A Liberal Deconstructs Conservative Talk Radio: 05/23/2018


Each day I listen to random conservative talk radio shows to get a sense of the mood of conservative voters. And to get a heads-up on what the "Fox & Friends" morning show will be discussing tomorrow. Plus, it's just pretty damn funny.

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Hugh Hewitt's Tangled Web
Hugh Hewitt is not a dim man. He has a good grasp of politics and as I've described him in the past, he's not necessarily any less ideologically rigid than other conservative radio hosts. But he sounds more moderate, which is kind of his niche in the conservative talkosphere. It allows him to get frequently booked onto MSNBC and get a wide range of mainstream journalists to appear on his radio show.

Hewitt's blind spot is that he goes into every interview with his own pre-determined take and he asks questions that he hopes will result in an answer that he agrees with. The problem with that approach is two-fold. The obvious issue is that if you spend three hours asking leading questions, you'll end up with a lot of intellectually flaccid conversations that don't really move past Hewitt's pre-conceived notions of the world.

The second issue is that this approach also leads Hewitt to postulate some really tangled premises in order to fit a complicated political issue into his often black-and-white approach to the world. He asks questions that seem designed to be some sort of "gotcha" targeting behavior he doesn't agree with. And that leads him down some odd and twisted turns of logic. As in this morning's conversation with Politico's Jake Sherman, in which he asks that if tax returns of Donald Trump can be subpoenaed by Rep.Jerry Nadler, could Lindsey Graham and the Republican-led Senate Judiciary committee subpoena all tax records of all candidates running for president. Aside from the fact that it's a moot point, since every major candidate running for President in the last fifty years or so has voluntarily released their tax returns. He seems to be suggesting with the tone of the question that "hey, if Democrats are targeting Trump, can Republicans target Democrats?"

Even if that was a concern, that misrepresents the problem. Yes, on some greater level, this is a question about Congressional oversight and I suspect this will all end up being worked out in court so we don't go through this with future presidents. But no matter what you think about the Mueller Report or connections with Russia, there are valid reasons to suspect the President may have financial conflicts that will be revealed in his tax returns. So Donald Trump isn't withholding his tax returns for privacy reasons or to make some point about the powers of the Executive Branch. He's clearly worried about them being made public. And the question of why he is worried is the subject Hewitt should be focusing on.

Mike Gallagher Is All In
Mike Gallagher has no doubts in his mind about Donald Trump. In Gallagher's world, anyone who isn't 100 percent behind the president is a "never-Trumper," an irrational hater of the president who can't see beyond their rage. To be fair, a lot of Gallagher's support is due to Trump's pro-life policies, since Gallagher is very pro-life. So much so that he frequently argues against provisions that would allow abortions for women who have been raped, incest or to save the life of the mother. Gallagher believes that those pregnancies are no less worth saving than any others. It's an extreme view even in pro-life circles, but as far as Gallagher is concerned, it's pretty much the mainstream attitude in America right now.

Gallagher's willingness to follow Trump anywhere leads to some off moral and political conundrums. This morning, he was gleefully congratulating the President for his decision to publicly say that he won't make a move on any legislation until the Democrats stop all investigations looking into him or his family. Gallagher couldn't have been more thrilled, as he laughed and said this is why people like the President. Because he was a fighter. But aside from the trolling, what did Trump accomplish by saying that? It wasn't going to stop any of the investigations. And by working with the Democrats on bills like an infrastructure plan, he would be able to claim he was getting things done in the face of "fake" investigations.

And more often than not, when Gallagher cites some move by Trump as showing that he's a fighter, it's really something that has more trolling value than anything else. Which is a pretty inefficient way to run a White House.


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