Ah, yes, the Cargo Cult that is Left Wing Talk Radio.

This is an evergreen observation:

I have always wondered why liberals thought they could succeed in talk radio. It seems to me obvious that the main problem they would have to face is one of market saturation. Conservative talk radio has successfully branded itself as ‘the other voice’. I remember the early days of Rush Limbaugh where he’d get callers thanking him profusely just for airing views that they long held but never heard voiced on any of the big media outlets. Some restaurants even set up ‘Rush rooms’ were they would pipe in Rush’s show to customers who wanted to hear it.

But with liberal talk radio, none of this is necessary. If you want to hear liberal and progressive views, all you have to do is turn on your TV or pick up a newspaper. The problem is not hearing liberal views, the problem is, where can you go to hear something else?

Although I think of it more in terms of cargo cult thinking: the Right has talk radio, the Right gets things done with talk radio, if the Left has talk radio then the Left will get things done, too. The problem for the Left there – the deep, deep Left – is while they understand full well the difference between them and the regular Left/Democrats they don’t quite understand that ‘regular’ conservatism has a lot more adherents than does progressivism. Put another way: my opposite numbers in the blogosphere represent a fringe of the population.  Me?  I’m pretty solidly in the middle of a bloc representing about forty, forty-five percent of it.

And we’re woefully under-represented in the news media.  Which is why I have this gig.

Moe Lane

7 thoughts on “Ah, yes, the Cargo Cult that is Left Wing Talk Radio.”

  1. This could be applied to nearly every Far Left experiment. For instance why the OWS petered out but the Tea Party still exists in one form or another.
    Answer: While the words “Tea Party” poll terribly even among tea partiers ( not all identify with the movement) even so the ideals of the tea party are fairly mainstream and held by about half of the population.
    OWS polled well early on, exposed their lunacy, raped some people and started polling terribly. Their ideas poll about the same.

  2. We could compare Redstate vs. Daily Kos
    For one how many Democrats would show up to a DKos gathering?
    Compared to Redstate gathering of this year in which not only did several Governors appear, but also several candidates and even one candidate was denied entry and refunded his payment ( that’s right Congressman pay to speak at Redstate)
    Diversity of opinion is also I have a hunch more visible on redstate then any Left-Wing blog (Daily Kos, Thinkprogress, etc.)
    Is there a single guy on Daily Kos who doesn’t support gay marriage?

  3. Also I should note that Bill Press and Mike Malloy behave in the manner they *think* their Right-Wing counterparts behave. That is to say crazy.
    I mean has any Right-Wing talk radio host fantasize about killing Obama? Because several Lefties actually did some sort of production about assassinating Bush, and I believe they even sold it.
    Kind of the same thing with MSNBC. They bill themselves as the Left’s “Foxnews” when in reality CNN already fills that up with their Centre-Left commentary ( as opposed to Fox’s centre-Right) so MSNBC goes hardcore far left because that’s the definition of partisanship to them.

  4. One point raised on Joe Cunningham’s post on Redstate, they need to entertain and all they do is whine, bitch and moan. Then, they race bait and go to an ever shrinking set of commercials.

    1. Progressives have no sense of humor. They *cannot* laugh at us in the way we laugh at, say, Daily Kossaks or the Jucebox Media.
      .
      What humor is possible on the left shows up in the center-left demesne, the Colbert Report or (alleged) comedians Bill Mahr and Al Franken… but even that humor is often bitter as a proper marmalade. (yes, marmalade is supposed to be bitter, the Brits are weird)
      .
      Mew

  5. You’re on target, but I think we should reflect on the Right’s similarly misled thinking on social media– the left has Twitter and Facebook and they own the youth vote, so if we get Twitter and Facebook, we’ll get the youth vote. I think that youth view Republicans like they view their parents– and twinge and run from both when they try to be ‘hip.’ Not sure what the real answer is, mind you — just think we’re wasting some effort is all,,

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