Tag: misogyny
The Right-Wing Theatre Of Cruelty: Rush Limbaugh, 1951-2021

The Right-Wing Theatre Of Cruelty: Rush Limbaugh, 1951-2021

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Before Fox News and Donald Trump, there was Rush Limbaugh. A talk radio trailblazer who chased ratings by stoking bigotry and shielding his listeners from uncomfortable truths, Limbaugh reshaped right-wing media and eventually the Republican Party itself.

On February 17, Limbaugh's wife announced on air that he died after a battle with lung cancer.

The Rush Limbaugh Show began broadcasting nationwide in 1988 and the host soon amassed an army of "dittoheads," a term which came to signal fans with unquestioning support for Limbaugh's views. According to Talkers Magazine, more than 15 million unique weekly listeners tuned into his show in December 2020.

Not only was Limbaugh syndicated on hundreds of stations across the country, but most other conservative talk radio hosts who came after him were — with few exceptions — Limbaugh wannabes. His disciples included future Vice President Mike Pence, who once described his own 1990s talk radio personality as "Rush Limbaugh on decaf." The cumulative effect was a never-ending stream of Limbaugh or Limbaugh-like rhetoric available day or night to anyone with access to a radio.

GOP leaders recognized the hold that Limbaugh, the self-described "titular head of the Republican Party," had on their voters. They responded by heaping praise on the host and fashioning their politics to fit his monologues. After the 2012 election, when some Republicans pushed to expand outreach to minority voters, the party instead chose to double down on Limbaugh's exclusionary politics.

As my colleague Matt Gertz observed, Republican leaders' constant appeasement of Limbaugh foreshadowed their approach to candidate and then President Donald Trump. Trump and Limbaugh understood the value they offered one another; Trump as the fighter Limbaugh's audience always wanted, and Limbaugh, who was awarded the Medal of Freedom by Trump last year, as the sycophant who could be counted on to spin or ignore Trump's failures.

Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Trump turned to Limbaugh once again, participating in a two-hour interview in which he knew his lies would never be questioned. And throughout the final days of his program, Limbaugh continued to falsely insist that President Joe Biden had not legitimately won the election.

Media historian Brian Rosenwald notes that talk radio is an intimate medium, one in which hosts develop a deep and lasting bond with longtime listeners. Limbaugh manipulated that bond to convince his audience of things that were not true and to turn them against Democrats, the news media, and anyone else who failed to share his hardline views.

Bigotry And Lies Were Essential To His Appeal

Limbaugh entertained an audience that was primarily composed of older, white conservative men by mocking women, minorities, and anyone else who did not embody his default listener — setting the tone for the toxic, cruel politics of the modern-day conservative movement.

Sexism was one of the most reliable features of Limbaugh's program, and women were regularly referred to on the show as "babes" or even "feminazis" — a term which Limbaugh boasted about coining. Feminism, according to Limbaugh, was created to enable "unattractive women" to have "easier access to the mainstream."

In 2012, the host faced widespread backlash and advertiser boycotts after he referred to a law student who testified in favor of health care coverage for contraceptives as a "slut." During the #MeToo era, Limbaugh mocked and attacked women who reported sexual assault. The host was also virulently opposed to reproductive health care, once comparing abortion clinics to "death camps" and attacking groups like Planned Parenthood as "death squads."

People of color and members of the LGBTQ community were also frequent punching bags on Limbaugh's show.

Limbaugh once remarked that "all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson" and that "the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons." During Barack Obama's presidency, the host fed into birtherism and the conspiracy theory that Obama was secretly a Muslim.

Limbaugh repeatedly downplayed racial discrimination and espoused white nationalist talking points, arguing that immigrants are trying to "invade" the United States. Once, when discussing genocide against Native Americans, Limbaugh asked, "They all have casinos -- what's to complain about?"

After the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, Limbaugh described the decision as an "assault" on American culture that would lead to incest and polygamy. Limbaugh referred to transgender people as mentally ill and blamed the Roman Catholic Church's sex abuse scandals on "the gay infiltration of the Catholic Church."

When confronted with facts that contradicted his conservative worldview, Limbaugh promoted conspiracy theories and obvious lies.

