The Revolution WAS televised
The insurrection led by a mob wearing MAGA hats, waving Confederate, Gadsden and Trump flags who breached the US Capitol and took it hostage for a few hours in a new Lost Cause has been repelled. For now.
The assault on the center of the nation’s government as it was performing the task of certifying the election of our 46th President — carried live to a stunned nation — was a made-for-TV event produced and directed by the 45th President of the United States.
With the cooperation of enabling right-wing media outlets like the Fox News Channel. And while the domestic terrorists who staged nothing less than an attempted coup were beaten back for now, no one should be comforted by what lies ahead.
The attack was merely the most overt moment of a slow-motion coup, in which the right wing has, until now, conducted as a stealthy assault, aided by millions in dark money, through the courts and using right wing media, to overturn the will of the majority.
An unwritten rule of revolution is to seize the means of communication. In the United States, it started with Father Charles Coughlin and his incendiary, anti-Semitic radio broadcasts of the 1930s. In the 1950s, Wisconsin Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy dominated headlines with largely unproven charges of Communist conspiracies (although ironically it was a TV newscaster who eventually brought him down, albeit belatedly.)
But stymied by the Federal Communications Commission’s Fairness Doctrine, the right failed to achieve maximum impact. Until Ronald Reagan’s FCC repealed it in 1987, broadcasters were bound to present controversial issues of public importance in a fair and balanced way.
Enter Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes.
Released from the need for fairness, Limbaugh bombarded radio listeners with racist, misogynistic and homophobic attacks that produced record pay checks and loyal listenership for him and the stations that carried his screeds.
Ailes, who cut his teeth helping to create the “New Nixon” and who was part of the team that directed George H.W. Bush’s vicious 1988 presidential campaign, followed suit on cable television. With the backing of right-wing news executive Rupert Murdoch’s cash, Ailes launched Fox with the ironic motto of “fair and balanced.”
The assault was repelled. For now. But as this history makes clear, the forces on the right have much preferred slow, steady efforts to get their way. There’s no reason to believe this failed coup attempt will stop their assault on democracy.
Meanwhile, backed by billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch, the right moved to change the rules of the game to favor the privileged over the “everyday” person. Their reach touched on everything from taxes and business regulations to tilting the courts hard right.
This slow-motion coup had succeeded in electing Republicans at the state level who, backed by powerful computer programs, “packed and cracked” Democrats into contorted districts that maximized Republican seats. In Wisconsin, Republicans won 48.6 percent of the two-party vote in 2012 but took 61 percent of the Assembly’s 99 seats.
Another key part of this stealthy campaign focused on how to thwart popular support on key issues such as tighter handgun regulations and a woman’s right to choose by nominating and appointing like-minded federal judges.
Which brings us to Donald J. Trump, the real estate developer and reality TV show host who used his marketing skills and his “gift” for lying to win the 2016 presidential campaign. Aided and abetted by excessive television coverage and the not-so fair and balanced array of Fox talk hosts.
Decrying journalists as “enemies of the people,” Trump and his allies at Fox, Breitbart and other right-wing outlets, embarked on a campaign best defined by Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels as the “big lie.” First, despite winning, he declared the 2016 election was “rigged” against him.
But in 2020, he kicked up the intensity of that lie, again aided and abetted by Fox and a growing cadre of truth-deniers.
The result of that propaganda blitz was apparent on the attempted putsch of Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands of people fed by what’s approaching 30,000 lies stormed the Capitol whileTrump’s loyal Republican army sought to accomplish what more than 60 courts refused to do — overturn the election of Joseph R. Biden.
The assault was repelled. For now. But as this history makes clear, the forces on the right have much preferred slow, steady efforts to get their way. There’s no reason to believe this failed coup attempt will stop their assault on democracy.
