The Triumph of the Limbaugh-Gingrich Axis: E.J. Dionne on Rush, Newt, the Media, and How Conservative Spin Skews the News
In case you missed it, make sure to check out this brilliant column from E.J. Dionne, published yesterday at the WaPo. While it says what many of us have been saying for a long time — namely, that the establishment media are effectively being manipulated by, and have for a long time been dominated by, conservative narratives that shape and frame how the media inform their consumers — it is nonetheless a powerful indictment of the media, and their relationship with the far right, from a critic near the very center of Beltway establishmentarianism (and from one of the more thoughtful Beltway pundits). Here’s a taste:
If you doubt that there is a conservative inclination in the media, consider which arguments you hear regularly and which you don’t. When Rush Limbaugh sneezes or Newt Gingrich tweets, their views ricochet from the Internet to cable television and into the traditional media. It is remarkable how successful they are in setting what passes for the news agenda.
The power of the Limbaugh-Gingrich axis means that Obama is regularly cast as somewhere on the far left end of a truncated political spectrum. He’s the guy who nominates a “racist” to the Supreme Court (though Gingrich retreated from the word yesterday), wants to weaken America’s defenses against terrorism and is proposing a massive government takeover of the private economy. Steve Forbes, writing for his magazine, recently went so far as to compare Obama’s economic policies to those of Juan Peron’s Argentina.
Democrats are complicit in building up Gingrich and Limbaugh as the main spokesmen for the Republican Party, since Obama polls so much better than either of them. But the media play an independent role by regularly treating far-right views as mainstream positions and by largely ignoring critiques of Obama that come from elected officials on the left.
Indeed, there is much blame to go around, and some of it must be reserved for the Democrats, and for liberals-progressives generally, who have not effectively counter-balanced the right in terms of setting the narratives that govern the media (though they have been doing much, much better in this regard).
But it is the establishment media, the MSM, that continues to treat right-wing propaganda like mainstream orthodoxy, that continues to provide a lofty platform for the likes of Rush and Newt, that essentially validates their views and biases, that tilts the political spectrum to the right, making it seem as if Obama (and pretty much any liberal) is some crazed anti-American radical.
Are Newt and Rush “winning,” as Dionne suggests? Yes, in a way — and in spite of Obama’s popularity. Which means that there is much work for us to do.
(Cross-posted from The Reaction.)
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16 Responses to “The Triumph of the Limbaugh-Gingrich Axis: E.J. Dionne on Rush, Newt, the Media, and How Conservative Spin Skews the News”
E.J. and Michael are coming to the realization that a number of deep thinkers and world leaders have faced before.
How will they suggest the problem be handled?
When faced by the same problem, Stalin shot some of his detractors and imprisoned the rest. Castro shut down the opposing radio stations and jailed the operators. Saddam, as kind a kite flying leader as the world has ever seen, fed a few of his critics to lions in his zoo.
People would be less prone to think of liberals as crazed anti-American radicals if voices like Limbaugh and Gingrich were silenced, and as E.J. says, there’s much work to do.
Typically extreme comment, jwest. Easy as ever to dismiss in its extremism.
We do need to change the narrative, and in part the growing portion of the media outside what is considered the MSM is having that effect. The other and more significant change is in the demographic changes our country is going through. Fewer young people are supernaturalists than in any generation, diluting the “God vs the Devil” story with God on our side and everyone else the Devil's work. I hope this is happening in other cultures and believe it is (see “reading lolita in Tehran” for example). As young people become less gullible in buying into the world-as-Hollywood-blockbuster mentality of the MSM, our global culture will change too.
Similarly, as fewer Muslims buy the “America as great Satan” line, global tensions can decrease. As more young people think of their futures, the future of the planet, the need to build a sustainable future, rather than always viewing life as a fight against “other”, we can get on to the real work ahead. It's no longer about defeating our enemies or protecting ourselves against them. It's about rebuilding our countries into strong allies in securing a future in a world of declining resources, increasing population and global challenges of environmental degradation and the struggles for those dwindling resources. Those dwindling resources are not just oil, but water, clean air, arable land, minerals and more. And our new model, which presents huge challenges, is to build an economy that isn't dependent on depleting resources at the maximum rate and rather, toward making things to buy and sell that don't waste what little is left.
I don't think Dionne is correct in his conclusions. The media will always choose extreme commentary over measured voices. When Democrats do it (Durban, Biden) we hear soundbytes for a week. When Republicans do it (Limbaugh, Bachmann) it's the same deal. The difference is there's far more hyperbole coming out of the right end at the moment, so that's what we hear about on a regular basis. The media only serves to magnify these reactionaries because it'll piss people off – and that's how you attract viewers.
I was wondering when someone would post about this article. So the fact that the media has been talking about Rush all day every day is somehow the conservative's fault? Seriously? On this blog, we were greeted constantly by cartoon after cartoon and post after post about anything and everything that Rush, Cheney, or any other knucklehead Repub out there had to say about anything. For awhile, it was rather entertaining to come here first and find out who the next victim was bowing down to the almighty Rush and repenting for their insolence. Many of us in the comment box made small qualms about it, some moreso than others, yet it continued.