A staunch climate denier throughout his entire career, Limbaugh once bragged about his role in undermining the American public's belief in climate science.

After a Trump supporter mailed pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and media organizations in 2018, Limbaugh suggested that the attack was a false flag designed to damage conservatives. The host made similar remarks in 2019 after the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand.

And when the coronavirus first began to spread through the United States, Limbaugh assured his audience — one of the oldest in conservative media — that it was merely "the common cold." As the death toll continued to mount, the host claimed that the virus had been weaponized by Trump opponents, mocked mask wearers, and accused journalists and hospitals of inflating COVID-19 case counts.

Limbaugh's Toxic Legacy Is Secure

For more than 30 years, Limbaugh's show helped to set the agenda for hosts across the country, and it's not clear who is likely to succeed him as talk radio's unifying voice.

One possible replacement may ironically be the only Fox News prime-time host without radio experience. Tucker Carlson's monologues are already frequently cited by right-wing radio hosts, and his emphasis on culture war topics — particularly his xenophobic, anti-trans, and misogynistic content — aligns well with standard talk radio fare.

But even Carlson is unlikely to match the hold Limbaugh had on a now-declining industry. Today, conservative talk radio is just one facet of a much larger right-wing media ecosystem, where television hosts and conservative writers all sound somewhat like Limbaugh. This ecosystem controls a political party whose latest president regularly sought the counsel of Fox News hosts.

Even without one of its central architects, a right-wing media machine built on outrage and cruelty will continue to deceive its audience long into the future.

The Very Strange Case Of Stephen Moore

The Very Strange Case Of Stephen Moore

What can you say about Stephen Moore? That his economic views tend toward the nutty, and his research is a slop job? That his juvenile fear of females borders on the pathetic — and that he didn’t find them too embarrassing to air? That he’s Donald Trump’s pick to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors? Yes, but we repeat ourselves.

Fed board members have been liberal, and they have been conservative. Many no doubt harbored sexist views. But there was never a nominee who wrote things like, “No one seems to care much that coed sports is doing irreparable harm to the psyche of America’s little boys.”

He doesn’t like grown-up coed play, either. He called letting women join men in pickup games a “travesty.” (Just wondering what business it is of his whether men choose to play sports with women.)

Something must have happened to the poor lad. Did some girl beat him at pingpong in the third grade?

Were he a star economist, we might avert our eyes from the strangeness of his social scribbles. But Moore’s economic musings are off the wall as well. He’s supported a return to the gold standard. He predicted that George W. Bush’s policies would lead to an economic golden age and that inflation would soar under Barack Obama. Wrong and wrong.

Then there’s his “scholarship.” I used to cite studies from The Heritage Foundation when the conservative think tank was producing solid research. Then Heritage sold its soul to the partisan swamp, out of which Moore rose as Heritage’s chief economist.

Under that title, he submitted a column in 2014 so shot through with error that The Kansas City Star vowed to never publish him again.

His thesis was that low taxes produce explosive job growth. As evidence, Moore wrote that “over the last five years,” no-income-tax Texas gained 1 million jobs while high-tax California lost jobs. For the same reasons, Florida added hundreds of thousands of jobs while New York lost jobs.

Whoops. He wasn’t using numbers from the previous five years but from December 2007 to 2012. But even those numbers were wrong. In fact, Texas gained not a million but 497,400 jobs. Florida actually lost 461,500 jobs during that period — while New York gained 75,900 jobs.

“He seemed OK with a correction,” Miriam Pepper, then the Star’s editorial page editor, told me. “But as we dug deeper he got more difficult, then hostile.” She added: “I’m surprised Heritage isn’t embarrassed.”

There are smart fabricators and dumb ones. Only the dimwitted would try to pass off stats that any boy — or girl — with basic computer skills could have countered with a visit to the Bureau of Labor Statistics site.

In his personal finances, Moore is a double deadbeat. He owes more than $75,000 in unpaid taxes. And a court held him in contempt for not paying his ex-wife $300,000 as part of a divorce agreement.

