The news that Trump's latest alternative-fact meltdown was sourced to the conservative entertainment complex also-ran Mark Levin has put the talk show host in the national spotlight like never before.
But Levin popped up on my radar years ago when I ran a show devoted to exposing the influence and maliciousness of these bloviating broadcasters who supply fresh brainwash for American's daily commutes. I've been arguing for years that these AM radio propagators of lies, political nonsense and conspiracy theories have a huge albeit under-recognized effect on American politics, an influence arguably greater than the FOX News watered-down version of the same, and with Trump now aping this nonsense via Twitter directly from where he squats in the White House, I hate to say I Told You So.
One reason Levin inspired a certain horrified fascination is that his voice and manner are so incredibly obnoxious that it's hard to believe anyone would want to listen to him at all; his trademark is to scream-whine a high-pitched "you moron!" in his already nasal-retentive voice.
Levin also seemed significant for the relatively wide audience he commandeered while simultaneously receiving little notice in the rest of the popular culture. Unlike Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, both who became household words, Levin had millions of people listening to him while paradoxically remaining, in a way, obscure. That's changed, for this week at least.
But this isn't the first time that a big ugly Levin noise has reverberated in the fake-news echo chamber of the right wing. In 2012 he infamously took a call from a supposed brain surgeon that fabulated about a secret medical document detailing the notorious Death Panels of Obamacare. This stupid phone call by a Dr. "Jeff" was deemed enough proof for the faux-conservative news empire to breathlessly announce that at last there was real evidence for one of their idiotic, ODS conspiracy theories. Of course, it came out later that there was no such document and "Jeff" was a fraud, but not before the hoax had been implanted in millions of brains that oh so wanted it to be true.
In order to contrast the immanence of truth versus the quicksand of BS proffered by Levin, I had no choice but to create the Cyber Lady Robot of Truth and stage a debate between her and that honking declaimer of disinformation. Who won? You decide:
But it doesn't matter who you think won.
Because now it's not just the fake news conglomerate that is repeating Levin's hateful hogwash, it's the person who, in the good old days of a bygone era that ended a few weeks ago, was once called the Leader of the Free World. Because Trump, a pervy TV clown who would just be a laugh riot if not for the fascist program he is juggling off the walls of the Oval Office, is actually, still unbelievably, the President of the United States, and there's no such thing as facts anymore.