I'm surprised Michael that you don't bring up the fact that Carville was the one who put the focus on Limbaugh. One would think that with Dems in control of everything right now, a little focus would be put on them, especially when they voice some sort of disagreement with the President's policy. The only reason why Limbaugh is winning, or why Cheney's toilet approval rating is climbing is because so many in the media keep talking about them, making them more important than they are. And this is some nefarious plot by the conservative media? Give me a break.
GD,
Where do you come up with that stuff? Off the side of granola boxes?
If it wasn’t for voices of reason like Limbaugh and Gingrich, the airwaves would be filled with junk-science garbage like the craziness in your comment. There are a number of weak minded people who would actually believe some of this “save the earth” line regardless of the actual facts and this would compel them to try and impose their minimalist insanity on the rest of us.
Now thinking for a moment about the news media: In general, do you think the news media is too liberal, just about right, or too conservative?” Options rotated. N=501, MoE ± 5 (Form A).
TooLiberal AboutRight TooConservative Unsure
% % % %
9/14-16/07 45 35 18 2
Seems that Stickings and Greendreams are members of their own “less than 20% of the public share their philosophy” group. They are as out of touch as the people they continually criticize for being so.
I think a good exercise in framing could start with “save the earth”. Its actually,
“Save the humans”. The earth will be around long after we have used up all the fresh water and polluted and poisoned our food supply and atmosphere beyond human threshold.
Consistently the debate has been between dumbed down, simplistic talking points versus nuance and reason. The more intelligent, thoughtful and reasoned arguments of the right do not make it on the air because its not good entertainment. Same with anything other than the most extremist left wing rhetoric. Modern conservative thought, as portrayed, is misanthropic, paranoid, greedy, give-me-mine narcissism. It resonates very well with a populace that wants car wrecks, groin punches and celebritantes without their undies. Despite the relatively small percentage of people who actually believe what a Rush or Savage spews, it inevitably keeps people's attention because of its inflammatory tone. (along with misspelling, and outright lies)
jwest and co, it is you who are dwindling voices. Even among the staunchest GOP supporters (and in terms of sheer dollar contribution, I know more than a few), the anti-environment sentiment is flagging. As one of Bush's “pioneers” I know phrased it “whether or not emissions cause global warming, it isn't a good idea to poison our air and water.”
And if the dwindling “drill baby drill” crowd thinks resource depletion is a belief, rather than a fact, take a look at oil, water, copper, lithium, uranium, zinc, cement, aluminum and molybdenum prices and the race against China and India to lock up supplies. Then look at the global food resources that big players are locking up. You guys are in fantasy land. Not me.
I agree with Jchem. Limbaugh and Gingrich make conservatives seem like knuckleheads.
You can't have it both ways.
GS — Limbaugh, Gingrich, and Cheney are knuckleheads, so I'm baffled by the amount of time given to them. I've commented before its almost like we enjoy kicking the dead animal that the Repubs have become. Until these no-nothings can come up with some cogent ideas, we should laugh them off as simply insane, or better yet, ignore them altogether. I agree with Dionne that the important voices of reason are being ignored. But to think that this is some sort of conservative bias in the media is just absurd. If that's the case, then with all of the attention given to Limbaugh, Gingrich, and Cheney here, Joe may need to think of renaming his blog The Conservative Voice, and I bet a lot of commenters here would find that pretty silly.
Liberals get so focused on Limbaugh, Cheney, ect that you can't make them shut up no matter how you plead. If the media gives too much of a voice to hard right mouthpieces then blame the left who are endlessly fascinated by those in a way that the “regular” right or moderate americans will never be.
@jchem——-I'm surprised Michael that you don't bring up the fact that Carville was the one who put the focus on Limbaugh@
Because to do so would be an admission that the Dem media/communciation strategists (Emmanuel/Carville/Begala) completely f'd up. Their brilliant scheme has resulted in enabling just 3 men, not exposed to any reelection risk, to now have formidable negative leverage against the entire Dem party.
What remains to be seen is whether the elected Republicans can be disciplined enough to leverage off of this and start taking back some ground via the higher road.
The elections in NY, NJ and VA will be the first thing that actually matters. The next 6 months of crying and whining at TMV won't.
I think it's fair to say that the relentless focus on the most strident right wing voices is a center left driven project, and that's where the bulk of the MSM lives. Apparently those farther left on the spectrum don't get it and they think this focus actually serves the conservative movement by giving airtime to these people, but as many have already pointed out here, the far majority of the coverage of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk has been critical in nature. Others have also pointed out the obvious, that Carville and Begala were exposed for having deliberately taken on this strategy, and we can see that the WH also embraced it. So that's clearly not conservative voices in the MSM trying to keep Limbaugh in the limelight, it's his political opponents who are doing so (much to his delight, of course- his ratings are probably much higher now than they've been in a long time.)
God, I need a drink. It's all about entertainment and ratings, people.
“Carville and Begala were exposed for having deliberately taken on this strategy, and we can see that the WH also embraced it.”
Carville and Begala, eh? You might want to Google News for Carville OR Begala and see how much impact Carville and Begala are making in the news…
“And Begala is not just a random talking head who gets some airtime on CNN. According to several reports earlier this year, he’s a participant in a daily conference call with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Carville and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos”
http://www.lagniappemobile.com/articles/2292-di…