, drove from his home with loaded guns to Washington D.C. to rescue the children from the basement of the pizza restaurant. He was unable to find a basement in the restaurant since there was none. He found no victims just young families enjoying pizza and playing games. Sadly, Welsch, was arrested and criminally charged with assault with a deadly weapon for his reckless actions that had been fueled by Alex Jones and his colleagues on right-wing radio. Jones actually pointed the gun at someone he saw in the restaurant, but fortunately, no one else was hurt as a result of the reckless actions of Jones and the other right-wing radio hosts.

We should also remember how Donald Trump shortly after being elected President in 2016 told Alex Jones how much Jones was respected.

All of this was part of the right-wing American assault on truth that has, by no means, diminished since 2016

Barack Obama: the ideal enemy

 

I am meandering back to the history of far-right extremism particularly on American Talk radio.

 Of course, all of this rage machine was just the opening act for what was to come. As Justin Ling said on the CBC podcast series, “If you can turn a hurricane victim into a victim of rage, Barack Obama is going to be a piece of cake!”  Remember that is precisely what the far right did in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. As Ling said,  

“Barack Obama was really an easy target.  Most importantly he was black. But he was also a liberal; he had gone to an elite eastern university (Harvard); he was a lawyer turned liberal politician. His last name was weird. But—this is BIG—his middle name is Hussein.’

 

As Ling said, “Right-wing radio could not have found a more ideal enemy.” These right-wing pundits and their listeners became apoplectic at the thought of this black man and his family in the White House!  This could not be! Something was horribly wrong. And the right-wing movement intended to right this horrible wrong.

These right-wing pundits made it absolutely clear to their listeners that this was something to fear. They should be worried. The blacks were taking over “their” country!

 Radio host Bill Cunningham told his listeners, Obama in the White House was like this:

 “Now my fellow Americans this is the day we have been waiting for. Much like Castro took over Cuba. Mao Tse Tung took over Red China. And the communists took over Russia.”

 

Cunningham called his squeaky-clean election “a bloodless coup.” He referred to it as “seizing power.”

Right-wing pundits like Michael Savage claimed he was setting up a civilian police force as large as the US military. He likened him to Adolf Hitler even before he took office! He said Obama wanted to bring in “a Marxist revolution.”  Right-wing pundits were bathing in the murky waters of hysteria. And racial anxiety had a lot to do with it.

There was only one thing that made sense of this hysteria about Obama.  It was the hidden presumption—a black man just could not be a legitimate president of the country. This could not be tolerated. This was why the birther movement, in which Donald Trump had played such an important part, just could not tolerate the thought of a black president and a black family in the White House. Some actually referred to them as “monkeys in the White House!

As Ling said, “racist dog whistles were a constant refrain in the election” of 2008. One said “his [Obama] father was a typical black father who right after the birth left the baby. That’s what black fathers do; they simply leave.” As Ling said, “this stuff is hard to hear, but a lot of people enjoyed hearing it. It reinforced their racist beliefs. It gave them permission to say this stuff out loud. And in some cases, it even changed people’s thinking.”

Gordon Liddy went on the air to say that Obama’s childhood made him a threat to America. He said that over in Indonesia at a Catholic School he was listed as a Muslim. “He was in Indonesia, which is Muslim country, until about 10.” They considered Barack Obama, whom they usually called by his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, to give their claims the full authority, that he must be Muslim.

I remember at the time, a client of mine, who was a truck driver driving throughout the United States and constantly listened to talk radio, particularly the revered Rush Limbaugh, and received absolutely assurance that Obama was a Muslim. There was no doubt about that.

I remember a client of mine, a long-distance truck driver, who once told me solemnly that Barack Obama was a Muslim.  Until then I had never heard of the birther conspiracy. I had never considered the effect of talk radio either at that time. My eyes were opened.

This kind of smear had dogged Obama throughout his life, according to Justin Ling, and “it wouldn’t go away because these right-wing radio hosts were peddling anger. Anger was their business…And Obama was great for business.” People like Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh, and other rightwing radio hosts and kooks opened a barrier to a phenomenal wave of resentment in the American people. It rushed across the country. At first the only people who noticed were the people who listened to it.  Soon the rest of us found out about it as well. American was changing and going farther to the extreme right.

