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Rush
This thread is primarily about Rush Limbaugh and the tactics he uses on air for persuasion. This is not to say he's not persuasive and has to use tricks, but rather to elaborate on the devices he tends to rely on and why they're so popular.
First off, the most important thing to establish is that Rush was at one time a bit of a troll and no matter how stupid you may have labeled him, he is truly the king of creating a message and controlling it over long periods of time. If he was not working as a pundit he would be in a decent marketing job somewhere or he would be advising a local dictator elsewhere in the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTFEe02IxyY
Really just the first minute of this should be enough to get some insight.
What is amazing about Rush is how consistent he's actually kept his world view and how amazing he is at subtly shifting it when need be over the course of several months. He makes two kinds of predictions, unspoken and spoken and is amazing with both.
Spoken Predictions: These are predictions that Rush has made on air or in public in one fashion or another. He does this constantly, at least once a show typically and they begin to add up pretty quick. This is a similar technique used by psychics and conmen alike. Make five predictions that you know your audience wants to be true. At least one of them will come true (and more of them will based on how vague the language is) and he will then harp on that correct prediction for about 1 - 4 weeks until his next prediction is true and in the meantime he'll make 4 - 15 predictions or so. It's an amazing cycle that is pulled off so well you just have to go "Shit...".
Unspoken Predictions: These are the ones that shatter my mind. Rush knows what is going to happen in terms of political climate. He can guess with relative accuracy when we'll start looking at Iraq intensely again, when people will start demanding more accountability, etc. He often pre-emptively shifts his view slowly over the course of weeks and months to ensure that it is ready for whatever political changes he thinks will occur. If you look for the inconsistencies in his show there's a good chance that if you start detecting some little by little it's because he's trying to make sure that he's ready for whatever comes his way. The first time I ever saw him make a giant prediction that fell on it's face was the 2008 presidential election, but I'll get into that later. He may not know what is going to happen specifically but he knows the trends and you can tell by his shifting stances.
So those are two of his most powerful tools. By convincing people of predictions both specific and vague on a constant enough basis, the impression that he is correct in a situation is implanted through false legitimization.
Here's his next one and arguably one of his most important and consistent techniques.
Irrational Liberals/Ultra Rational Rush: The next is an amazing divide Rush has created by picking up enraged liberals (and sometimes conservatives) and letting their call through. Sometimes he doesn't even have to filter it and he gets a freebie. The reality is that Rush is an amazing orator and if you do not control the conversation he will steamroll you in both volume and assertiveness. Any attempt to speak over him is shouting and he will proceed to demonize you as a reactionary bleeding heart liberal who can't control your emotions when in reality some are merely trying to get a word in. This verbal tactic is amazingly powerful in controlling dialogue and it then gets used later. "Liberals don't believe in an informed consumer because they can't even be rational when they're speaking about the issues, let alone when trying to spend money" is a summation of his common follow ups. Rush is amazingly arrogant on his show but it is buffered slightly by the fact that to anyone just tuning in who does not think about the screening process or how incindiary what he's saying is it does appear that he's the only sane voice. Make no mistake, he does this with raving conservatives as well and is known for letting angry conservatives on. He places himself above all with this technique and it's really something to hear. The most subtle effect of this is how it gives the impression that he is moderate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNK4byQkn7w
This is pretty much what happens but he typically looks like less of a douche on his radio show, and it also plays into his greatest weakness.
Home Team Advantage: Rush's greatest strength and weakness is his control. As long as his staff does what they're supposed to in regards to callers he's set. In an audio setting he knows how to get anyone pissed and then cut their line and claim "Well I guess they didn't want a rational discussion" and make it appear like they hung up when it's very obvious by the person's demeanor that they wanted to stay on and confront him as long as possible. He rarely ever appears outside of conservative only areas because he knows that it's much easier to get him into a corner outside of his safe zone. I've noticed that whenever he says on air that any one of his co-workers doesn't feel well there's a good chance he'll have a sub in the next day or so. My theory is that he has his team so well structured that he refuses to operate without a single critical member. Rush is also absent from his own show all the time, which is in direct contrast with Hannity's Cal Ripken like average.
Volume of content: Simply put it's almost impossible to catalog all the insane and horrible shit Rush has said because he's got 15 hours a week of it. Most people who don't listen to him regularly assume that the soundbites that Olberman and others play are the worst he's said. Far from it. The problem is that the worst shit he says is often in the form of long narrative verbal vignettes that can not be compressed into 15 seconds. Most of them take anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 to really give you an idea of what he's actually saying and the message he's trying to convey in full. When you hear these rants, you'll understand them but summarizing them just doesn't work. For example he's had a few on how democrats are terrorists. While anyone who hasn't listened to his show will shrug that off as something several have done, he's taken it to lengths that are amazingly high.
