By Kevin Foley
Despite Gov. Rick Scott’s seven-hour waiting lines in Florida’s minority voting precincts, President Obama won the state’s 29 electoral votes, giving him a 332-206 victory and, more important, a clear mandate to lead America forward.
Just two weeks ago, Republicans were told by Fox News’ resident genius Dick Morris the election was in the bag. So, what happened?
David Frum may have the answer.
“The problem with Republican leaders is that they're cowards, not that they're fundamentally mistaken,” said the conservative pundit and former George W. Bush speechwriter. “Republicans have been fleeced and exploited and lied to by a conservative-entertainment complex.”
That “complex” includes Fox News’ Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, along with Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Neal Boortz, and scores of other far right flamethrowers.
“...Mitt Romney ... was twisted into pretzels,” Frum explains. “The people who put cement shoes on his feet are now blaming him for sinking.”
Right wing opinion entertainers are successful because they tap the anger, mistrust, and resentment many conservatives feel about the role of government.
What the conservative media complex successfully did was comingle entertainment and politics, attracting large audiences by demonizing and disparaging the voices of those with whom they disagree.
If conservative pundits only said, “You’re wrong and here’s why...” nobody would ever pay attention to them. But if they say, “You’re wrong and, what’s more, you’re an un-American terrorist appeaser who was probably born in Kenya,” well, that’s entertainment!
Thus, where we once had agreeable disagreement to solve our big problems, America now hears a relentless stream of right wing conspiracy theories, distortions and falsehoods designed to hit conservative audiences at a visceral level.
Unfortunately, too many conservatives confuse the entertainment with the truth.
Republican’s have been “fleeced and exploited” because conservative politicians who know better dare not criticize or even contradict the far right entertainers lest they be vilified on the airwaves, too.
Remember Romney’s muted response to Limbaugh’s vicious and relentless attacks on Sandra Fluke, the law student who spoke out about access to contraception?
Then Limbaugh had the temerity to suggest he didn’t hurt Romney. Sure he did.
If you think the conservative media complex will pause to consider or even care that it’s killing the Republican Party, think again, because they’re back at it this week with a vengeance.
America, observed Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, is "the shallowest country in the history of man,” because voters rejected Romney.
Columnist Cal Thomas, echoing Romney’s “47 percent” crack, claimed the 62.2 million Americans who voted for Obama are “freeloaders” and “moochers.”
Hispanics and Latinos voted for Obama by a 7-to-1 margin, so columnist Charles Krauthammer thinks the way to attract this key constituency to the GOP is to pass an immigration reform bill that would "legalize their status enough to live in the shadows.”
Aging rock star and Washington Times columnist Ted Nugent labeled Obama’s supporters “subhuman varmints.”
Ann Coulter blames “purist show-offs” Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock for torpedoing Republicans even though she routinely makes polarizing observations like, “Jews need to be perfected by becoming Christians.”
Obama voters are “zombies,” Fox’s Jesse Watters told Bill O’Reilly, who only want, “Obamacare, gay marriage and abortion on demand.”
Incendiary opinions like these might energize the audience, but they aren’t a basis for the serious governance of a country as large and diverse as America.
And what’s really alarming if you’re a GOP moderate is some party leaders think more intolerant and extremist entertainment is the best way to win the national political debate.
Except, in 2012, conservatives decisively lost the debate.
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Kevin
Foley is president of KEF
Media Associates, an Atlanta-based producer and distributor
of sponsored news content to television and radio media. |