Category Archives: Hate

Why do Christians Hate so many Vulnerable People?

Evangelical Christianity, Gender Warfare, Hate

 

It seems odd to me—very odd—that Christians seem to be spearheading every charge against every minority group: women, blacks, lesbians, gays, trans, queer, Muslims, immigrants, and others? Is this what the party of Christ has come to?

Is it because there is something nasty about their religion?  After all the Bible, their Holy Book, does seem to have a lot of hatred for minority groups, particularly sexual minorities.

Yet Christians cheerfully without fuss or muss, easily discard inconvenient Bible prescriptions when they choose to. They don’t think being rich will prevent them from entering heaven no matter what the Bible says. They don’t stone adulterers like the Bible orders. So why do they pick on vulnerable lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and queer?  Why do they religiously follow the prescriptions against these vulnerable people while ignoring so many other divine orders?

I think the answer lies in the word I have been repeating: “vulnerable.”  There seems to be something about the vulnerable that attracts the attention  of  Christians, at least evangelical Christians, and their will to dominate.  It even attracts their hate, though often they deny it. In fact, now that gays and lesbians seem to be increasing in numbers or at least visibility, and hence power,  it seems to me they have eased up on their harassment of them.  Instead,  evangelical Christians are now concentrating more on bi-sexuals and trans. In my view, they are attracted to the easier and less powerful targets! They want to trample on the weak. And are fearful of the stronger.

If this is true it does not speak well of Christians.  If any readers feel I am being unfair to Christians, I ask them to speak up and set me straight. I don’t want to slander Christians if I am wrong.

 

Can 40 million listeners be wrong?

American Fascism, Conspiracy Theories, Death of Truth, Hate, Populism, racism, Right-wing Extremism

 

In 1929 America and the rest of the world experienced a crash. The 1920s, called the Roaring Twenties, when wealthy people leaped enthusiastically in to popular endeavors such as Speak Easys and led the country into financial disaster and common people were desperately unhappy about it.

Father Coughlin stepped out of the fiery preacher role on radio and became the “conduit for a real and very understandable anger.” He rode a populist wave of anger. He became the voice of outrage and had spectacular success on the perfect medium for anger—the radio.  Anger has been the bed rock of talk radio ever since, particularly right-wing talk radio.

In the language of today, Father Coughlin was a populist—he was anti-communist but also anti-capitalist. He supported some unions, but not the more radical unions. He started out left, though not extreme left. As Justin Ling the host and writer of the CBC podcast Flame Throwers said, “Coughlin’s audience was estimated at 40 million listeners. At that time that was a third of America. Limbaugh at his height would have only about 1/20th of America.” This is much more than Fox News obtains today. These were huge numbers! And all this from a Canadian priest!

Meanwhile money poured into the church he was restoring and he arranged for it to build a huge iron cross, one the KKK could not burn.Coughlin turned to a politician he could support. It was someone who distrusted the political class like he did. So, he turned instead to someone who distrusted the bankers and big business. This was a champion of everyman. Not a far right politician.  This political leader was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the author of the new deal.

Coughlin was clear, “It is either Roosevelt or ruin,” he said. FDR was a shrewd politician and “he saw in the radio priest, a new way of meeting the masses.” Coughlin saw in FDR a vehicle for his new social justice calling.  Justin Ling pointed out “As President, FDR recognized the visceral yet intimate power of radio. Through his fireside chats he entered into America’s living rooms as a trusted guest.” Coughlin inspired the President who followed suit. As Ling said, “Coughlin is no longer that small town Catholic  fighting anti-Catholic bias.” Later Coughlin abandoned FDR when he started making deals with the bankers rather than throwing them out as he done earlier. Later, when FDR made a deal with Stalin (and Churchill) Coughlin was furious. “Coughlin was vehemently anti-Communist.” He changed his slogan to “Roosevelt and ruin.”

Coughlin started his own political party and then turned to the dark side–the far right. He blamed Jews for their own persecution. He also adopted various conspiracy theories such as the one that Jewish bankers were part of an international cabal. He also cited the conspiracy theory of the elders of Zion which falsely claimed that Jews were part of a international Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. He claimed that Jews and Communists together were determined to take over America. Coughlin gave up on left wing causes and turned instead to supporting Hitler and the Nazis. He went about as far right as he could go.

