The right wing persists in using failed slogans and attitudes

By Marc Jampole

It’s amazing that the right-wing ideologues in the news media continue to use failed slogans and continue to take repudiated positions. It’s as if there has been a message retrenchment to the basics of Romneyism among media stalwarts.

I didn’t realize that the right-wing media was channeling Romney’s worst until earlier this week when channel surfing while driving home from the office: I heard Rush Limbaugh take off on the 47% of the country who are takers; the 47% first promulgated as the “other” whom Mitt Romney would never help as president. Just what the wealthy racist donors wanted to hear. But not what the voters wanted to hear.

I can never bring up the 47% canard without pointing out that these moochers include senior citizens who paid payroll taxes and are now receiving Social Security and Medicare, veterans who fought for our country and children who find themselves in poor families for no fault of their own. There’s most of Romney and Rush’s 47%.

So why did Rush persist in conveying the thought that half the country are moochers and do it in the same ill-fated words? Doesn’t he realize that a good part of his audience are part of that 47% and know it?

I thought Rush was losing it to attack the 47% after the election results, but he’s not the only media maven (or is that craven) to channel the Mittman this week. The wicked witch of the North, East, West and South, Ann Coulter, penned a column today in which she lashed out at Hispanics and immigrants and told a lot of whoppers. As the analysis in the Huffington News pointed out, Coulter accuses Hispanics of looking for handouts when statistics show that Latinos use less than their share of government benefits compared to the rest of the population. Coulter says that immigrants from Latin America have too many babies out of wedlock. Again, Huffington cites facts that prove her wrong.

When Romney’s strong anti-immigration stand turned off Hispanic voters, it guaranteed that he would lose some key swing states and the election. Many Republicans were beginning to express the view that there was no reason not to take a more favorable view of reforming immigration laws in a way that pleased Hispanic voters.  You would think that as a Republican shill, Coulter would fall in line. Instead she has thrown more red meat to the ultra-right nativists who favor mass deportations and building a 30-foot high wall along our borders. 

I know that both Rush and Coulter always have to ratchet up the audacity to keep the attention of the masses and pump up their ratings. But in both cases, they used tired, old, failed, lie-ridden rhetoric that the political party they support had repudiated.

Why resurrect these false and failed ideas? I’m guessing that keeping these lies out there will make sure that some part of the population will continue to believe them and therefore continue to vote Republican even if the GOP economic stands work against their best interests. It’s a short term strategy, since this Republican core is losing population.