Muzzled (27 page)

In addition to his radio show, with a weekly audience of about ten million listeners, Beck had a 5:00 p.m. show on Fox News that garnered higher ratings than the combined ratings for prime-time programs on CNN and MSNBC. His books instantly catapult to number one on the
New York Times
best-seller lists. Though not as partisan as Limbaugh, Beck’s message is clearly conservative and highly critical of the Democrats and President Obama. He famously remarked that the president was a “racist” who had a “deep-seated hatred of white people.” In fairness, he apologized and retracted that remark later. But he routinely calls the president a socialist, a communist, and a Marxist and has likened him to Adolf Hitler. He
often compares the agenda of Obama and the Democrats to Nazi Germany, Maoist China, and Russia under the Soviets.

The philippics and outlandish tirades against the Obama administration form the engine for Beck’s success. Without them, no one would pay attention to his warmer, fuzzier, and sometimes legitimate claims about history, morals, and values. But rather than spark a genuine debate, Beck seeks to ignite our ire and go on the attack. There is no progressive conspiracy to destroy the United States of America from within, and it is absurd to suggest that there is. Although to Beck and those who follow him, it may well seem as if I am dismissing the idea because I am a part of the conspiracy. For that matter, you must be too, if you agree with my ideas. I can see the chalk-board diagram now.

These provocateurs cross the political spectrum and are paid salaries normally associated with Las Vegas entertainers. Personality is key here. Anyone can say provocative things and voice controversial opinions. The people whom I have mentioned are effective because they are always skating on the edge of outrageous controversy, always pushing the limits of supportable facts, logic, and respect for people who hold opposing political views. Their audiences want to see how far they can go without crashing. Perhaps they share the sense that the rest of the world is crazy and they are not going to take it anymore—they are going to set the record straight and tell it like it is. And our hosts deliver daily jeremiads that confirm we are not the only ones who believe these politicians and world leaders and corporate moguls and pampered movie stars and athletes are a bunch of thieves, liars, and idiots. The iron fist hammering the table with the microphone belongs
to a man or woman—conservative or liberal—who is not interested in talking
with
people. He or she is in the business of talking
at
people. The closest these dominating radio and TV personalities come to an exchange of ideas is attacking their rivals on another network. The insults fly, and then their respective audiences are roused to defend their heroes, and the ratings climb even higher as more and more people tune in for the spectacle.

Now, there is nothing wrong with talk radio being dominated by conservative personalities or Hollywood being dominated by liberal writers and actors. Competition among political ideas is essential to American democracy. It might be hard to find a liberal radio show as influential as Rush Limbaugh’s program, but there is no absence of liberal ideas and personalities elsewhere in the political universe and the media. At the height of their powers, the conservatives on talk radio could only watch as perhaps the most liberal member of the Senate, Barack Obama, was elected president. That is why I will stand side by side with Rush and Sean in opposing attempts to manipulate that marketplace with the return of the Fairness Doctrine. President Obama has also said he opposes the return of a government-imposed mandate that each individual station provide equal time to all sides of a political issue. At this point that kind of legislative response to the provocateurs will not serve to disseminate more ideas and opinions. It amounts to a liberal strategy designed to take down Limbaugh and the other conservatives who dominate one format—talk radio. I am for the government offering tax breaks to support more programs with local talk and news. Having been muzzled myself, I don’t think muzzling other
voices or having the government dictate programming decisions is in keeping with the First Amendment promise that Congress will make no law restricting freedom of the press.

