The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I know, you’re wondering how all these people around you have decided logic is bogus, crackpot conspiracy theories are real, Donald Trump is still their President and climate change caused by billions of CO2 spewing humans in a greenhouse planet couldn’t possibly be happening. And the reason you’re still wondering who stole their brains is simple. You don’t listen to hot talk radio. No, you’re too busy tuning into podcasts and FM jazz on NPR, thinking here’s serious news and quality music. Let the buffoons listen to Info Wars for all you care, you got better things to do with your time.

The trouble is, millions of your fellow countrymen, your friends and family and neighbors, tune into the rantings and the ravings of the Glenn Becks, the Sean Hannitys, Alex Joneses, Laura Ingrahams, Dan Bonginos and dozens of other angry anti-vaxx, anti-government, deep state paranoids who feed on fear and resentments. You probably never even tuned in to Rush Limbaugh. But if you did back in those good old days before Trump, you might not have been surprised that the guy won.

There’s plenty of profits in pandering to fear. Forget about journalism, we’re talking entertainment for the aggrieved, for those folks who think the country has been sold down the river by immigrants and gays and people of color, by Hollywood or the elites, by Moslems, by outsiders, by communists or the news media. The Nazis used the same tactics, the Tutsis demonized the Hutus, it’s the same old story, find a scapegoat for your fears and anxieties, make them your enemy, rail against them daily, feed the beast, crank up the volume, stoke the furnace.

Folks listen to these demagogues all day long on their radio while you’re getting your unbiased news feeds or reading your morning newspaper, happy no doubt that you’re able to make rational judgements on the events of the day. Give me a break. These people are talking civil war, insurrection, putting Trump back in the Oval Office … and the ones who are paying attention are the politicians who fear opposing them. Better to be a hypocrite and stay in office. Better to subvert the Constitution, suppress votes, rig the system than to stand up for principle. The Culture Wars are here to stay. Whether they remain non-violent is a little less clear. Turn your radio dial a little further to the right some days. You won’t like it but it’ll give you some idea what’s happening.

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