This diary takes a look at how the dangerous, right-wing propaganda machine has created the partisan environment and given us Trump. The information below looks at the overall history of how we got to where we are. Because of the power of propaganda, Trump and Hitler were labeled by many Christians as the “Chosen One.”
Irony & Outrage Masters
How about some laughter to lighten a very serious subject? I could use some right now. For late night TV, many satirical comedians come to mind: Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, andSamantha Bee, just to name a few. Each has a different style that speaks volumes. I value their mastery and different presentations as they tackle serious subjects with ironic satire. It’s quite telling though that late-night comedians are all left wingers. What does that say?
In contrast to this type of irony, the right wing uses outrage to rile up their base. People like Sean Hannity “are masters of outrage — not just the emotion, but a genre of political theater,” as Paul Rosenberg pointed out in his two-part article, “Irony and Outrage.”
Regarding ironic satire and outrage masters, Rosenberg said,
“They’re poles apart, and yet — ironically or outrageously — they’re profoundly similar, both in how they’re impacting their audiences, and why their genres emerged when they did. That’s perhaps the central thesis of “Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States,” by Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, who’s both a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Delaware and an improv comedian with the troupe ComedySportz Philadelphia.”
It’s a great read, and I highly recommend it. However, it’s the dangerous, outrage propaganda machine’s history that I want to focus on.
Outrage Propaganda Has Direct Ties to Racism, Other Bigotry & Social Changes in the 1950s
Rosenberg’s interview with Young gives us some great insight into the research described in her book. While it, at the core, involves political and psychological issues, she starts off with history. Even though mass media propaganda has been around for hundreds of years, the current pattern of right-wing outrage propaganda has its roots in the 1950s. This is where Young starts before discussing our current political media environment beginning in the late 1990s.
Young says,
What was super helpful here on the right was the book by media historian Nicole Hammer, her book “Messengers on the Right” really traces this back through the 1950s.
She points to these radio show hosts that had these small followings, usually they were funded by sponsorships. They were almost like preachers — very fire-and-brimstone — talking about anti-desegregation movements, talking about how the United States needed to exit the United Nations.
Young also says that communists were a big concern with these hosts, so this outrage machine may also be the birth of what would become McCarthyism.
Just as a note, Young points out that this outrage machine used a “similar kind of clear, didactic, angry, imploring tone that is reminiscent of what we hear from our outrage hosts today.”
This machine was beginning at the very same time that formative ironic satirists began their start.
Rosenberg then says,
I was struck that the outrage on the right was specifically reacting to social changes they don’t like, they feel threatened by...
It’s not hard to see how both sides are playing off each other and growing farther apart.
What Happened in the 1990s to Create Today’s Genres on the Left and Right?
Young talks about the events in the 1990s that created our current, very partisan environment. She calls out several issues:
- Decline in Trust in Media
- Deregulation of the Media: Profit over Serving the Public Good
- Widening the Political Divide
- The Perfect Storm to Create Severe Partisanship
Loss of a Journalistic Moral Sense and Objectivity
Rosenberg makes a great point in his next set of statements:
The patterns are repeating. Conservatives feel threatened by change, but this time their obsession with media plays a much bigger role. They see it driving the threatening changes, promoting if not causing them — so they double down, as it were.
Young says that “in the 1950s and ‘60s where there is a knowable truth, we can articulate it and we can advocate for it in ways that the news media in the 1990s were not willing to do, because they were so wedded to the sense of media ‘objectivity.’”
She talks about how the non-partisan news shows don’t give an objective view of the news any longer, like Cronkite did. In fact, as she points out, he ended his broadcasts with “And that’s the way it is.”
As she points out,
We don't have that kind of journalistic or moral authority from our newscasters anymore, except for in our partisan news outlets. I think it's kind of interesting that the fact we don't have journalistic authority from folks who are nonpartisan, perhaps, is part of the problem. Because there is an unwillingness to “take a side,” when truth does have a side.
The Outrage Propaganda Machine & Trump
While Young and Rosenberg don’t discuss Trump, it’s this atmosphere of extreme partisanship that has given us a president who is considered by some to be the “Chosen One.” This rise to power by Trump and Trumpism is very similar to how propaganda helped Hitler rise to power and become the “Chosen One” to many Germans. I discuss reasons for why they rose to power and how propaganda maintains/maintained their power in my diary “Re: A Theory for Why Trump’s Base Won’t Budge.”