Reactionary environment: Rush has taken a stance for some time now that he's a 'real' conservative and that his listeners are the oppressed, not the oppressors. This plays well for the Angry white boy/girl crowd that feels that politicians do not connect with them. Rush is amazing at helping them feel like they're being heard and it's one of his high points. He is amazing at painting liberals as uncaring of whites in the middle class and often uses this as much to his advantage as possible. It may not be the "Turner Diaries" but the tone of an oppressed white middle class is in everything he says, despite the fact Rush knows nothing of the middle class.
One of his best diversionary tactics is probably the following.
Invoking the hatred of a Fairness doctrine: While it is mentioned on occasion, the fairness doctrine won't happen any time soon. Some democrats use it as a talking point but it's ultimately got sails without any wind. Rush constantly evokes the fairness doctrine to encourage his reactionary environment. Just like you, the hard working middle class guy, Rush has earned his spot in radio and liberals want nothing more than to take an hour and a half away from his show for themselves. Rush gets sympathy and then rage from his listeners with that little act and ultimately puts them on edge as if any show could be his last before "those fuckers take our shit".
____________________________________
Here's some FAQ's on the fucker after listening to him for several years.
What do you mean troll? Are you saying he doesn't believe what he says?
This is a hard one. He very obviously started off as a generic conservative who said shit that was much more inflammatory than what he actually believed because he could make money from it. In the 2004 cycle it was obvious that he really didn't like Kerry at all but then again who did? In 2008 though it became very apparent though that he was probably no longer trolling. His normal somewhat composed stature was fractured and crumbled and the day after Obama won he flipped the fuck out on air. I'm trying to find the full episode, but he loses his calm verbal cool and just lets every racist thing come out of his mouth. Hell, had he taken a few more Oxy that day there's a chance we could have heard the most honest and deep recesses of his hatred that his world as a white man had been shattered. Rush has always had a boner for McCain and he snapped.
What's an interesting piece of Trivia on him/Rush moments?
- College Drop Out: He says this had to do with liberal academia but ultimately older shows have had him saying that he dropped out because he had an awesome radio job and really didn't 'need' college at that point to pursue a career in radio. There's rumors that he failed out.
- Racist Fuck: Rush is so racist that he could not make it three weeks on the job as an NFL commentator before getting fired for saying that a black athlete was only getting praise because he happened to be black. Not on some political show discussing race relations, but in the middle of sports commentary.
-Almost never writes books: You'd think with how long he's been on air he'd write a few more books, but that would not play to his "Volume of content" strength very well and is much easier to take apart and criticize.
- Been divorced three times, on air he will hint that he's just too big of a personality for them on rare occasion.
- Often claims on air that people are amazed how normal he is irl.
- He has supported Apartheid
-Rush loves using macs but regularly points out how much he hates Apple for being supporters of gay culture and a 'San Francisco lifestyle' as well as 'socialist' vibes he gets from them. He currently has about 35k worth of Mac Pros as well as Mac laptops (The only configs I've heard on air were for the MPs).
Why do you listen if he's that horrible?
For the same reason I read anything of a political nature. He has actual influence and I love trying to dissect his language to understand just how he does what he does. There's no denying he's successful and just laughing him off and ignoring him doesn't really take any of that away. O'Reilly is mostly an act who uses conservatism as a way to bully people (He'd use liberalism if he wanted to establish himself that way). Hannity is an idiot who's always believed what he said. Beck and Savage are outright insane and both just like the attention. But Limbaugh is truly complicated on so many levels. The full assimilation of his persona and his personality into one beast has occurred recently and it is interesting as fuck. He also hates himself. Like, a lot. His entire life has been one long self loathing trip.
Why should I give a shit about Rush Limbaugh?
For the same reason you should give a shit about Michael Steele. Simply put he has an amazing amount of political power that liberals have laughed at for years. Personally I think that until recently people have not been giving this man enough credit for how much shit he's done in American politics. He helped implant the idea that Bill Clinton kills people for political power. He's convinced people that Global Warming is fake. He's one of the prime drivers behind the conservative movement and the RNC chairman has just backed down to him.
What now?
I honestly believe that in the next two years or so Rush will start coming out of his shell and going onto other shows which leaves him really really vulnerable. I think he'll start off on some random conservative talk show with lots of power as a masturbatory effort, keep going until he gets more confident, and then get called out in a corner where there's no place to run by the first competent person to come up against him.