This is the man who brooded: “What are the implications of a society in which women earn more than men? We don’t really know, but it could be disruptive to family stability. If men aren’t the breadwinners, will women regard them as economically expendable?”

Moore the breadwinner is also Moore the stud. Allison Moore’s 2010 divorce complaint noted that he had created a Match.com account and had an affair. She says he told her and their children, “I have two women, and what’s really bad is when they fight over you.”

Add Moore’s economic ignorance to his arrested development and you have a highly flawed character. May the Federal Reserve Board — and the public it serves — be spared his presence.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

IMAGE: Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation, Trump nominee to the Federal Reserve Board.

Trump’s Misogyny Takes Its Toll On Women

Trump’s Misogyny Takes Its Toll On Women

Reprinted with permission fromThe Washington Spectator.

Patricia Bosworth met her future husband in a bar when he punched out a drunk who pinched her bottom. She was only 19, but they married with dizzying speed.

He began to abuse her almost as quickly. One night they argued about money, in the back seat of a taxi, and he started hitting her. Screaming and sobbing, she begged the cab driver for help, only to have him shrug off her pleas.

“He’s the boss, lady,” the driver said.

Bosworth finally left her husband when he tried to choke her to death because he was angry that his pet bird escaped. Now 83, she has since had a long career as an actress and author. Her latest book—The Men in My Life: A Memoir of Love and Art in 1950s Manhattan—describes the harrowing story of her first marriage in an era when the prevailing culture simply assumed that men were entitled to beat their wives.

“I was brought up to believe the husband was always right,” Bosworth recalls.  “That’s the way things were in those days.”

As the women’s movement gained strength, feminists raised public awareness about the prevalence of domestic abuse, and laws were passed to protect women from violence by intimate partners. But Donald Trump’s candidacy alarmed a wide range of women’s advocates—and things quickly got worse.

Although many activists had assumed voters would reject a nominee caught boasting on tape about grabbing female genitalia, Trump’s victory signaled a disturbing public acceptance of such retrograde behavior. His actions since then have generated growing fear that the Trump administration heralds a return to the policies—and the predations—of the past.

Women’s advocates were particularly dismayed by the news that Trump is planning  “dramatic” federal budget cuts that include all 25 of the grant programs managed by the Office on Violence Against Women, which is housed in the Department of Justice.

“We’re deeply concerned about cuts in the funding that enables us to provide legal and social services to victims,” says Jennifer Friedman, managing director of the Center for Legal Services at My Sisters’ Place, a nonprofit organization in New York’s Westchester County that provides shelter and counsel to survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking.

Such cutbacks would be dangerously counterproductive, according to activists in a broad range of women’s rights, civil rights, faith-based, labor, and law enforcement groups. “I don’t think it is extreme if I say to you that women will die,” Lynn Hecht Schafran, senior vice-president of Legal Momentum, warned in a call for action sent to the organization’s supporters.

The proposed budget cuts don’t even make economic sense, according to experts.  “VAWA (the Violence Against Women Act) has saved taxpayers billions of dollars in costs for medical and mental health services, as well as costs for law enforcement and justice system expenditures,” Schafran wrote. “VAWA’s 25 grant programs are not wasteful, and they represent just over one hundredth of one percent of the federal budget.”

Despite considerable progress, the need for such assistance remains acute. “Domestic violence is still happening in huge numbers,” Friedman says.

The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 40 percent of female murder victims are killed by their intimate partners. Two-thirds of all women who report being raped, assaulted, or stalked are victimized by current or former husbands or boyfriends, and more than a million American women are physically assaulted by their intimate partners every year, according to the Department of Justice.

And yet male office-holders have long neglected the problem, preferring to focus on other priorities. President Trump emphasizes the potential threat from foreign-born terrorists, but far more Americans die from domestic violence, as was made painfully clear by a recent headline on a New York Times op-ed column: “Husbands are deadlier than terrorists.” In the United States, the death toll is exacerbated by ready access to firearms, as Nicholas Kristof pointed out: “In other countries, brutish husbands put wives in hospitals; in America, they put them in graves.”

