Today On Conservative Talk Radio: 03/06/2017

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. 

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The Calm Voice Of The Conspiracy-Minded

As you might expect from previous shows, Rush Limbaugh was deep in the weeds of the alleged Trump wiretap stories in today's show. He spent an entire half-hour recounting the various twists and turns of the story, using Mark Levin's timeline as the explanation for what supposedly happened.

He spends a fair amount of time on one aspect of the story. He says that much of the proof of Obama's involvement is proven by the timing of the FISA requests. He also argues that the original request (which was rejected) was a criminal case request, which would be outside the influence of the Obama White House. But the second, successful FISA request was labeled as a national security issue and that allowed Obama to guide the investigation.

Limbaugh does what he does best in this argument. He takes a couple of more-or-less true facts, then stretches and exaggerates them into a wide-ranging conspiracy theory that sounds credible if you don't go back and unpack the argument. Oh, it doesn't hold together, but most listeners aren't sitting in front of a stack of documentation and newspapers. He can misrepresent an article or tie disparate facts together with a few "doesn't it make sense" comments and weave together a credible, although entirely imaginary conspiracy theory.

Later, Limbaugh recounts the long list of items he argues the Obama Administration lied about in the past: Fast & Furious, Hillary's emails, etc. In the end, he claims that based on the past, it's far more likely that Obama ordered the wiretaps than he didn't. In that comment, he reveals the crux of the Conservative argument for the wiretap story. "It's just the type of thing Obama would have done." An argument that wouldn't win the day in an episode of "Law & Order," much less in a real-life court. But it keeps his supporters wound up.

Then there's one last tidbit Rush throws out to "feed the drive-by media beast." He postulates that perhaps the infamous tarmac meeting between Bill Clinton and then Attorney General Loretta Lynch wasn't about Hillary's emails. Maybe it was about these wiretaps, because the Justice Department approved the second FISA request a week later. It's a titillating factoid, but he wisely doesn't dive into fleshing out the allegation. It's pretty clear he doesn't believe it, even as he says it. Because otherwise, Limbaugh is arguing that all of this is some wide-ranging conspiracy that spans the Obama Administration, the Clinton campaign, the Justice Department and the media.

But that over-arching argument is the crux of the conservative thesis for the wiretap story. Obama could never be trusted, the Left couldn't accept the rise of Trump and the danger to their power. They are trying to destroy Trump & this wiretap story is proof. This theory serves two complimentary purposes for the Trump Administration. It's a hot-button issue that rallies the base of supporters who still loathe everything the Obama Administration stood for during its eight-year run. But it also helps solidify support from wavering supporters who might be distressed by some of Trump's other moves. It's a way of making it tougher for Democrats to peel off Trump voters in the future and while that's good politics, I'm not sure it's that great of a move for the state of the union.

More coming.....

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