One thing we as progressives have to remember about Rush...

[WCGreen]

The minute he tried to go "mainstream" back in the early nineties, he was exposed for the fool he is.

The last time Letterman had him on the show he was booed, Letterman handed him his hat and he never once again appeared on TV where he didn't control the whole interview.

Also, remember he had a TV show for a while back then with a rabid audience that looked like the prols watching Big Brother in the 1984 movies...

He is the voice of the far right, always has been. If they didn't have someone like him they would have to invent one. They seem to be rudderless without someone to tell them the way.

And that is how he and the others sustain the audience they have. They give them the same tripe over and over and over again. It's a giant echo chamber. They do not care to think for themselves, Rush so much as says so every day on his radio show, they want to be led in a way that is simple to digest and simple to follow.

Liberals, on the other hand, wish to think, to explore and consider stuff.

Rush frames every issue into a pre-conceived set of parameters that allow the crowd to agree without thinking about what it is they are agreeing with.

Liberals would never stand for such leadership.

That, my friends, is the awful truth, we are too smart, to thoughtful to be led by a demigod.

Alas, alak, there never will be a liberal Rush.

[Ardent15]

1. I don't want a liberal Rush...I want to think for myself

I guess that's what makes me a liberal, a progressive.

[Joe the Liberal]

2. Still, I wonder what the liberal version of Rush would look like........

He probably wouldn't be a balding, fatass, hatemonger, that's for sure.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

3. Will Rogers was right....

We're not really good on organization, although the Obama/Biden campaign certainly suggested that that might be changing.

I think our view of Rush from here is skewed, and that he's a whole lot smaller than we think. He's so awful, he does take up a lot of space, but, really, he's preaching to his choir, and to the rest of the country, he's a joke. He's been exposed so often for the loser that he truly is.

Remember when he tried sports announcing? He got his ass kicked out of that really fast.

The man's like Chimpy Fucknuts - a total failure in everything in his life except for the one job that required spreading fear and hate. And we know how the rightwingnuts now view Chimpy Fucknuts.

Rush Limbaugh strikes me as the kind of man who will, one day, take his own life because he'll have been deposed or because his obvious self-loathing finally catches up to him.

[angrycarpenter]

4. We aren't exactly led.

At least I am not. I like to think of liberals as a group of individuals who happen to be going in mostly the same direction.

[Ardent15]

5. Agreed: liberals complement each other, they don't command to sheep

[WCGreen]

6. Herding Cats comes to mind...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. There will be no liberal Rush...

These two words just cannot exist together.

We just are too damn independent to allow ourselves to follow such a gibbering fool.

As you say...herding cats.

K&R

:patriot:

[OmahaBlueDog]

8. We also forget (and so does Rush) that he is entertainment, not information

If Rush didn't take the most controversial, self serving positions possible, no one would listen in large numbers. He'd be NPR.

Rush (and his predecessors in the 80s, like Morton Downey) discovered a few things, and program directors took notice:

1. Very few are interested in topical talk where all points of view are discussed
2. Many Americans - especially white male Americans - were angry about the government, welfare, and taxes
3. Through the use of simple verbal techniques, talk show hosts taking a conervative viewpoint quickly learned it's possible to make callers who oppose military involvement, gun ownership or the death penalty, or who support welfare, affirrmative action, or abortion rights seem soft, stupid, naive, or cowardly. Audiences ate it up.

Rush's initial sucess was that he was fresh, and that AM talk radio shows are listened to by many in the anger demographic - salesmen out on calls; otr truck drivers; tradesmen. Limbaugh's show struggled in many major markets for years. His huge break was the election of Bill Clinton, and the conservative backlash that event unleashed.

The problem that righty talk has now is that, to continue to entertain, it's views have to become more and more strident. They have to keep pushing the extremist envelope. It's not just Rush and local wannabees - it's Rush, and Beck, and Billo, and Hannity, and Savage, and Boortz, and Ingraham. Those who don't stick out don't get ratings. Also, while Rush still has an ample audience, and there certainly are a heap of angry conservatives out there, there are just as many of those salesmen out on calls, otr truck drivers, and tradesmen who now listen to ESPN Radio and Fox Sports all day long -- a format that wasn't well developed in '93.

[riderinthestorm]

9. Fine. Look, I'll say it. Liberal radio programming can be boring.

While I love the content, I find myself bored after the first few minutes. Everyone agrees with me! Everyone's progressive! Everyone's enlightened. Even the commercials are fantastic so I have no gripes.

Call me a curmudgeon but I LIKE being a contrarian. Talk radio that just spews shit I already know (from DU), and agree with is just a wee bit irritating.

I listen to NPR a lot cuz I know there's gonna be shit on there that fires me up and engages me. I never agree with everything and I think that's a good thing.

The dittoheads crave conformity. Crave solidarity in their views. I believe that fact, more than anything else, defines the radio divide.

[WCGreen]

10. I love to listen to NPR...

Well, most of the time. There is nothing on local radio that I will listen to except sports and NPR and occasionally a college station.