Equally curious is the ongoing failure of male-dominated legislatures to address the economic consequences of such abuse, which are enormous. “One in three women is the victim of domestic violence in her lifetime, and it costs the U.S. billions of dollars a year in loss of productivity, health care, and other costs,” says Alyse Nelson, president and CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership, a non-profit organization that works with women leaders on economic empowerment and human rights issues.

Popular stereotypes often assume most victims are women of color and those in poverty, but domestic violence occurs in all socio-economic, religious, racial, and cultural groups. Steph Wagner, a San Diego-based financial consultant who specializes in divorce, sees women in every income bracket. “I had a prospective client whose estate was 15 to 20 million dollars, and we had to create an underground-railroad safety plan before we could even talk,” says Wagner, who grew up in Texas with an abusive father. “People think that if women have money, they can get out, but my mom was making well over six figures when my dad held her underwater in a hot tub.”

The stubborn persistence of such assaults only highlights the fact that most men have not joined the battle. “The majority of men are non-violent, but unfortunately the majority, for the most part, stay silent,” Nelson said at Vital Voices’ annual gala last December.

Seeking new ways to address the problem, some organizations are now enlisting men. “Violence against women is one of the greatest challenges facing the human race, but it’s always been thought of as a women’s issue, and it’s only going to get better through engaging men,” Nelson says. “We can’t expect to eliminate violence against women without men as active partners and allies. We have to show them that this is where they need to lead.”

The Vital Voices event, Voices of Solidarity, honored male leaders who are helping to fight violence against women in countries around the world. The honorees included a Heineken executive in Mexico, the mayor of Dallas, and the actor Patrick Stewart, whose abusive father served in the British Army. All spoke eloquently about their efforts, and the mood that night was hopeful.

But Trump’s rise to power has ratcheted up fears of a return to the bad old days. During the presidential debates, many viewers perceived his behavior toward Hillary Clinton as threatening, and therapists and service providers saw a surge in abuse survivors who reported that the public conduct of the GOP nominee had triggered a flare-up of their post-traumatic stress symptoms.

“Women felt Trump’s presentation was that of a batterer, and all of us saw an increase in women coming out of the woodwork to tell their stories,” says Friedman. “People you never knew had a story came out and said, ‘This is what happened to me.’”

Many survivors felt traumatized by Trump’s bullying tactics, which included verbal abuse and the denial of objective reality, known as gaslighting, a tactic abusers often use  to assert their dominance by creating confusion and anxiety. “The fear is so great it’s like living under Saddam Hussein,” says Wagner. “It’s about mental control. The humiliation and control are just as painful as being punched in the eye.”

That perspective reflects an evolving understanding of domestic violence, whose treatment increasingly incorporates a recognition of its psychological and economic dimensions. “The word ‘violence’ implies injury, but domestic violence is defined by advocates as a whole range of behaviors, including emotionally abusive power, and control issues that may not be physical,” Friedman explains.

Trump’s history includes an accusation of rape by his first wife, Ivana, the mother of his three oldest children. But despite such charges, 53 percent of white women still voted for him. “No matter how far we’ve come, I still think the majority of women are traditionalists,” Bosworth says. “They think it’s a man’s world, and men should have control.”

When Trump assumed office, he chose other alleged abusers as close advisors — including Steve Bannon, the far-right media executive who became his senior strategist and White House counselor. During their divorce, Bannon’s second wife accused him of abuse, and he was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery, and dissuading a witness. The charges were dropped after his ex-wife failed to appear in court, although she said her absence was due to threats made by Bannon and his lawyer.

Bannon’s divorce and custody files also included charges that he was abusive toward his children; didn’t see them for a full two years, during which time they had no idea where he lived; threatened school administrators; and failed to pay child and spousal support.

A former Trump cabinet nominee raised similar concerns. Trump named Andrew Puzder, chief executive of the parent company of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., as his secretary of labor. Puzder’s first wife Lisa Fierstein had appeared in disguise on an episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” titled “High Class Battered Women” to accuse Puzder of domestic abuse. Fierstein, who had called the police during one incident, said Puzder told her, “I will see you in the gutter. This will never be over. You will pay for this.” Fierstein later retracted her charge of spousal abuse as part of a child custody agreement; the couple divorced in 1987. Despite Puzder’s history, Trump was apparently unperturbed, and it was only when the Oprah tape became public—and senators from both parties reportedly saw it at private screenings—that Puzder finally withdrew his nomination.