Fuelling a Racial Rage

 

When you look at the right-wing hysteria it is very difficult to avoid reaching the conclusion that race plays a vital role in the anger stoked up by right-wing media.

Rush Limbaugh, a dedicated purveyor of hate and vitriol on American talk radio, had a very different reaction to flooding in Iowa and other largely white Mid-west states a couple of years after Katrina, than the right wing did about mainly blacks in New Orleans. There were no verbal assaults on the lazy whites. This is what he said,

“I look at Iowa, I look at Illinois. I want to see the murders. I want to see the looting. I want to see all the stuff that happened in New Orleans. I see devastation in Iowa and it dwarfs what happened in New Orleans. I see people working together. I see people trying to save their property and save their reputations. I don’t see a bunch of people running around waiving guns at helicopters. I don’t see a bunch of people shooting cops. I don’t see a bunch of people raping people on the street.”

 

As Justin Ling reported on the CBC radio podcasts said about the right wing reaction to blacks in harm’s way during Hurricane Katrina:

“As aid workers tried to help, right-wing radio told stories of snipers on rooftops. As the media tried to bring the reality of the situation home to other Americans they were called liars. And as the poorest people in the world had suffered, right-wing radio painted them as lazy and dishonest at best, and murderers and rapists at worst. They have given listeners plenty to be angry about.”

 

The rage machine was fuelled and ready to go. Owners of right-wing radio and their employees were ready to reap the profits of rage. And they knew who to blame—lazy good for nothing blacks and their liberal facilitators.

 

The Rage Machine

 

In many respects right-wing radio is based on resentment and the fury that it can fuel.  We resent them. We have been victimized the others. They are taking our country. And we want our country back. And we are going to get it. It really is us against them! That is still a big part of right-wing ideology.

 

As Justin Ling said, “Right-wing radio is most effective when there is a focus for all of that rage. What it comes down to is these guys are in the rage business.

 

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit US shores near New Orleans, setting in motion another hateful attack by America’s right-wing. Many people were stuck under water and badly needed help. The George W. Bush administration was strongly criticized for being slow to get aid to the people in Louisiana devastated by the storm. Local political leaders were begging for help from the federal government.

 

But then something astonishing happened. Many right-wing pundits across America began to criticize the New Orleans and Louisiana politicians for ‘sitting on their asses.’  One right-wing pundit said the problem was that New Orleans police were too busy getting in on the looting to stop the looting. It was their point of view that the police did not want to confront the looters and thugs that had taken over the city.

 

In the weeks following the hurricane strike, right-wing radio was filled with stories suggesting that New Orleans was overrun with looters, murderers and rapists. They claimed people were shooting people with assault rifles that were coming to rescue them. These pundits asked if liberals would be upset with this, or would side with the looters. As CBC reporter Justin Ling said, “Many of these reports were overblown, some were outright lies. And all that misinformation—it has a real impact. These false reports actually hindered efforts to get aid to the hardest hit areas of New Orleans.”

 

One of the right-wing pundits, Neil Boortz, said, “That’s not the voice of the downtrodden. That’s the voice of the useless, the worthless.” Right-wing radio hosts were arguing that the suffering that was plain and clear was not actually real. Some hinted they must be faking it. Some suggested people had created their own misfortune. Or that they did not deserve help! One such pundit said,

 

New Orleans was a welfare city, a city of parasites, a city of people who could not or had no desire to fend for themselves. You have a hurricane descending on them and they sit on their fat asses and wait for somebody else to come rescue them.

 

The racial tropes of people sitting on their asses and doing nothing, of being welfare bums and doing nothing are of course part of the racial ideology of the right-wing.  Black people are lazy. Those who are poor deserve to be poor because they are not willing to work.

 

The real problem, the right-wing pundits insisted was “big government.”  Not incompetent government of Bush cronies being appointed to positions of power for which they were uniquely unqualified. Government was the problem. Rush Limbaugh said liberal democrats had run the city for 60 years so they were to blame. It could not be the fault of George W. Bush and his crony appointees. He said, “What was on display here was the utter total failure of liberalism!

