Letters to the Editor
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focus
Let's remember who Rush is talking to. He's not talking to denizens of Salon. He's not talking to the political center or left.
He's talking to *his audience.* That's how he got where he is, and that's how he makes the big bucks. By staying focused like a laser on his audience and what they want to hear.
Once you keep this fact crystal-clear in mind, his comments about the Fox ad make perfect sense. His audience eats this stuff up...
In media, the day you ignore what your audience wants is the day you're out of a job--with rare exceptions. But, you know, even the day Walter Cronkite denounced the Vietnam war in his gentle way, he was merely reflecting the increasing unease of many, if not most, *in his audience.* So even seeming acts-of-courage in media almost always give the audience what it wants.
To understand people like Rush, or Anne, or any of these right-wing mouths, you have to keep in mind who they're talking to.
Does it scare me that so many people in this country not only like what Rush says, but approve of it? Yeah. But that's reality. Until we on the left and in the center get very clear that a large number of people in this country live in a strange, vicious fantasy world colored in by people like Rush, we'll never get to trip the levers of power.