Yet President Trump’s apparent tolerance for assault has raised fears of a growing male backlash against women’s empowerment. “Violence against women is an age-old problem, but it isn’t getting better—it’s getting worse,” says Nelson. “We have seen great progress in the U.S., but men are threatened by women’s rise in power.” Their reactions will soon be measured in dollars and cents, with decisions made by the aging white men who dominate both Congress and the new administration.

“If Congress cuts funding, it would be turning back the clock,” says Friedman. “People don’t give up privilege that easily, because privilege is power. The notion that women and men are equal only became embedded in our law a few decades ago. You’re challenging all of human history in a generation or two. We’re waiting to see what’s going to happen, but there’s an atmosphere of trepidation now.”

Leslie Bennetts is a longtime journalist who has covered presidential politics since the 1970s and a best-selling author whose latest book is Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Loves, Losses and Liberation of Joan Rivers.

IMAGE: People gather for the Women’s March in Washington U.S., January 21, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Dear Time Travelers: Welcome To 2017

Dear Time Travelers: Welcome To 2017

My Lord, these time travelers.

They’re everywhere.

I first noticed this influx of visitors from the past — men, mostly — shortly after the election. Filling my email inbox. Trolling my Twitter and Facebook feeds. Offering one unsolicited directive after another about how women should be conducting themselves.

We should leave the country if we don’t like President Donald Trump — and keep our opinions to ourselves. Good luck with that one, boys.

They mock our femininity and attractiveness and openly speculate on our sex lives. And oh, how they pity the men stupid enough to marry us. Over and over, we’re back to this: “If you love your husband so much, how come you didn’t change your name?”

It’s not so surprising, really, to see why these time travelers are showing up now. They feel emboldened. The man who bragged about grabbing women by their genitals got elected anyway. If you are the kind of guy who admires that, how could you not find hope in his being elected?

So here they are, ramping up the hate mail and acting as if we’re still taking orders from them. I was raised to be polite, so I tend to welcome them to the year 2017 and explain that women can think for themselves now and speak their minds, too. As most women know, this has been true of our gender for all of time, but I keep that bit of history to myself. I figure these time travelers will eventually return to women who wish they hadn’t, and those sisters are entitled to their secrets.

Lately, I’m wondering whether time travel isn’t contagious. Spreads like a syndrome maybe.

Take North Dakota, the largest producer of spring wheat and home of “Geese in Flight,” a piece of art made from used oil-well pipes and tanks that, according to Guinness World Records, is the largest metal sculpture in the world. I mention these things because I don’t want you to think the story of North Dakota begins and ends with the conduct of two state representatives who took on the womenfolk to defend so-called blue laws requiring some businesses to open late on Sundays and others to stay shut all day long.

State Rep. Vernon Laning seconded that emotion and added, “I don’t know about you, but my wife has no problem spending everything I earn in 6 1/2 days. And I don’t think it hurts at all to have a half a day off.”

Laning later told the NBC affiliate that people who are offended by their comments need to get a sense of humor.

How many times do we have to go over this? Nothing kills a joke like having to explain it. If we aren’t laughing, you aren’t funny.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. Senate, the Republicans voted Tuesday to formally silence Democratic colleague Elizabeth Warren. She dared to impugn the character of Sen. Jeff Sessions by reading a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King urging the Senate to reject Sessions’ nomination as a federal judge.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell explained that Warren knew darn well she was violating an arcane rule of the Senate. “She was warned,” he said. “She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

Nevertheless, She Persisted.

There’s a line for your bumper sticker and favorite T-shirt right there.

Look for that best-selling title, too, coming to a bookstore near you.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and professional in residence at Kent State University’s school of journalism. To find out more about Connie Schultz (con.schultz@yahoo.com)

IMAGE: Protesters gather for the Women’s March in Oslo, Norway, January 21, 2017. The march is being held in solidarity with similar events taking place internationaly. NTB Scanpix/Stian Lysberg Solum via REUTERS