I’ve been looking at Rush Limbaugh’s coverage over the last few days under the assumption that the rightwing spin machine either originates with or flows through him. I think it is important to try to understand what nonsense is filling the heads of these RWNJs. The sooner we know what the spin is, the better chance we have of countering it. Deluded followers are a real threat. They can commit violent acts, nullify verdicts, and, of course, vote in their misinformed state.
Rush has written transcripts up on his site so that I don’t have to actually listen to him bloviate, which is merciful. What I was hoping for was to find an automated way to analyze his spew, but I am an amateur. I tried word clouds, which are just a frequency analysis, thinking that the rightwing brainwashing technique is to repeat things ad nauseum. This may be true, but it doesn’t show up on the word cloud. I’ve done these word clouds for about a dozen transcripts on Rush’s site. He is very prolific, publishing about a dozen pieces every day. Every day. I had to read them (gag!) to check the usefulness of the word clouds. The word clouds don’t seem to tell much of the story, unfortunately.
For this piece, I read the transcript and categorized words and phrases by what tactic I though was being used. There is repetition, but the repetition is mostly thematic, not word for word. It would take a much more sophisticated program to do what it needs to do. I’m open to suggestions of easier ways to get it done automatically in the comments. Doing this by reading the transcript is time consuming and maybe causes brain damage.
But here is what I found in the first transcript (of 12) on Friday, titled “There is no whistleblower, just a leaker! We’re in the midst of a Cold Civil War!” Bear in mind that this transcript was only 1738 words long in total. I noticed about 6 main categories of comment that I am calling “tactics”. The tactics are all interrelated, but subtly different.
The first tactic is simply to claim that the information is fake. Words and phrases that fell into this category were:
no whistleblower x2
a sham
nothing about this is genuine
no real whistleblower
lies x2
left is lying
lie x2
not a real one
making things up
manufactured x2
hasn’t confessed
that didn’t happen
no confession
confessed to nothing
lying x2
nothing about this is real
With regard to the confession, Rush is actually obfuscating the evidence by conflating evidence of guilt (hiding the transcript) with the damning things Trump said himself. Mostly, though, the tactic appears to simply be keep repeating it and people will believe you.
A second related tactic is to insinuate that this is no different from before, same old story. Part of this tactic is the presupposition that the past was also fake. Probably this was so well learned that it works as evidence for Ditto heads. Words and phrases in this category included:
Steele dossier 2.0
same scam
next phase of “Get Trump”
next phase
same play x2
same technique
Steele dossier all over again
same technique as Christine Blasey Ford
extension of the original play
no legitimate Steele dossier
wasn’t anything real in the Trump-Russia collusion
lying about the Mueller report
The third tactic is to insinuate nefarious actors. This includes “deep state” actors and “leakers”. Words/phrases include:
leaker
deep state x4
leak
leaking
leaks
leak problem
deep state leaker
administrative state traitors
“whistleblower”
The forth tactic is suggesting inappropriate motives. There are two main motives represented that are probably meant to be thought of as one: overturning a fair election to maintain establishment power.
overturn(ing) the election results of 2016 x3
deny Trump his victory
undermine Trump
get the election results overturned
protecting and defending the deep state, the Washington establishment
panic and fright over having it [“sheer power of the ruling class”] all upended
The fifth tactic is to claim (lie) that Trump is innocent:
Trump hasn’t broken any laws.
Trump has not engaged in any corruption
Mueller report concludes that there wasn’t any collusion between Trump and Russia.
haven’t found a crime x2
hasn’t done anything x2
committed no impeachable offense
committed no illegal act
How he can still be saying this is beyond me. I also saw a comment online saying that no one could point to any instance of Trump lying. Are you kidding me?! I think Rush probably told them that.
The sixth tactic is to claim that there are legitimate reasons for what happened. Here the spin is “protection” from leaks.
national security!
not hiding it for political reasons!
trying to protect it! x2
I also noticed a few other tactics. For the whistleblower situation specifically, the hearsay argument was trotted out twice. Also, the idea that the “leaker” is inappropriately using the protections afforded whistleblowers was mentioned twice. This last tactic was new to me. It seems to be one way to turn a whistleblower into a leaker. Another way seems to be to poo poo the idea that the whistleblower is actually concerned about national security. They are faking it, according to Rush.
Rush threw in a familiar “corruption” charge at Democrats twice and even one at Obama (there was no mention of Hillary Clinton in this transcript, surprisingly). He also equated Democrats with the media once, a common theme on the right used to imply you can’t trust other news sources.
Rush mentioned the “Cold Civil War” once in the headline (I didn’t include the headline in the rest of the analysis) and 3 times in the body. Civil war is a concerning, but familiar theme that functions both to rile the base and threaten the opposition. It’s interesting that here it is “cold”. I’m not sure what affect that has.
That’s one twelfth of the BS that Rush spewed into the minds of his minions on just one day. Nothing here is too surprising except maybe its sheer volume. I’m not sure how representative this transcript is in terms of specific tactics. Most seem to be transferrable and familiar, though. I will try to use this method on at least one more to see how often these tactics come up and what new ones come up. In general, though, I’m hoping to find a more efficient way to observe these tactics.