Category Archives: Hate

The Revival of Talk Radio and the Far Right

 

 

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

 

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

 

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.

 

Charles Coughlin and the birth of Populist Radio

 

 

The story in the CBC podcast The Flamethrowers  about right-wing extremism began with someone I had never heard of before and he was a Canadian. He was 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 Donald Trump. What he did was crucial. He proved how potent radio could be.

 

This may sound crazy, but Right-wing radio flexed its muscle with a boycott of Polish Ham. Much later the Kennedy government in the US almost wiped right-wing talk radio off the map.  Right-wing radio began with loud, brash, infuriating zealots. In fact such have always swum in its waters.

 

According to producer Justin 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 peddlers 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.  Father Coughlin set the mould for those that followed.

 

About a hundred years ago, in the 1920s, talk radio was launched from what now seems a very unlikely source a firebrand Catholic. He claimed he got a “welcome present from the Ku Klux Klan.” Although the Klan reserved its most venal vitriol for black Americans it had other groups in its sights. 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 the 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 arrangement 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.

 

In 1929 America, like the rest of the world experienced a crash. The 1920s, called the Roaring Twenties, were when wealthy people leaped enthusiastically in to popular endeavors such as Speakeasys. In time this led the country into financial disaster and common people were desperately unhappy about it. Coughlin stepped out of fiery preacher role 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.

 

In the language of today he was a populist—he was anti-communist but also anti-capitalist. He supported some unions, but not the more radical unions. He was not that far left. As Ling 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.” Meanwhile money poured into the church 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. 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 to meet the masses.” Coughlin saw in FDR a vehicle for his new social justice calling.  Ling said, “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. 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 claimed falsely 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 came to be called “the father of Hate radio.” [Though some called Rush Limbaugh that]

 

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 be abused in that manner. As Ling said, “In today’s 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. Especially, those on the political right.

 

As Ling said, “Coughlin was radio’s first real political 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.”  Coughlin unleashed the power of hate. That was his crucial contribution. 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. I was amazed to learn it was all started by a Canadian Catholic priest.

 

Policing in a Broken Society

This past year in America 5 black  cops brutally killed a young black man for no apparent reason that has been revealed. Why did that happen?

Bill Maher was  right when he said on his television show earlier this year, “What’s going on, in my view, is that society is broken. We don’t educate people anymore, discipline is all broken down, families are broken down.” I agree this is a product of a broken society and then we ask the police to solve it.  Among all the other jobs they have to deal with they are expected to hold society together as it is shredded.  They are being asked to be psychologists, marriage counsellors, social workers advocates. As Bill Maher said, “No one ever calls the cops to tell them how well the marriage is going.” It is what I always said about schools. The principal never called us ot a team meeting to tell us how well the lads were doing in school.

How could that possibly work? Trust is gone. Guns sluice through American society. That doesn’t help. Violence is bred in the bone, particularly in America. What can the police do to mend this mess? As Bill Maher said, “They are the ones who get the slop of a broken society.”  And then they are asked to do far too much. And sometimes they contribute to it.

Yet, of course, the cops are also part of that broken society. Why those 5 black cops did what they did may always remain a mystery.  They just did it.   The cops perhaps were going through a divorce, or under pressure from their landlord to pay the rent, or their kids are trying drugs and disrespect their parents. What can the cops do about that?  They can break is about all they can do under impossible conditions.

There is a bigger question: where is all the rage coming from?  This is a vitally important question without any apparent answers. The rage is clearly out there, but where did it come from? The police like the rest of us are suffering from anxiety and fear. Every day they drive into harm’s way as part of their jobs.  The cops live in a society transfused with fear, anxiety, depression, and above all hate. It is a toxic mess that no Sunday School can cure.

Of course, we must always remember that a very high percentage of cops don’t resort to killing people out of frustration.  Most of them are just trying to do an honourable job as best they can.  Yet we must not accept it when they don’t do their best or abuse the trust given to them. Society is entitled to their best. Also, we must not be surprised when the police abuse the trust and fall short. It is going to happen. A broken society cannot deliver a perfect result. Fear, anxiety, depression and hate will never produce perfection. We will never get perfect policing until we get a perfect society, at which time we won’t need the police.

As Brett Stephens also said on Maher’s show, “Every day a cop in America is shot and killed. And police deserve a lot more respect than they get.”[2]

 I do not want to be taken to be giving in to fatalism. We must insist police do a better job. We must give them the support and respect they deserve, but not blind automatic acceptance of all they do.

