How a secretive network convinced Americans they cannot trust East Coast “elites.” An interview with investigative journalist Anne Nelson.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/48329761

Nelson: I wrote Shadow Network out of a sense of civic duty. I observed some trends in our national life that were anti-democratic and detrimental to our public welfare. I’m deeply concerned by the epidemic of gun violence in our schools, the growing disdain for science and fact-based reporting, and, gravest of all, the campaigns against climate science and environmental protections.

Interviewer: Third, the Southern Baptist Convention was founded to defend slaveowners before the Civil War. I don’t see the issue of race playing out in the same way, but I do perceive many echoes of Civil War-era resentment of federal authority in its culture.

Nelson: Same here. Not least in the ways this movement has focused on “state’s rights.” Paul Weyrich, the key organizer of the Council for National Policy (CNP) in its beginnings, saw the importance of state governments to his goal of subverting representational democracy. What has this movement done in statehouses to ensure its agenda can move forward without popular support?

Older article from 2020, but definitely worth a read to understand the network that started to take shape with the Heritage Foundation in the 70’s, Movement Conservatives, the Moral Majority and eventually grew into Project 2025 and the current Christian Nationalist movement.

More info about the Heritage Foundation and the racial strategy used by both modern conservatives and oligarchs of the Civil War

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    8·
    4 months ago

    Same people who bought up and poisioned social media right?

    The faces might be different but the pattern just repeats.

    • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOPMEnglish
      4·
      4 months ago

      I don’t think the faces are different. They just expanded their network to include social media.

      CNP is a conservative umbrella organization that was started by the creator of the Heritage Foundation. They are very secretive about who their members are, but leaked documents have shown that it includes a mixture of fringe right extremists, Republican elected officials, prominent business owners, and even the wife of a SCOTUS judge.

  • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.todayEnglish
    6·
    4 months ago

    This is a silly question considering that talk radio has always been used to poison America.

    The first major political figure in American history to utilize radio to radicalize Americans against socialism did it in the 30s.

    "Charles Edward Coughlin (/ˈkɒɡlɪn/ KOG-lin; October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979), commonly known as Father Coughlin, was a Canadian-American Catholic priest based near Detroit. He was the founding priest of the National Shrine of the Little Flower. Dubbed "The Radio Priest " and considered a leading demagogue,[1] he was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience. During the 1930s, when the U.S. population was about 120 million, an estimated 30 million listeners tuned in to his weekly broadcasts.[2] "

    "After making attacks on Jewish bankers, Coughlin began to use his radio program Golden Hour to broadcast antisemitic commentary. In the late 1930s, he supported some of the policies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The broadcasts have been described as “a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture”.[5] His chief topics were political and economic rather than religious, using the slogan “Social Justice”.

    "Both Coughlin and renowned aviator Charles Lindbergh would serve as the lead spokesmen for the isolationist America First Committee.[64]

    Nothing is new, fascist lack imagination and so we are constantly being fed the regurgitations of father Coughlin and his contemporary William Dudley Pelley.

    • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOPMEnglish
      2·
      4 months ago

      You can thank Heritage Foundation creator, Paul Weyrich for him too

      https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/gops-strike-force-49909/

      More significant than the weekly TV shows, which are, after all, nakedly partisan, is the independent network of print reports and radio, television and computer news and programming that purports to be independent but, in fact, pummels voters with an unceasing drumbeat of Republican propaganda. At the center of this network is the right-wing entrepreneur Paul Weyrich, the head of the Free Congress Foundation and the founder of National Empowerment Television, now called the NET Political NewsTalk Network.

      Weyrich was even Newt Gingrich’s mentor. He took him under his wing after Gingrich decided he wanted to somehow become involved in politics and paid to attend one of his workshops.

    • Gerudo@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      My grandad listened to him while I was growing up, and even as a child, I was grossed out by the shit Limbaugh spewed.

  • Hikermick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    4 months ago

    I first started listening to AM radio in the late 80’ s when I got a delivery job in a large urban city. At that time it was all local programing and they talked about local issues. That changed within a couple years when Rush Limbaugh went national. At first his show was very musical, nobody would confuse him with actual news. That changed when Bill Clinton was elected. Eventually almost all of the local guys were gone. It was cheaper than having to hire talent, an engineer, producer. They followed a business model started by Howard Stern. Instead of paying for programing these shows were given advertising time. Thats why you can find the conservative shows on multiple radio stations even in remote rural areas. It’s cheap. Sports stations could use these programs for filler in-between games.

  • DaMonsterKnees@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    4 months ago

    “Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist, Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit…”