Remember ‘Climategate’ in 2009? Emails of climate scientists at East Anglia University were hacked, apparently by Russians. After Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the RW media worked it over for the week of Nov 23, the rest of our media was playing along, giving flat earthers and deniers enough equal time to undermine President Obama’s trip to the climate conference in Copenhagen starting December 7.
In an unusual departure from his usual habits, Limbaugh worked on the topic almost non stop for at least three days to kick start that buzz. Was Limbaugh paid extra for that?
The major economic and national security issue of the new millennium was effectively sabotaged again. After that there was no hope for any Republican support for energy reform or cooperation.
Then in 2011 Limbaugh spent months before the August 2 debt ceiling deadline convincing the Republican base that there was no chance that the US could default on the debt. Even if there was, he conceded as the deadline loomed, it would force Obama to make the cuts that Republicans wanted. Thanks in large part to Limbaugh’s Tea Party intimidation, GOP reps took it to the edge and we ended up with sequestration and mandatory military cuts.
Here’s Limbaugh from 7/8/2011, just a sampling of what he was doing the whole month of July.
“We are not in danger of default. Anybody, either party who says we are is engaging in demagoguery”
"The Republicans own this opportunity. All they've gotta do is stop talking about tax increases and revenue."
"Pat Buchanan says, "They're bluffing. The GOP should stand its ground -- and fix bayonets." Lock and load, in other words.”
“ And we don't care what Richard Cohen says and we don't care what David Brooks says, and we don't care what the establishment says about this. It's gonna come down to who the congressional Republicans are gonna listen to. It's gonna come down to whoever they think they have the most to fear from.”
Putin and friends and the Republicans have similar goals, such as undermining American democracy, destroying the economy, and delaying action on global warming. Putin wants to keep fossil fuels dominant and sees advantage in slowing American conversion to green energy technologies and the economic boom that represents.
RW talk radio is a fantastically successful propaganda operation. Republicans swim in it and Democrats ignore it and have no clue it’s kicking their ass. Putin and friends would recognize a classic PSYOPS and would figure out at least how to feed and manage it, such as through RW blogs like Drudge and Breitbart.
We know Putin’s been using internet trolls and we know the talk radio PSYOPS uses paid callers. Why wouldn’t they also be hacking the call screening software the GOP think tanks use to bump their callers to the top of the line?
Was it Putin’s people who suggested to Trump to study talk radio in his preparation for running for president? Trump team listened to 1000's of hrs of it to prep for election. Would Trump think of that and pay for it?
So how long has Putin been using RW radio to manage Republicans through talk radio?
Until Americans fix the talk radio problem we can’t expect national fact-based discussions on any major topic.