To the Editor:
Call this an old radio guy’s lament: While there is no doubt (except in the mind of a certain “stable genius”) that the Russians meddled in the last election and are at it again—sowing discontent on new media to improve the reelection chances of the aforementioned Tweeter-in-Chief, I posit that the greater danger is old media domestic propaganda.
Home grown hokum, conspiracy theories (Here’s looking at you, Alex Jones) and plain lies are broadcast daily on cable and on our own local radio stations and have been for years. “Deep State” Limbaugh was spouting crowd pleasing clap-trap on AM radio before Cadet Bone Spurs was a gleam in Putin’s eye.
And now, in the time of coronavirus, Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingrahm, Savage and all the other stars of the theater of fear and loathing pose an even greater threat to the democracy —cheerleading the clueless and careless, the anti-vaxxers, the gun toters and flag wavers who would open the country up now! “Damn the virus, full speed ahead.” All in an effort—just like Vlad the Trolle—to ensure the reelection of Donald J. Trump, the germophobe who let a germ overrun his country.
Martin Doerfler
Keizer