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.