InfoWars and media ownership; Swing voters in swing states poll

One of the key differences between American pro-democracy and pro-authoritarianism factions, roughly Dems vs Repubs, is a major focus media on mass media ownership. Dems themselves, e.g., the neoliberal Bill Clinton, helped create the current disaster. Biden perpetuates it. 

After he got in power, DJT installed a plutocrat to head the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), Ajit Pai. Media ownership rules were changed to allow far more concentration of owner power in single markets for individual entities or families. Our authoritarian radical right supreme court stepped in and reinforced DJT deregulation that killed media ownership diversity. 

For example, the FCC repealed the Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule, which had prohibited a single entity from owning both a daily newspaper and a radio or TV station in the same market. Also, the Radio/Television Cross-Ownership Rule was eliminated. That rule restricted the combined ownership of radio and television stations in the same market. So far, the Biden administration has not reversed those authoritarian rule changes, and the supreme court has reinforced them. It is not clear that Biden wants those rules changed.

Thom Hartmann comments on one aspect the critically important media ownership issue, talk radio: 

Radio Silence: How Progressives Lost the Airwaves

Inside the GOP's 30-year plan to dominate America’s talk radio system

After Ronald Reagan struck down the Fairness Doctrine and the Equal Time Rule, Republican money men got the memo. Whichever party controlled the most states would have a big edge in both the Senate (and thus control of the Supreme Court nominations) and the Electoral College, and most of the low- and medium-population states had relatively inexpensive media markets.

You could buy or lease radio stations for less than a party might spend over a four-year electoral cycle on advertising, so why not simply acquire a few hundred stations across a dozen or more states and program them with rightwing talk radio 24/7?

This became particularly easy after Bill Clinton signed the neoliberal Telecommunications Act of 1996 that ended limits on how many radio or TV stations a single corporation or billionaire could own. Within months of that bill passing into law, Clear Channel and other networks had gone from small regional groups to massive nationwide radio empires.

The strategy worked, and today there are over 1,500 rightwing radio stations in America, along with another 700 or so religious stations that regularly endorse Republican memes and candidates for office.

Right-wing talk radio has been integral to Republican strategy for decades. In 1994, when Newt Gingrich took control of the House of Representatives, he understood the power of talk radio.

The GOP hold on most of American radio seems pretty unshakable.

A few years ago, a billionaire acquired one of the largest networks of these stations (800+ stations) and a senator I’ve known for years invited him and me to meet in his office near the US Capitol. The Senator asked the billionaire — who then owned several hundred stations programming exclusively rightwing content — if he’d ever considered putting some progressive content on the air.

The billionaire leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath, tented his fingers in front of his mouth, and then said, carefully but emphatically:

“I’ll never put anybody on my air who wants to raise my taxes.”

A few years earlier, I’d sat at lunch at a Talkers Magazine conference with a vice president of what is arguably the most influential of the rightwing radio station networks [Salem Media Group; family-themed content and conservative (authoritarian) values]; the company had started out as a bible publishing business and moved from there into radio and then into political radio.

I asked him if he’d consider putting a progressive show on any of his stations (they were all 100% conservative talk) and he bluntly told me it was “never going to happen” because, he said, “It’s impossible for a liberal to be a true Christian.”

Think about it — political campaigns will pay thousands for a minute of advertising, and find that to be so effective that they continue to buy ads year after year. If that minute can be so influential, how about a host — who’s built a relationship with his or her listeners — telling them dozens of times a day who they should vote for and why? You literally can’t buy promotion like that; you have to buy the station instead.

I have argued many times here that demagogic DFS (dark free speech) has been the single most effective weapon that American radical right authoritarianism has used in its decades-long war against democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law. Ownership of mass media is a key component. Concentrated media ownership by radical right authoritarian individuals and businesses maximize DFS's power to deceive, trap and manipulate minds and the distorted realities those minds think they see.

From what I can tell, Bill Clinton was, and Joe Biden still is, on the wrong side of our pro-authoritarian federal media ownership policy. They blew it and betrayed us.

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A NYT article discusses recent poll results from swing voters in three swing states:

We define swing voters as the roughly 18 percent of likely voters who say they haven’t yet made a firm decision. Some describe themselves as undecided, while others say they’re leaning toward one candidate but open to changing their mind.

All the numbers in today’s newsletter come from a poll of three swing states — Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. But I’ve analyzed a similar question in a nationwide poll conducted by YouGov and The Economist, and the themes were similar.

Swing voters’ biggest concern about Trump, by far, is his temperament.

Is this poll more reassuring than troubling? I think it probably is, but that's certain. The 35% personality, 8% honesty, 7% threat to democracy, 5% ideology and 3% court cases amount to 58%. That's not an overwhelming majority. Presumably "ideology" and "threat to democracy" mostly refers implicitly to his authoritarianism, and maybe so does concern about his "personality."  

Other recent poll data is seemingly not as encouraging as this poll.

One has to wonder what the benefits of DJT policies are that Republicans cite as beneficial for them personally. A perplexity search indicated that Republicans commonly cite (i) the 2017 tax cut, (ii) pre-pandemic economic and job growth, (iii) energy independence policy, and (iv) deregulation with attendant reduced business costs and lower consumer prices. 

That search indicated that the perceived reality of some of the benefits are not clear. The 2017 tax cut added to the federal debt, so there was that downside. Before DJT was in office, the economy was on an upswing, so it is hard to know what influence he had on that. Evidence of energy policy and deregulation helping lower consumer prices ranges from non-existent to debated. In short, the claimed benefits may not have materialized as much for the average person as most of DJT's supporters presumably believe.

It still looks like the election is going to be very close in the electoral college. The outcome is not predictable at present.