Rush
This thread is primarily about Rush Limbaugh and the tactics he uses on air for persuasion. This is not to say he's not persuasive and has to use tricks, but rather to elaborate on the devices he tends to rely on and why they're so popular.
First off, the most important thing to establish is that Rush was at one time a bit of a troll and no matter how stupid you may have labeled him, he is truly the king of creating a message and controlling it over long periods of time. If he was not working as a pundit he would be in a decent marketing job somewhere or he would be advising a local dictator elsewhere in the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTFEe02IxyY
Really just the first minute of this should be enough to get some insight.
What is amazing about Rush is how consistent he's actually kept his world view and how amazing he is at subtly shifting it when need be over the course of several months. He makes two kinds of predictions, unspoken and spoken and is amazing with both.
Spoken Predictions: These are predictions that Rush has made on air or in public in one fashion or another. He does this constantly, at least once a show typically and they begin to add up pretty quick. This is a similar technique used by psychics and conmen alike. Make five predictions that you know your audience wants to be true. At least one of them will come true (and more of them will based on how vague the language is) and he will then harp on that correct prediction for about 1 - 4 weeks until his next prediction is true and in the meantime he'll make 4 - 15 predictions or so. It's an amazing cycle that is pulled off so well you just have to go "Shit...".
Unspoken Predictions: These are the ones that shatter my mind. Rush knows what is going to happen in terms of political climate. He can guess with relative accuracy when we'll start looking at Iraq intensely again, when people will start demanding more accountability, etc. He often pre-emptively shifts his view slowly over the course of weeks and months to ensure that it is ready for whatever political changes he thinks will occur. If you look for the inconsistencies in his show there's a good chance that if you start detecting some little by little it's because he's trying to make sure that he's ready for whatever comes his way. The first time I ever saw him make a giant prediction that fell on it's face was the 2008 presidential election, but I'll get into that later. He may not know what is going to happen specifically but he knows the trends and you can tell by his shifting stances.
So those are two of his most powerful tools. By convincing people of predictions both specific and vague on a constant enough basis, the impression that he is correct in a situation is implanted through false legitimization.
Here's his next one and arguably one of his most important and consistent techniques.
Irrational Liberals/Ultra Rational Rush: The next is an amazing divide Rush has created by picking up enraged liberals (and sometimes conservatives) and letting their call through. Sometimes he doesn't even have to filter it and he gets a freebie. The reality is that Rush is an amazing orator and if you do not control the conversation he will steamroll you in both volume and assertiveness. Any attempt to speak over him is shouting and he will proceed to demonize you as a reactionary bleeding heart liberal who can't control your emotions when in reality some are merely trying to get a word in. This verbal tactic is amazingly powerful in controlling dialogue and it then gets used later. "Liberals don't believe in an informed consumer because they can't even be rational when they're speaking about the issues, let alone when trying to spend money" is a summation of his common follow ups. Rush is amazingly arrogant on his show but it is buffered slightly by the fact that to anyone just tuning in who does not think about the screening process or how incindiary what he's saying is it does appear that he's the only sane voice. Make no mistake, he does this with raving conservatives as well and is known for letting angry conservatives on. He places himself above all with this technique and it's really something to hear. The most subtle effect of this is how it gives the impression that he is moderate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNK4byQkn7w
This is pretty much what happens but he typically looks like less of a douche on his radio show, and it also plays into his greatest weakness.
Home Team Advantage: Rush's greatest strength and weakness is his control. As long as his staff does what they're supposed to in regards to callers he's set. In an audio setting he knows how to get anyone pissed and then cut their line and claim "Well I guess they didn't want a rational discussion" and make it appear like they hung up when it's very obvious by the person's demeanor that they wanted to stay on and confront him as long as possible. He rarely ever appears outside of conservative only areas because he knows that it's much easier to get him into a corner outside of his safe zone. I've noticed that whenever he says on air that any one of his co-workers doesn't feel well there's a good chance he'll have a sub in the next day or so. My theory is that he has his team so well structured that he refuses to operate without a single critical member. Rush is also absent from his own show all the time, which is in direct contrast with Hannity's Cal Ripken like average.
Volume of content: Simply put it's almost impossible to catalog all the insane and horrible shit Rush has said because he's got 15 hours a week of it. Most people who don't listen to him regularly assume that the soundbites that Olberman and others play are the worst he's said. Far from it. The problem is that the worst shit he says is often in the form of long narrative verbal vignettes that can not be compressed into 15 seconds. Most of them take anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 to really give you an idea of what he's actually saying and the message he's trying to convey in full. When you hear these rants, you'll understand them but summarizing them just doesn't work. For example he's had a few on how democrats are terrorists. While anyone who hasn't listened to his show will shrug that off as something several have done, he's taken it to lengths that are amazingly high.
