How did we go from an administration that was the least corrupt, with the hardest-working, most highly dedicated men and women since The West Wing went off the air, to one that more closely resembles that portrayed in The Godfather II, with Putin playing Michael Corleone to Trump’s Sen. Pat Geary? From no drama Obama to a mind-numbing, delusional toilet tweeter?
Since the 2016 election, there has been an air of unreality over our politics. It’s accompanied by a sense that one must check the news every morning to make sure that we have not declared war on some nation that refused Trump’s demands for a tax break on a golf course, or a permit for a hotel.
How did we get here?
Late in the ‘80s, we visited friends in Northern Virginia. Anxious to show us their new BMW sedan, they insisted on driving us around their tony neighborhood of Fairfax Station. On the radio was a talk show hosted by a relatively unknown rabble-rouser. When we expressed our dismay, our friends insisted that he wasn’t really bad, that yes, he did attack liberals but he also made fun of conservatives. They treated his talk as amusing but harmless.
Over the years, the “harmless” rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh became hotter as his audience grew. Millions of people have been exposed to his version of alternate facts, as exaggerations became distortions and then outright lies. He racked up a huge audience while expounding on the evil of Democrats, liberals, and the well-educated elite. He provided his audience with the addictive adrenaline rush of anger, fear, and hate, every day—for three solid hours.
And then we elected Barack Obama as president. Taking that as either a personal affront or a chance to increase his influence, Rush Limbaugh put his enmity into high gear and prepped the country for Donald Trump.
Exactly how Limbaugh succeeded is the subject of an enlightening and engaging new book by one of our own, professor and writer Ian Reifowitz.