 

Justin Ling described the situation this way:

 

“To some degree this was about protecting George W. Bush. But in many ways it was irrelevant who occupied the White House. When these hosts went after the victims of Hurricane Katrina they weren’t worried about winning elections. They were worried about winning the air war. Winning new listeners. Winning ad dollars. And the way to do that was by ginning up controversy and outrage. These hosts are not in the Republican business; they are in the rage business.”

 

 

That is what the right-wing in America is all about–stimulating rage and pointing the angry in the direction of the liberal enemies! Right-wing talk radio learned quickly that rage sells. And they  have never forgotten that lesson.

Demonization of Muslims

 

 

Right-wing extremists have always liked scapegoats.  It used to be Catholics, or Blacks, or Communists. After 9/11 another arose Muslims. And right-wing radio in America stepped right in.

As Justin Ling the host of the CBC series Flamethrowers said, “The demonization of Muslims became a sport. One that would ensnare millions of Americans. And it was disgusting.” As one visitor to right-wing radio said, “The Moslems are fighting the Jews. The Moslems are fighting the Christians. The Moslems are fighting the Hindus. The Moslems are fighting the Buddhists. They’re slaughtering the blacks. Even the Moslem blacks in African Darfur. Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, wherever you want.”

The right-wing radio talk-show host Glen Beck  made his point of view known , and that of the right-wing in America when he commented to that: “well they certainly are adept at slaughter, I give you that.”

 

After the 9/11 attack the right-wing attacks against Muslims escalated exponentially. As Ling said, “Every week brought a new terror alert. George W. Bush led the invasion of Afghanistan, launching the war on terror. And conservative radio is on it.”

The 9/11 incident electrified the American right. They had a new Satan to replace the presumably vanquished Soviet Satan. The Muslims were the new Satan. With  a new sinner, the gospel of hate was thriving as never before. And the domestic how grown terrorists were fired up.

 

Demonization of Muslims

 

As Justin Ling the host of the CBC series Flamethrowers said, “The demonization of Muslims became a sport. One that would ensnare millions of Americans. And it was disgusting.”As one visitor to right-wing radio said, “The Moslems are fighting the Jews. The Moslems are fighting the Christians. The Moslems are fighting the Hindus. The Moslems are fighting the Buddhists. They’re slaughtering the blacks. Even the Moslem blacks in African Darfur. Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, wherever you want.”

The right-wing radio talk-show host made his point of view, and that of the right-wing in America when he commented to that: “well they certainly are adept at slaughter, I give you that.”

fter the 9/11 attack the right-wing attacks against Muslims escalated exponentially. As Ling said, “Every week brought a new terror alert. George W. Bush led the invasion of Afghanistan, launching the war on terror. And conservative radio is on it.”

The 9/11 incident electrified the American right. They had a new Satan to replace the presumably vanquished Soviet Russian Satan. The Muslims were the new Satan. it was time to unleash the hate, and American right-wing talk radio was up to the tast.

 

 

Glenn Beck and the Gospel of Hate

 

Following on the heels of Rush Limbaugh in the annals of right-wing talk radio in America, was Glenn Beck. In fact, Limbaugh took “credit” for Glenn Beck. “Glenn Beck is a result of my success,” claimed Limbaugh  And he might be right.

The September 11, 01 attack on America by Al Qaeda followed a couple of years later in 203 by an American led invasion of Iraq, together, supercharged the right-wing in America.  They had a new enemy for their gospel of hate.  And the pundits of right-wing talk radio were in heaven.  George W. Bush pushed the war as a “just war” to destroy weapons of mass destruction and to prevent another attack on America. He said that, and Americans believed it, despite the fact that Iraq had no such weapons and the United States had more of such weapons than the rest of the world combined. Only America and a select few other countries, has the right to such weapons. Everyone else’s use of them is somehow illegitimate.

