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Magazine Article: The Air America Plan: Liberal Talk Radio Is off the
Ground. Will the Electorate Turn Blue, or Just Red in the Face? - in the
Atlantic Monthly. Volume: 295. Issue: 3. April 2005.
Provided here in compliance with Fair Use..
by Joshua Green
To be a Democrat on Inauguration Day was to feel like an Athenian in the
dwindling days of the Peloponnesian War: here was yet another defeat in a
streak that had stretched on for years, grinding a once mighty empire
practically to dust. For some Democrats it was simply too much. An
admission that their party is essentially bereft of ideas seemed to gain
purchase in the wake of George Bush's swearing in.
But for other Democrats the day signified a minor skirmish won. The
liberal radio network Air America made its debut in Washington, D.C., and
also in Detroit and Cincinnati, increasing its nationwide reach to
forty-five markets--"a remarkable feat," The Wall Street Journal declared,
for an enterprise that last year was tossed off the air in two of its
three top markets within weeks of its first broadcast, and narrowly
avoided going under.
Most Democrats consider the emergence of liberal talk radio a vital
precursor to any return to power. They are unified in the belief that they
must build a political "infrastructure" (the reigning buzzword) to compete
with the Republicans" and many activists say that liberal talk radio,
though still in its infancy, is already the most mature component. The
decision by the media conglomerate Clear Channel Communications to carry
Air America programming on twenty-two stations was particularly cheering;
Clear Channel syndicates such conservative heavyweights as Rush Limbaugh
and Dr. Laura Schlessinger--models for those who see in Air America's
recent success an incipient liberal juggernaut. The political climate
offers further encouragement. "Suddenly," says Michael Harrison, the
publisher of Talkers, an industry magazine, "liberals and others not of
the conservative mind set are finding themselves in the same position
conservatives did in the early nineties--out of power." This has sparked a
near missionary faith among some liberals in the transformative power of
talk radio. For those seeking a silver lining in the Republican domination
of Washington--well, there aren't many other options, are there?
The hopes invested in liberal talk radio stem from a pair of widely held
beliefs that transcend ideology. First is that the Republicans' rise to
power in the early 1990s was sharply reinforced by the emergence of such
talk-radio hosts as Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy, who helped persuade a
large segment of the public, and some astute politicians, to embrace the
conservative cause. Their importance was such that when the GOP took power
in the House in 1994, one Republican, echoing his party's sentiment,
declared, "Rush Limbaugh is really as responsible for what has happened as
any individual in America."
Liberals agreed. This led to the second belief: that the Democrats could
replicate the talk-radio phenomenon to mount a resurgence. At least since
1994 liberals have labored to do so, while conservatives have gleefully
mocked their failure. Both groups are convinced that cultivating partisan
talk radio is an unambiguously good thing for their respective movements.
But maybe it isn't, as a closer look at the political effects of talk
radio suggests. Newt Gingrich and his Republican Revolution are a good
example. There's little doubt that talk radio contributed to their
triumph; what's often overlooked is its role in their fall.
To illustrate the hazards liberal talk radio poses, it's helpful to think
of conservative talk radio as having two distinct phases: the wilderness
years of the early 1990s--and after. Because Rush Limbaugh was the most
influential host (nearly 40 percent of talk-radio listeners tuned in to
him), he makes a good case study. In the early 1990s Limbaugh came to
prominence as an outsider who relied heavily on political humor. His barbs
had a conservative slant, of course, skewering perceived liberal excesses
regarding feminism, the environment, abortion, government spending, and
homelessness. (He also targeted Republicans he deemed insufficiently
faithful, most notably President George H.W. Bush.) As James Fallows wrote
in these pages in 1994, Limbaugh's material was culturally oriented: "His
opinions were political in the broadest sense but were not confined to
straight party politics."
As Limbaugh's influence grew, so did his inclination to wield it. A 1993
National Review cover story hailed him as "The Leader of the Opposition."
When the COP took power, Limbaugh was made an honorary House member.
Shortly afterward Gingrich invited him and other conservative talk-show
hosts to become fixtures in the Capitol. Co-opted by power, Limbaugh
morphed from COP mascot into a policy adviser/ intellectual enforcer, his
humor and cultural acumen succumbing to reflexive amplification of the
party agenda.
Given the absolutism of his views, it isn't surprising that Limbaugh
gravitated toward highly controversial policies--many of which, in
hindsight, were politically foolish. One of his first campaigns in 1995
was to attack government-funded school lunch programs. At his prompting
thousands of obedient listeners harassed elected officials, school
administrators, and journalists, and put the issue on front pages
nationwide. Limbaugh further advocated abolishing the Department of
Education and the Environmental Protection Agency. He wanted to eliminate
Social Security. He wanted to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts,
and to cut social services for legal and illegal immigrants and unwed
teenage mothers.