He came to be called “the father of Hate radio.” Though someone else grabbed that crown from him about 100 years later.  We will get to him. Coughlin began to be abandoned by his erst while supporters. Many called out his mistaken litany of facts that were not facts at all. Federal regulators warned him that they would not allow the airwaves to abused in that manner. As Ling said, “In today’s world he was cancelled and de-platformed.” The radio star was done, but his influence lived on to be used by other pundits from other political persuasions.

As Ling said, “Coughlin was radio’s first real celebrity. He weaponized bombast but met his listeners where they were at. He sat in their living rooms and echoed their concerns. He helped to propel presidents to power. He tried to have a say in running the country from behind a microphone.”  He did all this by unleashing the power of hate. He was soon followed by many others.

The genie of political radio was out of the bottle and would never get back in. as Ling said, “Coughlin fell into conspiracy theories and hate as a way to energize and galvanize his support, and he would not be the last.” Once politicians, pundits, and frauds saw the power of hate, others followed as surely as night follows day. He proved how powerful the toxic combination of racism, hatred, and conspiracy theories could be.

 

 

 

Anger the Bedrock of Right-wing talk radio

Hate, Right-wing Extremism

 

The story in the CBC podcast written by and hosted by Justin Ling began with a Canadian priest Charles Coughlin — a populist crusader who wound up espousing conspiracy and hate 100 years before Rush Limbaugh got his medal of freedom from President Donald J. Trump. What Coughlin did was crucial. He proved how potent radio could be.

 

Right-wing radio flexed its muscle with a boycott of Polish Ham. And the Kennedy government almost wiped right-wing talk off the map.  Right-wing radio began with loud, brash, infuriating zealots. According to Ling, these “broadcasters would fan the flames of a new populist ideology; they give a voice to a swath of Americans who felt like they never had one. They energize and then they radicalize the conservative movement.”]  That movement was home to ordinary conservatives and conspiracy pedlars and everything in between. Father Coughlin started off in Canada but graduated to Detroit. He was of the ‘go big or go home’ mindset. That influenced many that came after him. It has been the mark of right-wing radio ever since.

 

n the 1920s, talk radio was launched from what now seems a very unlikely source a firebrand Canadian Catholic priest. He claimed he got a “welcome present from the Ku Klux Klan” when he arrived in Detroit. Although the Klan reserved its most venal vitriol for black Americans it had other groups in its sights as well. As Ling said, “they had more than enough hate in their hearts to attack immigrants, especially Catholics who were flocking to Detroit to work in new auto plants.” When he arrived in Detroit, he was greeted with a burning cross courtesy of the KKK. That did not scare him off. Coughlin made arrangements to deliver talks on the radio, a relatively new media at the time. He knew he needed to raise money for his church which had massive debt for its huge church and was not raising enough from donations to sustain it. The situation was dire and at the same time the local KKK group was uttering bellicose statements about the church. He had a deep rich voice with near musical cadence that was very powerful on the radio.

It was particularly effective at transmitting anger and hatred. in fact, it was amazingly effective at that.

A New Religious War

Extremism, Hate, Politics & Religion, Right-wing Extremism, True Believer

 

Carl McIntire was an important part of this wave of talk radio in America. According to Justin Ling in his podcast Flame Throwers, as absurd as this sounds to the modern listener, McIntyre, like Coughlin before him,  gave the people what they wanted—lengthy sermons.” Most modern listeners would rather go for a root canal than listen to long sermons, but at the time in the US in particular they were very popular.  Yet, McIntire provided what he called “The Twentieth Century Reformation Hour,” and it was immensely popular. Religion and politics is often considered a poisonous stew, but in right wing radio it is magic. Black magic perhaps, but magic.

 

Much of right-wing talk radio was driven by fears.  The first of those fears was creeping socialism or even worse, communism. The second fear was the rise of ecumenism or the progressive wing of Christianity.  Those 2 fears would not generate much fear today, but in the early 60s that was real and scary stuff. Often the two fears were tied together to make the fears exponentially more explosive.  The National Council of Churches was representative of this opposition and McIntire obsessed over it. According to Ling, when he used the word “secularism” you could hear and see the venom in his speech. It was like spit being ejected with extreme distaste. Both of these of course, were generated by conspiracy theories that pointed to a takeover by these forces. Secularism was liberalism—evil in other words. He did not hesitate to suggest, without evidence of course, that they were Communist sympathizers. Fellow travelers in other words. Religion and politics in other words in unholy matrimony.