Paranoia like that which has engulfed the United States leads to such magisterial leaps in logic.  And the American right wing feasted on such claims. They saw American acting in rightful defense from attack by a dangerous other. A follower of Satan. It was a battle of civilizations and religions against each other. The Americans also believed naively that the people of Iraq would immediately drop their weapons and turn on their own leaders as soon as they caught a glimpse of the righteous leaders of America.

As Glenn Beck, one right wing commentator said, “I truly believe that these Mullahs are far worse than Hitler. Hitler was crazy evil. I believe these guys are biblically evil.”  He also said, Nancy Pelosi and her acolytes want us to lose in Iraq. They want there to be chaos in Afghanistan. They want this. They’re rooting against their own country.

The Dixie Chicks (later called “the Chicks”), until then were one of the most successful bands in America but when their leader said they were “disappointed in the president of the United States,” they were cancelled around the country. Radio stations across the country banned their music. Some radio stations hired steam rollers to crush their CDs. Some set up fires to burn their CDs and they became a favoured villain on American talk radio. All that for saying they were disappointed in their president!

Yet thousands of people also protested against the war on terror launched by George W. Bush. Glenn Beck organized a rally against those who opposed the war and their perceived  “liberal” allies. He called these “rallies for America” and dozens were held across the country. Beck said Americans should pay more attention to the torture chambers organized by Iraq then spending so much time criticizing the American president. The rallies were huge in many America cities. There were more than 100 such events in America and Canada. Thousands of people waved little America flags. One of them at one of these rallies had a tattoo of the twin towers burned across his entire back.

The devoted followers of American right-wing extremists were ecstatic. They had a new enemy to replace the evil communists who had been successfully defeated, only of course to rise again in the form of right-wing populists or right-wing dictators.

 

 

Rush Limbaugh: The Father of Hate Radio

 

 

In his State of the Union address in February 2020 Donald Trump introduced a man he called “Beloved by millions of Americans, the greatest fighter and winner you’ll ever meet.” That is a pretty big endorsement from the President of the United States.

 

That man was Rush Limbaugh. He awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  The Republicans in the Congress that day jumped up for joy. The Democrats were horrified.  To Republicans, he was one of theirs.  He was one of their heroes and he was being rewarded by their President.  But who was Rush Limbaugh?

 

Limbaugh was the guy who helped propel Donald Trump to the US presidency. According to Justin Ling in his CBC podcast on Right-wing radio in the US, Limbaugh was the guy whose followers stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in part due to conditioning from Limbaugh.

 

Here is something Limbaugh said, “If any race should not have any guilt about slavery its Caucasians.”

 

Or this, “How many of you guys with your own experience with women, know that that ‘No” means ‘Yes” if you know how to spot it?”

 

According to Ling, “He is the guy who made the modern Conservative movement into what it is.” His great talent was to supercharge hate.  Sort of like modern owners of social media. Both knew that hate sells.

 

The moment Limbaugh was crowned, according to Ling, was “the moment right-wing politics cemented its central role in American politic.  And the role was the production of hate.  Right-wing radio shows were hate farms!

 

 

Hateful Words Matter

 

William Cooper, another frequent right-wing radio speaker or host,  later that year after the bombing in Oklahoma  said Timothy McVey had attended his offices seeking help, which he said he would not give. He did not care what they did, but he would not support them. He talked about how two people who looked like McVey and his partner Terry Nichols had vaguely tipped him off and gave his people a copy of The Turner Diaries which, among other things, talked about committing acts of violence to start a race war! This became a familiar trope among the far-right.

 

The FBI found a copy of that book inside McVey’s Ryder van. Added to that, as Justin Ling said on his CBC podcast about right-wing radio,

 

It is clear that Cooper did influence McVey and despite his insistence that he does not support violence and terrorism, he literally spent years calling his listeners cowards for not doing anything about Waco. And then one of his listeners did exactly what he was telling them to do!

 

One thing is clear from all of this: words matter. Particularly, hateful words have consequences, especially when they are frequently repeated to resentful people with grievances.

 

Many years later, Donald Trump learned valuable lessons from such right-wing commentators. He too was able to fire up his supporters. Bigly!