That’s one of the longer titles I’ve ever written. And this is meant to be a short post.
Before I set out for my fourth day of chess this month (I’m playing to keep the wit of a good housebound friend in fine form) something in the Washington Post got me thinking about how public radio was trumped early by christian broadcasting by Kansas Senator Bob Dole a quarter century ago. I did a very hasty search starting with the inquiry “” and in fifteen minutes found a number of internet sites on the subject.
In short Dole who was busy making sure that NPR oriented news disemination did not become too dominant opened up the FM band to a great many religious organizations especially in the south. As a result I’ve always found the south a desert for NPR broadcasting. I got wondering if some of the atrocious political stuff I’ve heard on such stations even in the Duluth area were soaked with politics early one and so they were. Limbaugh was on a lot of these stations with his sleep walking white history nonsense. Today ministers all over the evangelical world think they have a right to preach voting for Republicans. Yes they do. If they don’t mind being taxed as a non religious organization would be. That’s my view and I think it holds water constitutionally.
So here are some sites from my google search I really should take a deep dive into:
First this commentary about how the leaders of tech fell into Trump’s pocket which perhaps got me thinking a little more about radio broadcasting
The day Silicon Valley rode Trump’s escalator to nowhere
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/15/kara-swisher-burn-book-silicon-valley/
These are the three google queries I used: 1st. bob dole fm radio npr religious broadcasting, 2nd. npr vs. religious broadcasters, 3rd. rush limbaugh on religious broadcasting.
ITS NO WONDER SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN BRAINWASHED BY THESE STATIONS FOR SO LONG THEY TURNED INTO TRUMPIES
NPR Radio the Free Speech Center https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/public-radio/
The role of Public radio part V the Disinformation age https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/disinformation-age/role-of-public-broadcasting/CFB7BEBE687F03E1849105B3214764AB
Chapter 9 of the same publication about disinformation https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/disinformation-age/us-public-broadcasting-a-bulwark-against-disinformation/0A63AE2A86E0983E9BE3F8BB30115918
Newt Gingrich Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich
Religious Broadcaster NPR https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1139950
thirty leading Religious Broadcasters NPR https://www.npr.org/2014/04/01/297331252/thirty-leading-religious-broadcasters
Trump Scorns Mainstream News, But Not The Christian Broadcasting Network : NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/29/573218006/trump-scorns-mainstream-news-but-not-the-christian-broadcasting-network
How Christian radio networks enabled Rush Limbaugh’s toxic views – Vox https://www.vox.com/culture/22288379/rush-limbaugh-radio-show-impact
If my loyal and now much older eight readers spend some time on these sites I think they will have a better understanding what happened to divide America. Trump was just the right person with no convictions other than his desire to run the tables to haul in all the political loot. It helps when you have no conscience and your self respect is only as skin deep as your tan.