When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wanted to float the prospect of Congress considering limited gun control measures, the Kentucky Republican could have delivered the message through Twitter, Facebook, or an emailed statement to reporters.
Instead, McConnell on Aug. 8 appeared on WHAS radio during drive-time in Louisville to chat about the issue with longtime show host, Terry Meiners. On air, McConnell said that in the wake of shootings days before in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, which claimed a total of 31 lives, background checks and “red flag” laws could be expected discussion points on Capitol Hill.
McConnell’s choice of talk radio to deliver his message about gun legislation, a politically sensitive topic in Kentucky where he faces reelection in 2020, reflects the medium’s enduring power. And the episode bears the thesis of Brian Rosenwald’s important and groundbreaking new book, Talk Radio’s America: How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States.
As Rosenwald’s title suggests, talk radio has disproportionately benefited populist conservatives over the past three-plus decades — leading to the election of Donald Trump in 2016 in one of the nation’s biggest political upsets.
The author expertly shows how disparate strands in the American political landscape converged in the late 1980s to help make talk radio the potent political force it would become.
One was the seemingly permanent minority status of House Republicans, out of power since early January 1955. A backbencher from Georgia, Rep. Newt Gingrich sought to shed the House GOP’s “lovable loser” image embodied by the longtime House minority leader, Rep. Robert Michel of Illinois, an old-school pol who thought it unseemly to challenge ruling Democrats in stark and personal terms.
But Gingrich and his House GOP minions saw it differently. They sensed vast opportunity in talk radio’s potential to persuade the listening masses about the merits of what they dubbed a “conservative opportunity society” — an implicit contrast to welfare state Democrats that had ruled the House for more than 30 years, in ever imperious fashion.
Then there was the singular talent of a Missouri college dropout with an undeniable ability to command an audience for three hours, Rush Limbaugh. Immodestly citing his own “talent on loan from God,” Limbaugh’s biting humor in filleting Democrats over any trending news story provided political comfort food to conservative listeners, what they considered a necessary counterbalance to pervasive liberal media bias.
“August 1, 1988, marked the beginning of the long road to President Donald Trump,” writes Rosenwald. On that otherwise inauspicious summer date, “a failed disc jockey and former Kansas City Royals executive named Rush Hudson Limbaugh III made his national radio debut.”
Additionally, repeal of a longtime radio regulation made for a trifecta of events that further enabled the rise of conservative talk radio.
“The wall-to-wall conservative political talk stations that dominate the AM airwaves today were impossible until 1987, thanks to a regulation called the fairness doctrine. That year, however, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) eliminated the policy, which required broadcasters of opinionated programming on controversial issues to offer an array of viewpoints,” writes Rosenwald, an editor of the Washington Post’s “Made By History” section, and scholar-in-residence at the Partnership for Effective Public Administration and Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania.
Over the ensuring decades, conservative radio talkers commanded increasingly larger audiences, including many high-propensity voters. The 1994 GOP revolution, when the party won majorities in the House and Senate and cleaned up in down ballot races nationwide, showed the power of talk radio in full force. Limbaugh had spent the prior two years lambasting President Bill Clinton, and his message stuck on the right. Leaders of the new House Republican majority named Limbaugh an honorary member.
Conservative talk radio, though, was never about propping up Republican establishment leaders. Rather, it always had a particular populist bent, which is where Trump comes in. Long before the one-time real estate developer, casino owner and Apprentice star strode down Trump Tower’s gold-plated escalator, he mouthed off on issues that were regular talk radio fodder. Concerns over illegal immigration were talk radio staple for decades. A broader concern about “elites” telling average Americans what to do also appealed to listeners’ sensibilities. Trump, a self-proclaimed billionaire, exploited this endlessly with rants over international trade deals he claimed meant the U.S. continually lost jobs and international standing, to Mexico, China, and any number of other bogeyman, real or perceived.
Talk Radio’s America further shows how some of the biggest names in the industry now set a precedent for Trump’s rise and appeal.
“Trump owes his political career to the likes of Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, and to conservative social media. They gave him a platform, and, if his rhetoric is any indication, trained him in political oratory. His election is the purest product of the revolution Limbaugh began,” writes Rosenwald, a prolific tweeter about American political history, Philadelphia Phillies baseball, and other topics.
Talk Radio’s America will be fun reading for political junkies who may recognize the names of obscure 1980s- and 1990s-era members of Congress. Also, for radio aficionados familiar with the many talk show hosts of that era that have since left the airwaves.
More broadly, though, Talk Radio’s America is a must-read for anybody hoping to understand how Trump captured the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, then defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the general election, a victory for conservative populist forces over political establishment figure. Add it to a (late) summer reading list and come away better informed.
