THE “PATRIOT”

AUGUST 10, 2020 – For several years our household has survived with one car. Yesterday though, I wanted to head to the Red Cabin two days before my wife could join me. My younger sister, long-marooned with her husband in New York, graciously allowed me to borrow her car, garaged in Minneapolis.

After loading up, I headed east from the city, then north through bucolic countryside. Cruise control took care of velocity; gentle management of the steering wheel kept me on the right side of the centerline.

In the comforting silence, I’d forgotten about the availability of “auditory accompaniment.” Upon crossing the Minnesota/Wisconsin border, however, where a commercial stretch jolts the traveler out of complacency, I decided to give satellite radio a try. First: the Beatles Channel (How quaint!). Next, as I re-entered the countryside: “Soul/Cycle” (How incongruous with farmland!). Finally: “Symphony Hall” (Plain vanilla programming for the listener unexposed to classical music.).

I decided to go “political.” With a touch of trepidation, I scrolled through the offerings and selected, “Patriot,” with host Hannity.

It seemed as though I’d crossed into a country wholly unrecognizable from the one where I’d grown up, attended school, practiced law, managed a business, participated in civic organizations, helped raise a family. I was as horrified as I was fascinated—much in the way I react when I hear or read about North Korea. How could such a place exist?

I listened patiently. (Why not, as I hurtled across the Wisconsin landscape—peppered with “TRUMP 2020” signs? And my destination, after all, was northwest Wisconsin, deep into “Trumpland.”)

Hannity is skilled at manipulating the rhetorical devices taught straight up in my 10^th grade class speech class. All turn on faulty logic: “Straw man” arguments; post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning; fear mongering; “us vs. them” tribalism. Callers-in oozed with acquired toxicity.

Following Hannity was Andrew Wilkow. He played excerpts of Trump’s recent media conference, during which the president, in his usual fashion, denigrated the reporters in a way that would’ve made Nixon green with envy. For his audience Wilkow pointed out the “extreme humor” with which Trump had “so cleverly put the press corps in their place.” That’s one way of viewing it.  Another way is that the America that once was—however flawed—is no longer. Raw power now rules.

For a half-hour I heard “Patriot” dispense unpatriotic vitriol detached from fact and thoughtful discourse. Filling the airwaves was pure political poison. If not the cause of our demise, rightwing radio is the commercial exploitation of conditions that have led to insurmountable crises. Rather than leading people back from the precipice, the “hosts” prod—even incite—listeners into further contempt for facts, science, and sound reasoning. Most critical of all, rightwing radio and its subscribers condemn the very foundation of a democratic society: common purpose for the common—and therefore, individual—good.

They would have us live in a land of “everyone out for him/herself.” The months ahead will reveal whether this land is any longer habitable for . . . democracy.

(Remember to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.)

© 2020 by Eric Nilsson