 The real issue about cops is the same as the real issue of guns.  It is not inadequate laws that are the problem.  The real problem is the incredible rage in American society. In many ways it is a broken society. And that means that when the pieces of glass fly, people will get hurt. The rage let loose in a broken society is going to hurt someone. Whoever is in the way will get hurt. Police and guns just happen to be right on the edge of the tears in society. And we just have to look out.

Why so much rage?

 

While we were in Arizona this year, before the end of January, there had been 39 mass shootings in the US.  People keep talking about better gun laws (as they should) but really there is a much bigger issue. The bigger issue is why is there so much rage in the country, particularly among young men? The mass shootings are overwhelmingly committed by angry young men. That is a very big question. And there is no simple answer but there are many plausible answers.

The gunman killed 11 people and injured another 9. After the shooting there was a lot of hand wringing and  surprise in the California community.  Their local State Senator said Monterey was “a close-knit community” and “a great place to raise children.”  Really? This is what they call a close-knit community in the US? California has the lowest gunfire mortality in the US probably because it has the strictest gun laws. Yet even in California there is a mass shooting every 8 days! Compared to communities around the world those “strict” gun laws are among the weakest! That’s how Americans like it. They want weak gun laws.

But I am actually more interested in a deeper question: why is there so much rage in America?  We have rage in Canada too but nothing like the US. What is driving young men to such violent fury? It seems to me that this question gets less attention than it should.

Adam Winkler, a professor of law at UCLA said “we can’t stop people from getting angry, but we can make it a little bit harder to get guns when they are in a passionate state.” That is a good idea, but why give up on trying to reduce the rage?  What makes him think that is hopeless? Has anyone actually tried it?

This is the issue the country should be dealing with.  The gun law debate in the US is frankly sterile. Nothing of substance happens. No one, it seems to me, is looking at the issue of that desperate anger. That is the problem Americans need to resolve. Until they do, no one can intelligibly deny that America, the self-proclaimed leader of the free world, is a country in serious decline. In Canada one of our major political parties is determined to follow America. Would that be wise? That rage seems to be coming our way. We should not amplify it.

 

 

Extremism: Alive and Not well in America

 

Driving through a large part of the United States from the northern State of North Dakota south to Texas and then west to Arizona, as we did this year, it did not take long to realize that extremism is alive and not well in this country. While there is ample extremism on the left and the right, it clear that most extremism lives and thrives in the right wing.

I heard an interesting interview with Cynthia Miller-Idriss an award-winning author and scholar of extremism and radicalization in the US.  She is the founding director of the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) at the American University in Washington, DC, where she is also Professor in the School of Public Affairs and in the School of Education. She has testified a number of times before the US Congress on issues relating to extremism. She has also been a frequent commentator on these issues for various media outlets. She is a member of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Tracking Hate and Extremism Advisory Committee and the author of a number of books including recently Hate in the HomelandThe New Global Far Right.

One of the problems that Miller-Idriss alerts us to is the fact that American federal law does not yet have a crime of domestic terrorism. As a result, American law enforcement has to try to squeeze the charges they want to lay against an accused into boxes that really are not the best fit.

The fact that in the new American Congress there were participants in the insurrection on January 6th ,  means that American democracy is still in jeopardy. Michael Fanone who was a police officer engaged in resisting the violent insurrection on Capitol Hill that day said we need political leaders who will clearly denounce political violence.

When the January 6th insurrectionists invaded the  Capitol Hill police officers and 60 Metropolitan police officers were injured resisting the political violence, that was clearly an act of domestic terrorism. They were resisting a violent attempt to impose a political goal, namely, to stop the election of Joseph Biden.  Many of them were chanting “Stop the Steal,” or, even worse, “Hang Mike Pence” while engaged in violence against the police authorities who were defending the Capitol and the elected political representatives. By any definition of “terrorism” these violent acts would qualify as domestic terrorism. They were using violence for a political end. That is what constitutes terrorism. Clearly their political aim was to support the case of Donald Trump with whom the rioters and Trumpsters were aligned. Yet many Republican leaders have not denounced that violence of the far right.

The future of America still seems clouded with violence. And that comes mainly, though not exclusively on the right. All political leaders of all stripes ought to object strongly to any political violence, especially from their own side. If we can’t do that the future is grim.

Resentment Rarely explodes in a rational manner

 

While we were in Arizona, a man in Utah killed his wife and 5 children because she filed for divorce?  Why?