The real danger here is beyond the scope of government’s power. The excess of provocateurs corrupting public dialogue in America sets up a fight on every issue for every American. This rebellion against the provocateurs will have to be done in the tradition of colonial patriots, who came out of their homes and formed private armies to fight British tyranny. Individual Americans are going to have to turn away from the entertainment associated with extremist, at times buffoonish, demagogues on the air and their imitators who are now running for public office. They will have to personally raise the bar for conversations about important social and political issues. In other words, we have to take matters into our own hands. Ordinary Americans need to join the fight against the scourge that is undermining our essential American belief in letting people speak their minds. The dominance of the paid agitators has led to a loss of critical-thinking skills by American citizens—we need to think for ourselves. The screamers, the self-righteous, and the arrogant on radio, on TV, in print, and on the Internet create an environment in which a lot of people in the middle don’t bother speaking up because it’s hard to shout above the bombast and noise. A lot of us, I suspect, feel an urge to take cover until all the shouting and name-calling stop. We are waiting for someone else to tell the provocateurs that their fifteen minutes are up.

I fear that a backlash against the provocateur culture is creating cynicism about the entire political process. Revulsion for politics and debate is now common among Americans, especially
young people. And that path leads to political apathy. Two thirds of the American people tell pollsters the country is headed in the wrong direction. Yet increasingly, politicians themselves begin to act like the provocateurs in the media, resorting to the same crass schoolyard bullying and name-calling. In one of the most offensive campaign ads of the 2010 political campaign, a Florida Democrat, Representative Alan Grayson, referred to his Republican opponent, Daniel Webster, as “Taliban Dan.” Labeling someone, even in hyperbole, a member of a brutal regime that slaughters its own people, and Americans for that matter, is bad enough. But on top of that, the vitriol behind the statements was based on a lie. Grayson used a video clip that showed Webster telling women to “submit” to their husbands in keeping with the tenets of an extremist interpretation of the Bible. But Grayson had edited the clip to distort what Webster had actually said. In reality, Webster had cautioned religious men not to use literal translations of some Bible texts to oppress women.

The independent political watchdog group
FactCheck.org
was appalled by Grayson’s blatant attack on his opponent and the truth. “We thought Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida reached a low point when he falsely accused his opponent of being a draft dodger during the Vietnam War and of not loving his country,” reported
FactCheck.org
. “But now Grayson has lowered the bar even further. He’s using edited video to make his rival appear to be saying the opposite of what he really said.”

The 2010 election also saw Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for a Nevada U.S. Senate seat, tell a group of voters that she would employ gun violence—“Second Amendment
remedies”—to deal with members of Congress who did not go along with her ideas. She made headlines with the sensationalist but totally false charge that her Democratic opponent, Senate majority leader Harry Reid, wanted to give Viagra to sex offenders. Angle also ran ads suggesting Reid was giving tax breaks to illegal immigrants. Those TV ads depicted the people crossing the border to come into the United States as thuggish, threatening, and dark skinned, in a crass attempt to stir up voters’ fears and win votes.

This low level of political discourse is chasing away talented people who would otherwise put themselves forward as candidates for office. Who wants to be subjected to shrill and malicious attacks? Who wants to be called names and verbally kicked around by opponents who are not held to account?

In every democracy, no matter what the era, the language of politics is often personal, often harsh, and at times down in the gutter. This was true of political opponents of Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Abe Lincoln. But the proliferation of media through high technology in the last twenty years has led to 24-7 stabs from sharp voices, and I fear the body politic is bleeding to death. There is no off-season for political attacks, especially around election time. We now live with a permanent campaign; it is a year-round sport. From terrorism to budgetary crises to immigration to the war in wherever, the talk-show static is so loud that voices of elected officials trying their best to resolve thorny political issues can barely be heard. The result is that a genuine dialogue about important issues gets put off far too long. The urgent need for solutions, combined with our anxiety over a faltering economy, multiple wars, and demographic shifts that have raised the number of
racial minorities and immigrants, has created a political pressure cooker. The only sound to be heard is the angry steam venting from overheated people.