 

Ling’s podcast brought us Clarence E. Manion, another religious zealot and right-wing true believer,  bellowing, “This is not a political war, this is not an economic war, this is not even a military war, this is a religious war at bottom.” And this brought together religion and politics into a constantly heated toxic brew. In America at least, it is still today a religious war—i.e. the worst kind of war. Manion of course was a committed Catholic who loved to use radio. He said “Communism could not succeed in atmosphere of religious belief and practice.”

 

Another militant in this spirit was Billy James Hargis who led “the Christin crusade.” The name of course is important and tells us a lot all by itself. He said, “I believe that the National Council of Churches is an instrument of Satan.” Right-wing extremists always go after those in their own movement who are not extreme enough often with more hate than their liberal enemies.  To many of us this seems rather extreme. Because it is extreme. But in its day, this was dynamite. Such attacks were what Ling said was “a very successful formula.” The Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christians ate it up. In 1956 Carl McIntire was on two national radio shows, one in Pennsylvania and another in Georgia. By 1960 he was on more than 100 radio stations and more than 400 by 1964.

 

Even though many of us (like me) have probably never heard of him, according to Justin Ling, “It was staggering how much affect McIntire had on the conservative movement in America. The National Review magazine, a prestigious right wing journal,  had 73,000 subscribers while McIntire had 23 million listeners! I have definitely heard of the National Review and their influence paled in comparison. Radio not literature was the King of the Right-Wing movement in America.

 

People like McIntire were instrumental in what became the “Southern Strategy” the movement to take the American south from liberal democrats in favor of conservative Republicans. Ling said “McIntire played a kind of John the Baptist role preparing the way for a kind of partisan transformation of the south from deep Democrat to deep Republican. They do so by playing on racist segregationist fears.”  He was important in convincing them their support of segregation was not racist. It was valid. It was ordained by God. Even though he was based in the north, half of his stations were in the south. By playing on racist fears, they helped move the south from the Democrats to the Republicans. This strategy proved very effective in getting Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan get elected. Fear and religion always play a vital role in this right-wing  movement. Race and fear go together like love and marriage. Or pee and porcelain to quote a friend of mine.

 

Flame Throwers and True Believers

Extremism, Hate, Right-wing Extremism, True Believer

 

The abolition of the Fairness doctrine in the US  opened the way for ordinary grass roots citizens who were unhappy with the political consensus of the 1950s to call in to talk radio and voice their opinions and gain some satisfaction from that engagement. These people felt connected to each other and a national movement. Their yearning to belong was deeply satisfied. AM radio did not have a lot of range during the day, but at night clear channel stations could pump out 50,000 watts. They were called “flame throwers” as a result. They threw the flames of hate.

Many of these radio shows offered ‘All talk, all of the time.”  That’s how popular the radio shows were, especially if they offered some spice. They were, in many ways, like Social Media is a today.  They offered a way for community members to engage with citizens on the fringes.  And those audience members were attracted to flames like flies to shit.

For most owners of most of such radio stations  did not care about ideology. The talk was cheap and all they cared about was making a buck. They weren’t  trying to elevate listeners or making the country a better place. Yet they helped to form a political movement.

They all tried to tap into a visceral element that kept such talk radio alive—“ this sense that is very common to conservatism, a sense of embattlement—the idea that everybody else is out to get you.”  Often they complained that they were held in contempt, that people ridiculed them, that their motives were questioned.

Again, this has been constant in right-wing extremism down to today.

 

The Fertilizer of Resentment

Extremism, Hate, Right-wing Extremism

 

One element that clever radio host constantly took advantage of was the sense of embattlement—that everyone was out to get you.  The pundits delivered this and the people loved it. There was a common feeling among people in America, particularly, in rural America, that the elites held them in contempt and eagerly ridiculed them. By the 1960s, according to Justin Ling, “this was a learned habit.”

 

This sense of resentment was the common denominator of hordes of talk radio listeners. It was the water in which they swam. And as we have learned at least since Friedrich Nietzsche. Resentment is a shockingly powerful force, never to be under estimated.

 

The advent of FM radio opened up the radios for excellent music. But that did not kill AM radio. Far from it. Because that left AM radio open for those who wanted to produce political hate. National networks could be created for super cheap. This was a golden opportunity for those who wanted to use radio.

