A Liberal Deconstructs Conservative Talk Radio: 09/25/2019

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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More Than You'll Probably Want To Know About Mike Gallagher
I generally don't do deep dives on Gallagher's show unless he has on a noteworthy guest, because Gallagher is a true believer. He is in all in for Trump and makes a point of frequently arguing that if you're not 100 percent behind the President, then you're just a traitor to conservatism and the political party. Any politician who makes even the smallest effort to separate themselves from Trump is a "never Trumper" and someone who has "betrayed the President." With those guidelines in place, you're not going to get a lot of deep, soul-searching thoughts from Gallagher or his callers.

But this is a day when I was really curious to hear Gallagher's reaction to the Democrat's efforts in the house to move towards the impeachment of President Trump. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I wasn't anticipating what I heard: Gallagher is absolutely giddy. Gallagher argues that Democrats have "taken the bait," thanks to "those freshmen shrews in the House." He's convinced Nancy Pelosi is having a terrible day and that the main consequence of an impeachment effort will be a expose of all the misdeeds committed by Biden's son. He mocks the media's coverage of the decision and laughs about a CNN story that argues President Trump misread Nancy Pelosi when he called her and tried to delay a move towards impeachment. "Keep telling yourself that," he laughs.

Gallagher's main point throughout his show was that Trump is extremely popular and there is no chance he will lose in 2020. And he claims that is the real reason for the impeachment move, because the Democrats can't beat Trump any other way. He does admit to be stumped about the reasons why Dems would move towards impeachment when they know they don't have the votes in the Senate to convict. But that's the problem with buying into the unlikely scenario that Trump is unbeatable in 2020. If you believe something that not even the Trump campaign agrees with, then everything else seems confusing and strange.

I admit that I am really fascinated by Trump supporters like Gallagher who believe the President is some superman of strategy and that every move he makes is designed to both troll his opponents and win the day. Based on his Presidency so far that seems.....optimistic. But I suppose we'll see in the coming months.

The Dark Prince Of Misdirection
While Mike Gallagher is all about being Team Trump, Rush Limbaugh's support has always been more nuanced. He doesn't claim the President has some 3-D chess approach to every problem. Instead, Rush sees just about every issue as political calculus that the Republicans need to win.

At the top of his show, Rush stresses that the just-released "transcript" call between Trump & the head of the Ukraine doesn't show any "quid pro quo" offer. I suspect that large swaths of the public won't see it that way, but are smart enough to recognize a "that's a great country you've got there, it would be shame if something happened to it" conversation.

But even more importantly, Limbaugh describes the notes of the call as if it were a word-by-word transcript. Which is not at all the reality for any of these calls. They are at best recollections or rough approximation of the conversation, as the White House itself admits:


And, even if you take the so-called transcript as an accurate read of the call, it's not quite the exoneration that Limbaugh claims.

I frequently hear from conservatives who claim the President is always scheming, always thinking way ahead of his political opponents. I suspect that's on optimistic view of Trump, but it's especially clear that he has hired some extreme boneheads to work with him. Including the chowderhead who sent en email listing suggested White House talking points about the Ukraine call to a large number of Democratic legislators-including the office of Nancy Pelosi. And then once they realized what they had done, they sent out a recall email:


At least Limbaugh is smart enough to take the talking points and spin them in his own way. Sure, when you listen closely to what he's saying, his arguments aren't all that logical. But it's smooth and at least not a parroting of every other conservative talk show. Unlike..

Yes, This Is The Guy Who Claimed There's No Such Thing As 'White Privilege'....or Racism
Joe Pags is a Texas-based talker and he's the kind of guy who thinks it's really amusing to call Beto O'Rourke by his real name Robert, while still calling Rafael Edward Cruz by his much more politically friendly name Ted. His preferred method of discussing current events seems to be to have his producer read him a story so he can react with indignation. So given that, it's not surprising that as I listened to him this afternoon, he was hitting all of the White House talking points from the email. Now maybe that's a coincidence. Or maybe he's just parroting things he's heard from other sources. But if you want to know how Pags responded to the impeachment news, all you have to do is read the White House email in an outraged and vaguely annoyed voice:






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