David Neiwert: Rush, Newspeak and Fascism-2

February 23, 2006

Hard Right Demagogue Michael Savage
Sketch by James R MacLean [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ]

"Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An Exegesis"
David Neiwert, originally published at Orcinus, 9 August 2003

Rush Limbaugh has an extremely big role in David Neiwert's monograph. Neiwert focuses on Limbaugh for scholastic reasons: by examining a single, very prominent radio personality, he can be consistant and exhaustive. As readers will notice, I've posted color sketches of Limbaugh, Michael Weiner (DBA Michael Savage), Ann Coulter, and Bill O'Reilly. While Neiwert concentrates on the combination of remarks by Limbaugh to demostrate how deceitful and hypocritical they are, I've put up these other caricatures partly to illustrate the sort of conveyor belt of barbarism that Neiwert warns about: Limbaugh stops short of the rhetoric of Coulter and Savage, but treats them sympathetically.

In his introductory remarks on Limbaugh, Neiwert likens Limbaugh to Rev. Charles E. Coughlin ("Father Coughlin"), who initially supported the campaign of Franklin D Roosevelt, but quickly turned on the president when it became clear FDR had no intention of replicating Benito Mussolini's program. FDR, of course, never even dallied with the judeaphobic conspiracy theories that Coughlin gradually embraced. Limbaugh, however, not only shuns judeaphobia, he shuns conspiracy theories generally. I would like to argue that this reflects the different historical contingencies of the United States, contingencies that differentiate it from the countries of Central Europe.

A Digression on the Peculiarity of the US Situation

Coughlin immigrated to the USA from Canada in 1923; he was the son of Irish parents and an ordained Roman Catholic priest. His experience assimilating to US society as a "double-outsider" (being a foreigner in the USA, and Irish in Canada) may have made him especially adept at reading nativist sentiment, and playing to it. However, this was a time when the self-identification of US nationals with specific nations of Europe was far stronger, and the sense of an ethnic-based centralized populism, such as was very common to Europe, had its one chance in the 1920's. After that, the European-born population of the USA began to shrink as a share of the total. Today, while the foreign-born demographic has risen somewhat from its historic low of the late 1960's, it remains diffused from many nations (and it's about 40% of the share of the 1920's).

In contrast, Limbaugh comes from a more peculiarly American tradition of rightwing Jacobinism. Unlike the European version, in which there is a lore of a minority conspiracy manipulating the state from behind the scenes, in the American version, there are rival camps of "settlers," much like in 1850's Kansas. There is little need for conspiracy theories, either as part of the hard right narrative, or to capture the aggrieved listeners' imaginations. The obvious self-interest and impending confrontation is more than sufficient to explain (to a Dittohead's POV) why liberals are such a threat. The grain of "truth" to Limbaugh's lies, the one that sustains his credibility with his followers, is that there really is a rival struggle between rival sectional interests, and concomitant definitions of righteousness.

For example, in debates about the globalization of trade and capital, a controversy has raged about the impact on labor. As commerce with the urbanized 3rd world has increased, so too has the ability and desire to transfer whole industries to low-wage economies, leading to strong downward pressures on labor in the 3rd world. In the West, this has accompanied a rapid influx of women into the industrial workforce, urban sprawl, and soaring housing prices; the last two have nullified the household income gains of more working women. Households now require two incomes, and often more, to maintain access to attractive neighborhoods. For the managerial class, there has been a rapid tendency to replace senior managers with proven "people" skills, with younger graduates with specialized technical skills. Hence, the allure for the younger college grads of "political correctness." Rejecting racial and gender privilege is a good thing, but the form that rejection usually takes is a self-serving dissolution of the older solidarity of management for workers.

The repudiation of national or communal solidarity sometimes has very compelling, understandable reasons: sexism, applied to job roles, is oppressive; a racial preference for white job applicants is reprehensible, and a preference for American workers over those of China and Vietnam is pretty hard to defend. However, most positions are socially embedded anyway; the alternative theory of a pure meritocracy is highly unrealistic and impractical. For a person who faces a bottomless pit to abject destitution and utter social degradation, there is a very understandable sense of entitlement.

Traditionally, then, the liberal has tended to favor the rationalization of society: its economic processes, its social relations, its machinery of government, its customs, and its sex roles. It has also tended to favor the pursuit of science, particularly science that will contribute to positive social change. Such changes may, especially over the long run, improve the ability of the society to respond to crises. It will render the society more equitable and more productive; it may introduce a viable "market" for public goods, thereby greatly enhancing welfare in excess of economic growth. Over the short run, however, and especially among ambitious young professionals, it will be expressed as impatience with the inefficient, lumbering deadwood of middle-aged [male] machinists, or sclerotic [white] teamsters. Is it any wonder, therefore, that fascist rhetoric enters our society through the car radios of such people?

The Government-Hatred of Limbaugh

Neiwert attends to the peculiar feature of Limbaugh's themes, especially from when his career was soaring as a Clinton-baiting voice in the wilderness.

Neiwert: Limbaugh, in contrast, has always carefully eschewed conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism. Through most of the first decade of his radio career, his primary shtick has been to rail against the government and its supposed takeover of our daily lives. This anti-government propaganda has served one main purpose: To drive a wedge between middle- and lower-class workers and the one entity that has the capability to protect them from the ravages of wealthy class warriors and swarms of corporate wolves.

Limbaugh likes to bill himself as an “entertainer,” but he is more accurately understood as a propagandist. He shows no interest in actually furthering the public debate: opposing views are rarely if ever invited onto his show, and when they are they invariably receive the kind of ham-handed mistreatment that has become common on Limbaugh’s television counterpart, Bill O’Reilly’s Fox talk show.

And there can be little doubt as to the effectiveness of Limbaugh's propaganda: In the intervening years, it has become an object of faith, particularly in rural America where Limbaugh's broadcasts can often be heard multiple times throughout the day, that the government is in itself evil, a corrupt entity, something to be distrusted and feared, and certainly incapable of actually solving problems.

[Fascism] [Totalitarianism]