 

Paul Matzko wrote the book called The Radio Right: How a Band of Broadcasters Took on the Federal Government and Built the Modern Conservative Movement. He wrote about how in recent years trust in traditional media has declined sharply. As a result many people in North America no longer believe what they hear or see on traditional or mainstream media and have started to turn to “echo chambers” where they see themselves reflected. This has led in turn to the ideology of their group cementing the bonds of the group. According to Matzko this is not the first time this has happened.

 

In his book Matzko writes about the far right that was frustrated by what they saw as liberal bias in the mainstream media. This started with what many of them thought  of as a sycophantic relationship between the media and the administration of John F. Kennedy. The media saw Kennedy as their golden boy from Harvard, rich, liberal, educated, and haughty. The media liked this. The people who resented this turned in reaction to news and particularly commentary from a resurgent ultra-conservative mass media on the radio.  Truckers in particular, driving across the country took up the right-wing causes with passion and exuberance. I have taliked to some of them. Networks turned to television so radio provided a home for hundreds of popular right-wing radio programs, programmers and pundits. The more bombastic the better. There was not premium for moderation. Extreme opinions were in vogue.

It is also interesting that resentment has never stopped from being a critical force in the right-wing movement down to present times. It is constantly triggered by modern Fox News pundits like Sean Hannity and former Fox host Tucker Carlson.

There is no better fertilizer for political hate than resentment and the right-wing knew how to take advantage of that. And they still do. 

 

White Supremacy: The Engine of the Right

Extremism, Hate, racism, Right-wing Extremism

 

After the revival of right wing talk radio that followed the abolition of the fairness doctrine, there was a steep rise in radio stations that catered to and even created the New Right.  This phenomenon was under appreciated, but it was real. “it was a torrent. You could listen to right-wing radio for 24 hours.”

Here was an early sample of such right-wing opinion heard on  one of the right-wing  talk radio shows : “The NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] is using the American negro to advance some liberal white men’s political bias.” The racial element of course is not accidental. From the outset, white supremacy was a vital part of right-wing radio, just as it is today and just as it is on right-wing cable television such as Fox News, and of course the Internet which has come to supercharge racism among the right. White supremacy has been an engine of right-wing media and hence right-wing opinion.  As one commentator said on the CBC podcast the Flamethrowers,

That was new on national radio on a consistent basis in the 1960s. There were more than a dozen broadcasters that aired on more than 100 stations nation-wide by the 1960s. And for every one of the national guys there were dozens of local guys who were on 10 stations or 20 stations or 3 stations. ” They really were ubiquitous.

This was very profitable because these right-wing pundits didn’t need to bother with high production, research, or expensive programming. They loved to shoot from the hip. The listeners loved to hear them shoot from the hip. This was win-win for the owners of right-wing radio stations as the people soaked it up with irrational exuberance. All they needed to do was throw a bit of flame. It would inevitably find suitable timber and start a firestorm of some sort over some current right-wing issue close to the heart of its listeners.

Racist comments were particularly prevalent. And particularly popular. Racism is the unacknowledged driver of American right-wing talk radio. The entire right-wing movement has not acknowledged the significance of this ugly fact, but racism repeatedly shows its ugly racist side.

The Revival of Talk Radio and the Far Right

Extremism, Hate, Right-wing Extremism, True Believer

 

 

The Radio Right provides the essential pre-history for the last four decades of conservative activism, as well as the historical context for current issues of political bias and censorship in the media.

 

After the disintegration of the Fairness doctrine by the Carter administration in the US in the late 70s , and the revival of talk radio that quickly followed,  suddenly radio stations on the right and left had a lot of bandwidth to dole out to attract listeners. It was also possible to create a national network with very little investment.

National networks could be created for super cheap funds. This was a golden opportunity for those who wanted to use radio. And radio entrepreneurs did exactly that. They invested and some of them got very rich.

There were a lot of people who resisted the apparent political consensus the political parties had reached in the 1950s.  These people resisted that consensus. Some Americans thought the political elites were just ganging up against them.

Especially at night they reached homes, cars, and particularly truckers. The first time I heard about this phenomenon was from a trucker I knew He told me how he loved to listen to Rush Limbaugh. At the time I knew nothing about Limbaugh.  Later I learned a lot about him.

