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It's not very specific - people have trouble defining it. It doesn't have a face (this IS radio) except for the one that the listener imagines. In this theater of the mind called radio, Limbaugh and his ilk have rounded up the free-floating hatred in America, galvanized it, and focused it on one target: the "liberal".
There is one question that I want to ask of the RW hate radio listeners: What does a liberal look like to you?
In the early days of hate radio, the Liberal embodied the object of the listeners' hatred. The racist may imagine an African American activist - a-la-Malcolm X. The homophobe's liberal - a pride-parade goer "prancing" down the street. Classists? The unwashed hippie - homeless & jobless by choice... or Reagan's "welfare queen". Anti-Semites imagine the media & money savvy Jewish intellectual. And Fundamentalists see a mouthy, collegiate questioner of faith.
Without ever being named in the classic slurs we're used to hearing, these are the specific targets of Limbaugh and his ilk - shrouded behind the all-encompassing, label of "Liberal". A fairly benign word on its own, until tone & context transforms it into one of the most dangerous words in America today. And that's how they get away with preaching hate while still having Snapple shell out cash to support this message. That's how they attract millions of haters of all stripes, bring them together & feed them. Their message taps into the forbidden parts of their minds and telling them "it's okay to think that way". And teaching them how to properly hate and still function beyond society's fringes - infiltrating the mainstream of our media & culture.
But the elusive image of the Limbaugh Liberal has done more than give the existing haters a socially acceptable platform - it has become a recruitment tool. Because who owns hate? Who stands to capitalize on it in this day & age other than the ad-driven broadcasters at Clear-Channel? The Republican party does, that's who.
The message has transformed yet again in recent years: where minorities = liberals... and liberals = Democrats. Even the very objects of Right Wing hate will go against their own self-interest to distance themselves from the other branches of hate that come with being a Liberal/Democrat. It's a way of self-exoneration for them, and a way for Republicans to open up that "big tent" to the very people they're working against. These are the GOP's "useful idiots". And the puppet masters give up their game every day, simply transferring their disrespect of the listener to the attributes of the Limbaugh Liberal.
Will Air America change this? I doubt it. But it will galvanize the split. We have embraced a word that means something entirely different to our opponents. When we say "yes, I'm a liberal," we may break some stereotypes, but at the same time we offer a face to the label - a real person to focus their pent-up anger upon. So get ready to fight the same way the African Americans fought for civil rights. The same way the gay community is fighting now. This is much more than a war of words.
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