These campaigns made him appear, perhaps accurately, to delight in
mean-spiritedness. In a masterstroke of political tone-deafness Limbaugh
embraced defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, home of the
popular children's program Sesame Street. The attempt to kill off Bert and
Ernie sparked a backlash that today stands as a model for one of the
easiest kinds of political blackmail. When a dispute erupted last year
between Viacom and the satellite-TV provider Dish Network, Dish dropped
Viacom channels including Nickelodeon. Viacom ran full-page newspaper ads
featuring a stricken-looking SpongeBob SquarePants and a note explaining
to the parents of aggrieved youngsters that Dish Network was holding him
hostage. Guess who won?
It isn't that Limbaugh wasn't effective. He was measurably so. In
researching the book Rushed to Judgment: Talk Radio, Persuasion, and
American Political Behavior, the political scientist David C. Barker
posited a "Limbaugh effect," tested it on human subjects, and determined
that it withstood academic scrutiny. Barker described the effect as
"strong independent associations between Limbaugh listening and [holding]
a variety of opinions regarding topics frequently treated on the Limbaugh
show."
The trouble was that Limbaugh's opinions were becoming ever more strident,
and after the 1994 elections he and his co-conspirators gradually lost
touch with the American electorate. Notable moments in second-phase talk
radio include the controversy over Liddy's urging listeners to kill agents
of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms ("Head shots, head shots
... kill the sons of bitches"), a sentiment widely condemned following the
1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Limbaugh was
foremost among those who urged Gingrich and the House leadership to force
a government shutdown later that year--a piece of adolescent acting out
that probably saved Bill Clinton's stalled presidency by providing
compelling new villains to blame for the country's woes. And no episode of
talk-radio extremism looms quite so large as the crusade to impeach
Clinton. This had a measurable effect too, thinning the ranks of
Republican politicians.
In the end those who could least afford to overestimate Limbaugh's
discernment and persuasiveness were precisely those who did so--the
Republican leaders. By urging Gingrich and others into acts of political
extremism, Limbaugh hastened their downfall. The hopeless Bob Dole once
intoned, "When Rush Limbaugh talks, you know you're listening to the real
world." Dole's crashing defeat in the 1996 presidential election
demonstrated the accuracy of this statement.
It's still early, but Air America is following a path a lot like the one
Limbaugh took. In the late 1980s, while trying to turn Limbaugh from a
regional into a national presence, his handlers hit on a way of doing so
quickly and cheaply, by offering his program free to struggling stations
in exchange for a share of the advertising revenue. Soon The Rush Limbaugh
Show was taking off. Clear Channel is attempting a similar maneuver with
liberal talk radio, testing Air America programs on low-performing
stations across the country, and so far it is having modest success. The
network is on the verge of reaching 75 percent of the U.S. population--at
which point it can expect to attract national advertisers and, if all goes
well, a following that may begin to approach Limbaugh's.
Careful listeners, however, will detect a dissonance between the political
significance attributed to liberal radio and the caliber of discourse it
generally provides. Talk radio will never be a forum for measured debate,
though Al Franken occasionally offers a wicked dose of humor, as Limbaugh
once did. But taken as a whole, the network is already infected by the
corrosive negativity, strutting egotism, and bizarre paranoia that marked
much of what traversed the conservative airwaves in the late 1990s.
Angry liberals surely take pleasure in hearing a host call President Bush
a "lazy sack of crap," or shrug at complaints about the network's absurd
speculation that Bush knew about 9/11 in advance and permitted the attacks
for his own political gain. Yet the notion that such nonsense is
politically beneficial retains a subliminal credibility with true
believers of every stripe.
Much of what Air America carries is anger-laced polemic that plays to the
furthest-left element of the electorate. The early Limbaugh was a populist
at once funny and capable of maneuvering outside the party line; but few
liberal hosts display any enthusiasm for attracting people beyond the
segment that is already passionately attuned to their brand of smug,
hostile liberalism. It's hard to imagine that a "Franken factor" will soon
emerge to rival the "Limbaugh effect." Rather, Air America's broadcasts
seem merely to reinforce a certain condescension-hampering rather than
helping a Democratic Party desperate to expand its appeal in red states.
In this sense, at least, liberal talk radio has beat even Limbaugh's
evolutionary pace. One of the first controversies it engendered, in fact,
echoed Liddy's talk about killing federal agents. The host Randi Rhodes,
invoking the denouement of The Godfather, Part II, proposed to listeners
that "the Fredo of the [Bush] family is the president of the United
States, so why doesn't his brother take him out for a little fishing and
let him say some Hail Marys ... and 'Boom!'" In other words, why not just
assassinate the president?
"Americans are ultimately skeptical of media commentators who seem to have
a political agenda that supersedes their search for the truth," Michael
Harrison, of Talkers, says. The history of radio suggests that
connoisseurs of that kind of talk usually wind up like the
Athenians--vanquished and all too aware that real battles are not won with
words.
Joshua Green is a senior editor of The Atlantic.
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