This opened the way for ordinary grass roots citizens who were unhappy with the political consensus of the 1950s to call in to a radio show and voice their opinions and gain some satisfaction from that engagement. These people felt connected to each other and a national movement. Their yearning to belong was deeply satisfied. AM radio did not have a lot of range during the day, but at night clear channel stations could pump out 50,000 watts. They were called “flame throwers” as a result.  That was an apt description for what they did.

Homes, cars, and truckers could be reached easily and cheaply across the country. This was a massive audience. And unlike television they did not have to sit passively and watch. They could participate—by calling in. They could join in. They were not longer passive consumers, they were active participants.  Long-distance truckers could drive right across the country listening to talk radio all the way. And it was interesting. I have listened.  The hosts knew how to generate interest.  They were masters of engagement. Unlike social media giants they did not need algorithms.  These people were the livestock for those algorithms. As Matzko said, “that sense of interconnectedness across time and space is very powerful for social movement organizations, and political movement organizations.”]  Not only that, in my opinion that was a vitally significant force establishing the bonds for religious organizations—i.e. political religions that were created. Such social connection could create a very valuable asset—true believers! All that was needed was a spark.

And there were sparks.

The right wing pundits knew how to produce sparks; the left wing pundits were too boring for that.

Creating True Believers

Extremism, Hate, Right-wing Extremism

 

Many of the radio broadcasters of the far right talk shows  originally  were clergy, including Carl McIntire, Billy James Hargis, Clarence Manion, and many others. An umbilical connection between religion and politics was also nourished. The more conservative the religion the better. Conservative politics met conservative religion and the offspring were often inbred monsters.

Many of these religious pundits did not agree on religion, except that what united them was opposition to hated liberal theology. They wanted that old time religion. They also hated the superior John F. Kennedy at least until he died. Then they forgave him for his sins. Their politics was grassroots conservative activism on a huge scale. Kennedy multiplied the audits of radio stations after he worked hard to introduce the fairness doctrine.

 The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), was first introduced in 1949 and it was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints. It sounded good in theory but was sometimes difficult in actual circumstances.

It was a dog a dog whistle for the conservative right. It did actually tamp down right-wing radio until Jimmy Carter, an evangelical liberal, which seems very odd these days, brought in de-regulation of the airwaves and allowed right wing radio to be born again. This formed the foundation for the golden age of right-wing hate ushered in under the near divine regime of  Saint Ronnie Regan. It also reinforced the views of the conservatives that modern media was biased against them, not an entirely fictious belief.

Paul Matzko tells in his history of talk radio showed how Kennedy reacted to the hatred by sending tax auditors to harass conservative broadcasters who reacted with more and more venom.  He relates how, by 1963, Kennedy was so alarmed by the rise of the Radio Right that he ordered the Internal Revenue Service and Federal Communications Commission to target conservative broadcasters with tax audits and enhanced regulatory scrutiny via the Fairness Doctrine. Right-wing broadcasters lost hundreds of stations and millions of listeners. Not until the deregulation of the airwaves under the Carter and Reagan administrations would right-wing radio regain its former prominence and then it did so with a vengeance when it discovered its magic elixir–hate.

 

Building the Right-wing movement

Extremism, Hate, Right-wing Extremism

 

The advent of FM radio opened up the radios for excellent music. But that did not kill AM radio. Far from it. Because that left AM radio open for those who wanted to produce political hate. Radio also benefitted from the dismantling of government restrictions on broadcasting.

 

Paul Matzko wrote the book called The Radio Right: How a Band of Broadcasters Took on the Federal Government and Built the Modern Conservative Movement. He wrote about how in recent years trust in traditional media has declined sharply. As a result, many people in North America no longer believe what they hear or see on traditional or mainstream media and have started to turn to “echo chambers” where they see themselves reflected. This has led in turn to the ideology of their group cementing the bonds of the group. According to Matzko this is not the first time this has happened.

In his book Matzko writes about the far right that was frustrated by what they saw as liberal bias in the mainstream media. This started with what many of them think of as a sycophantic relationship between the media and the administration of John F. Kennedy. They saw Kennedy as their golden boy from Harvard, rich, liberal, educated and haughty. The people who resented this turned in reaction to news and particularly commentary from a resurgent ultra-conservative mass media on the radio.

Truckers in particular, driving across the country took up the right-wing causes with passion and exuberance. Networks turned to television so radio provided a home for hundreds of popular right-wing radio programs, programmers and pundits. The more bombastic the better. There was no premium for moderation. Extreme opinions were in vogue.