Just like an economic bubble does not deflate in an orderly fashion., so my theory is that when resentment explodes it does not do so in a rational manner.  This is like the irrational hatred of the Ste. Anne Manitoba dairy farmer who a few years ago burned his farm to the ground including his cattle, after he could not settle his divorce with his wife as he would have liked. If he couldn’t have the farm no one else could either. Isn’t that what the new world disorder is all about?

Like a balloon rarely deflates in an orderly fashion, so resentment rarely explodes in a rational manner. That’s why resentment is so dangerous. This is particularly significant to the most dangerous people on the planet—young men. Jihadis and other extremist groups have learned how important young men are to their cause. That is why they work so hard to radicalize them. Many of the lone wolf killers that are so common are young men filled with resentment. Many of them live in a cauldron of hate.   The jihadis then take advantage of the resentment for their own purposes.

When society is in decline. resentment is amplified.

And they make us pay a hefty price.

 

Why are so many Americans killing other Americans?

 

I did not want to interrupt my series of post on the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but I must.

We have been in the United States for 3 weeks now and I find this magnificent country incomprehensible. Mainly because some of the people who live here. Not all, but many.

Yesterday we learned of another Mass killing.  We have not yet got all the news of the mass killing that happened a few ays ago in California. Now we have one more mass killing to consider. Last week the murderer in California killed 11 people. The number was upsized today when one of the victims who had been in the hospital died. Yesterday as were told “at least 7 died” of gunshot wounds.

Forget about the guns, let’s just consider why do so many Americans want to kill other Americans they don’t even know personally? Why do so many Americans want to kill complete strangers? To me that seems incomprehensible.

We also learned that in another killing that might not qualify as a “mass killing” 2 students were shot and killed and another is in critical condition in the hospital. How can CNN keep up with the killings? I have a hard time telling them apart. One mass killing melts into the next one.

Yesterday State Senator Josh Becker said the community where this happened was “a close-knit community” and they will be in shock. Is that what close knit now means?

 

CNN reported  that there have been 38 mass killings in the 3 weeks we have been in the US. Laura Coates a CNN commentator and TV host said “now the front-line is everywhere.”

 

Later she said, if the front line is everywhere “we are all stakeholders.” That can’t be anything but true. But does it matter? Who cares? After all it’s just one more killing.

Here is the real question? Where is all this hate coming from?  And it arises even in “close-knit” communities. How is that possible? What does that mean?

 

Very Big lies: White Superiority and the Doctrine of Discovery

 

 

When European settlers came to Canada, they brought with them a lot of lies. They packed lies you might say. One of the big ones was the doctrine of discovery.

 

As Tanya Talaga said on the CBC documentary Spirt to Soar,

“When the settlers came to our lands they brought with them many stories of falsehoods. The most harmful being the doctrine of discovery-terra nullius. With lands belonging to no one, this justified the theft and discover of our homelands. But the land belonged to someone. We were here. We are still here.”

This reminded me of a recent television series I watched called The English. In that series  the villains included a group of Mennonites who had come to settle Kansa in 1800s. The English woman in the series asked the Mennonites why they were there? “Do you not realized people live here”, she asked. The Mennonites were shocked. How could their good intentions be questioned?  The replied, “God sent us.”  That was all they said. They never considered that they might be trespassing on land of others. Such an idea never entered their minds.

I actually think there was another doctrine–at least as harmful as the Doctrine of Discovery and closely related to it. That was the doctrine of white supremacy.  It held that whites were superior to all other races. All other races are inferior. This reminded me, obliquely, of my inferior tour. It was inferior not just in the sense of being puny, but also in the sense of any lingering sense of superiority I might have. I have been trying to oust this pernicious doctrine from my soul. It is not easy. The doctrine of white supremacy is entirely irrational, but that does not make it any less real. Anyone who benefits from doctrine must renounce it. Justice, fairness, and reason all demand it.

Both doctrines were lies—very big lies.

According to Jody Porter, CBC reporter in the film, Spirit to Soar, “there is a sense in this town [Thunder Bay] that you don’t have to account for these things.” That is what privilege is all about. That is what makes Thunder Bay the Hate capital of Canada. Those who have white supremacy deep in their souls often do not recognize that it is there. They are blind to it. They accept the benefits of privilege and look down on its victims, if they notice them at all. That is the spirit that does not soar. That is the spirit that leads to hate.