This article definitely sums it all up:
To succeed, a talk show host must perpetuate the notion that his or her listeners are victims, and the host is the vehicle by which they can become empowered. The host frames virtually every issue in us-versus-them terms. There has to be a bad guy against whom the host will emphatically defend those loyal listeners.
Sometimes it takes these sorts of comprehensive explanations to nail down that pit in your stomach you feel when you happen upon a recording of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, or Bill O’Reily that you find particularly hypocritical.
Though, I do find that something that’s missing from this account is the obvious self-aggrandisement of the host’s power or masculinity. It’s definitely the case with Bill O’Reily, who’s sex scandals, subsequent pay-offs, and active “bully” technique do little to mask a petty, fearful man. In regards to the last clip, he would certainly be fearful of losing a shouting match to “a gay“. lol
The simultaneous pandering to country, troops (unless they disagree with you), “Joe Six-Pack“, and anyone from a hero-worshipping, halcyon, by-gone (if it ever even existed) era, exposes the article’s claim of casting listeners as victims. The biggest problem with this, I can see, is that it manufactures an idilic “red-blooded”, “Rock-Ribbed” American archetype that only exists in these hosts’ wet-dreams. Instead of getting upset that a host is speaking to them while assuming that they are a member of this elite, the audience is of course flattered, thus buying into it. It’s what brought us lower-middle-classmen like “Joe the Plumber” arguing from a standpoint of being rich. Somehow he has been trained to be concerned about how people earning well over $250,000. That’s the only reason we have so many poor people supporting the GOP these days. They’ve been tricked into believing that they should be concerned about the Estate Tax, when they would have to inherit an estate valued at over $2,000,000 for that to even be an issue.
This is maddness!