Reactionary environment: Rush has taken a stance for some time now that he's a 'real' conservative and that his listeners are the oppressed, not the oppressors. This plays well for the Angry white boy/girl crowd that feels that politicians do not connect with them. Rush is amazing at helping them feel like they're being heard and it's one of his high points. He is amazing at painting liberals as uncaring of whites in the middle class and often uses this as much to his advantage as possible. It may not be the "Turner Diaries" but the tone of an oppressed white middle class is in everything he says, despite the fact Rush knows nothing of the middle class.
One of his best diversionary tactics is probably the following.
Invoking the hatred of a Fairness doctrine: While it is mentioned on occasion, the fairness doctrine won't happen any time soon. Some democrats use it as a talking point but it's ultimately got sails without any wind. Rush constantly evokes the fairness doctrine to encourage his reactionary environment. Just like you, the hard working middle class guy, Rush has earned his spot in radio and liberals want nothing more than to take an hour and a half away from his show for themselves. Rush gets sympathy and then rage from his listeners with that little act and ultimately puts them on edge as if any show could be his last before "those fuckers take our shit".
____________________________________
Here's some FAQ's on the fucker after listening to him for several years.
What do you mean troll? Are you saying he doesn't believe what he says?
This is a hard one. He very obviously started off as a generic conservative who said shit that was much more inflammatory than what he actually believed because he could make money from it. In the 2004 cycle it was obvious that he really didn't like Kerry at all but then again who did? In 2008 though it became very apparent though that he was probably no longer trolling. His normal somewhat composed stature was fractured and crumbled and the day after Obama won he flipped the fuck out on air. I'm trying to find the full episode, but he loses his calm verbal cool and just lets every racist thing come out of his mouth. Hell, had he taken a few more Oxy that day there's a chance we could have heard the most honest and deep recesses of his hatred that his world as a white man had been shattered. Rush has always had a boner for McCain and he snapped.
What's an interesting piece of Trivia on him/Rush moments?
- College Drop Out: He says this had to do with liberal academia but ultimately older shows have had him saying that he dropped out because he had an awesome radio job and really didn't 'need' college at that point to pursue a career in radio. There's rumors that he failed out.
- Racist Fuck: Rush is so racist that he could not make it three weeks on the job as an NFL commentator before getting fired for saying that a black athlete was only getting praise because he happened to be black. Not on some political show discussing race relations, but in the middle of sports commentary.
-Almost never writes books: You'd think with how long he's been on air he'd write a few more books, but that would not play to his "Volume of content" strength very well and is much easier to take apart and criticize.
- Been divorced three times, on air he will hint that he's just too big of a personality for them on rare occasion.
- Often claims on air that people are amazed how normal he is irl.
- He has supported Apartheid
-Rush loves using macs but regularly points out how much he hates Apple for being supporters of gay culture and a 'San Francisco lifestyle' as well as 'socialist' vibes he gets from them. He currently has about 35k worth of Mac Pros as well as Mac laptops (The only configs I've heard on air were for the MPs).
Why do you listen if he's that horrible?
For the same reason I read anything of a political nature. He has actual influence and I love trying to dissect his language to understand just how he does what he does. There's no denying he's successful and just laughing him off and ignoring him doesn't really take any of that away. O'Reilly is mostly an act who uses conservatism as a way to bully people (He'd use liberalism if he wanted to establish himself that way). Hannity is an idiot who's always believed what he said. Beck and Savage are outright insane and both just like the attention. But Limbaugh is truly complicated on so many levels. The full assimilation of his persona and his personality into one beast has occurred recently and it is interesting as fuck. He also hates himself. Like, a lot. His entire life has been one long self loathing trip.
Why should I give a shit about Rush Limbaugh?
For the same reason you should give a shit about Michael Steele. Simply put he has an amazing amount of political power that liberals have laughed at for years. Personally I think that until recently people have not been giving this man enough credit for how much shit he's done in American politics. He helped implant the idea that Bill Clinton kills people for political power. He's convinced people that Global Warming is fake. He's one of the prime drivers behind the conservative movement and the RNC chairman has just backed down to him.
What now?
I honestly believe that in the next two years or so Rush will start coming out of his shell and going onto other shows which leaves him really really vulnerable. I think he'll start off on some random conservative talk show with lots of power as a masturbatory effort, keep going until he gets more confident, and then get called out in a corner where there's no place to run by the first competent person to come up against him.
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