That is what happened during the debate over health-care reform in 2010. America’s great tradition of town halls where citizens can express concerns to elected officials devolved into circus-tent spectacles, in which every shriek mimicked the harsh rhetoric, angry tone, and personal insults that typify the media provocateurs Americans listen to and watch daily. And the hostile tenor of the meetings was set by those provocative personalities. During a debate on health care, freshman Senate Democrat Al Franken, sitting as presiding officer of the Senate, cut off Senator Joe Lieberman, the senior senator from Connecticut. “Wielding Gavel, Franken Shuts Lieberman Up!” is how the incident was delightedly described in the liberal-leaning Huffington Post. Given that a request to finish a brief ten-minute speech is commonly granted in the Senate, the decision had the flavor of disrespect. And the fact that Senator Franken, a former entertainer, was the lead actor prompted Senator John McCain to lament the demise of civility even among senators. “I’ve been around here for more than twenty years,” McCain said, “and yesterday on the floor of the Senate, the senator from Connecticut was finishing his remarks … and was objected to by the newest member of the U.S. Senate—and in the most brusque way.” Later he added: “That’s how the comity in this body has deteriorated. We got to stop—we got to stop this kind of behavior.”

Senator McCain’s complaint came barely two months after Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina broke traditional decorum at a presidential address to a joint session of Congress
to yell, “You lie!” That disrespect was unprecedented, and the congressman was wrong on the facts, as well. At a Massachusetts town-hall meeting during the same period, Representative Barney Frank went toe-to-toe with a woman who held up a sign featuring President Obama portrayed as Adolf Hitler. She asked her congressman why he was “supporting this Nazi policy.” Frank responded: “On what planet do you spend most of your time?” The honest answer is that she is living on a planet full of provocateurs on her radio, TV, and Internet.

Former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used the Internet to contribute to the poisonous atmosphere in town-hall meetings in 2010. Just before the congressional summer recess and the beginning of the town-hall meetings, she wrote on her Facebook page: “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Downs Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide … [a citizen’s] level of productivity in society [and] whether they are worthy of healthcare.” This misleading description of the provisions of national health-care reform was surprising, and disappointing, given that Palin regularly confronted the media for making things up about her.

Some people might regard the passionate outbursts during the town halls as over-the-top but within the limits of democracy in action. But something different was going on here. The fact that there were so many threats of violence and vicious, personal insults exchanged and posted on YouTube leads to questions about the direction of American political culture and the impact of the provocateurs. Where are they taking us? Is this where we want to go as a country? Surely there
were serious people who came to these town halls wanting to get answers to questions about the health-care bill and to hear informative debate on the issue. Polls had consistently shown for decades that Americans, both individuals and businesses, have been burdened by the high cost of health care and wanted reforms. But the town-hall meetings were not about weighing the comparative impact of reform proposals. The goal seemed to be an exercise in mockery, cynicism, and even contempt for the political system. There is no way the town halls were good for debating legislation. Spectacles like these undermine the functioning of governments of any political stripe and are a threat to a vital, healthy democracy.

Robert Reich, who was secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, wrote about touring the country to see some of the town halls. He realized that the provocateur media culture had been hijacked by the lobbyists and businessmen opposed to health-care reform to create a circus that fed the right-wing radio talk shows and TV cable programs in an attempt to shoot reform down. It then inspired more threats and further hysteria at future town hall meetings.

“On our drive across America,” Reich wrote at
Salon.com
, “my son and I have spotted spiffy white vans emblazoned with phrases like ‘ObamaCare Will Raise Your Taxes,’ and ‘ObamaCare Will Put Bureaucrats in Charge of Your Health.’ Just outside Omaha we drove close enough to take a peek at the driver, who looked as dutifully professional as the spanking new van he was driving. This isn’t grassroots. It’s Astroturf. The vans carry the logo ‘Americans for Prosperity,’ one of the Washington front groups orchestrating the fight against universal health [coverage].” Reich went on to write
that these front groups used the ethos of the provocateurs to “stage ersatz local anti–universal health rallies, and fill hometown media with carefully crafted, market-tested messages demonizing healthcare reform.”