The Economist February 20th 2021 United States 23can leader in Louisiana’s state legislature.
“I predict that his next five years will be
some of the most miserable a senator from
Louisiana has ever experienced.” Mr Cassi-
dy, a doctor and faithful Christian, has
sought to mollify his constituents by ex-
plaining that, contrary to what they may
have heard, Mr Trump was guilty as
charged. No cigar, it would seem.
Mr McConnell, though tempted to vote
against Mr Trump, appears to have con-
cluded that this would have doomed his
chances of returning as Majority Leader in- His criticism of the president looks
like he is trying to have it both ways. It also
seems to have backfired. On February 16th
Mr Trump released a statement attacking
Mr McConnell as a “dour, sullen and un-
smiling political hack” and threatening to
unseat him as Senate leader. It could have
been even worse for the veteran Kentuck-
ian. Mr Trump reportedly cut some addi-
tional insults at the urging of his aides, in-
cluding a contention that Mr McConnell
had “too many chins”.
Talk radioTower of babble
I
n 1987, america’sFederal Communica-
tions Commission, which regulates the
airwaves, repealed the Fairness Doctrine, a
policy that required broadcasters to pre-
sent balanced views of controversial sub-
jects. One year later, a former executive at
abcradio gave an opinionated but little-
known talk-radio host from Sacramento a
nationally syndicated show. This contra-
vened accepted practice; most nationally
known radio hosts were bland and inoffen-
sive interviewers, the better not to alienate
a range of listeners.
Rush Limbaugh was the opposite. His
shows rarely had guests or more than a few
brief pre-screened callers—the better to let
him expound, for hours on end, on the ills
of modern American society, most of
which were the fault of liberals and the left.
His political view was Manichean: easy to
understand and engagingly delivered. He
made no effort to credit opposing views;
he—and by extension his listeners—were
defenders of all that was good about Amer-
ica, while the liberalism of Democrats, as
he put it, “is a scourge. It destroys the hu-
man spirit. It destroys prosperity.” He built
this simple format into one of the most
popular radio programmes in America, at-
tracting millions of listeners and inspiring
scores of imitators. Like Donald Trump, whose presidency
he championed, he styled himself a tri-
bune of the common man, willing to say
things that no one dared but everyone
thought. Indeed, much as William F. Buck-
ley’s libertarian-inflected traditionalism
prefigured the conservatism of Barry Gold-
water and Ronald Reagan, Mr Limbaugh’s
cocksure derisiveness, and the glee he took
in angering the left, provided the stylistic
underpinnings of the contemporary,
Trumpist Republican party.
And like Mr Trump, he inspired a quasi-
cultic following, with fans who called
themselves “Dittoheads,” for the propensi-
ty to agree with everything he said, even
though—or, perhaps, especially because—
the things he said could be repellent.
“Feminism,” he maintained, “was estab-
lished so that unattractive women could
have easier access to the mainstream of so-
ciety.” He called gay men “perverts”,
mocked people dying of aidsand treated
the rare phone-in guest who disagreed
with him to a “caller abortion”—hanging
up after playing the sound of a vacuum
motor. He told an African-American caller
to “take that bone out of your nose and call
me back,” remarked that “all composite
pictures of wanted criminals resemble
Jesse Jackson,” and said that the National
Basketball Association should be renamed
“the Thug Basketball Association”.
His first book, released in 1992, cham-
pioned standard conservative views: small
government, anti-environmentalism and
a belief that “racial relations will not be en-
hanced or prejudice eliminated by govern-
mental edict.” But few tuned in to hear
what he was for. People wanted to hear him
hate who they hated. He had particular
scorn for Hillary Clinton, who he said kept
her trophies in a “testicle lockbox,” and Ba-
rack Obama, whom he mused may not
have been an American citizen (he played a
song on his programme called “Barack the
Magic Negro”). He survived some embar-
rassing scrapes with the law, including get-ting stopped with Viagra prescribed for
someone else in his luggage, and an oxyco-
done addiction. Being married four times
did not seem to dent his traditionalist bona
fides any more than did Mr Trump’s being
thrice married.
Mr Limbaugh continued broadcasting
until February 2nd, though by then he was
something of an elder statesman. The day
after he announced that he had advanced
lung cancer, Mr Trump awarded him the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s
highest civilian honour, previously award-
ed to, among others, Jonas Salk, Felix
Frankfurter and Martin Luther King junior.
Yet that just testifies to how deeply Lim-
baughism had been absorbed into the con-
servative mainstream—its influences dis-
cernible in Trumpist Republicans’ demand
for complete fealty, and their casting of po-
litical opponents, not as fellow Americans
with whom they disagree but as evil. Those
attributes make for entertaining radio. But
they make governing impossible. NEW YORK
Rush Limbaugh galvanised and
embodied the modern American rightPoisoning the airwavesAndrew Cuomo and the pandemicUnder pressure
A
t the height of the pandemic last
spring Andrew Cuomo’s daily briefings
were “must-see-tv”. Millions sought com-
fort from New York’s governor dishing out
science-based facts. He talked about his
88-year-old mother to stress the need to
protect the elderly. He joked about having
to endure his daughter’s boyfriend during
the lockdown. He begged the federal gov-
ernment for ventilators. When it sent him
400, he said in one briefing: “What am I go-
ing to do with 400 ventilators when I need
30,000? You pick the 26,000 people who
are going die because you only sent 400
ventilators.” The maths was dodgy, but his
point was sharp. Mr Cuomo also shared
stark PowerPoint presentations with sta-
tistics on how many were sick, how many
were in hospital, how many were on venti-
lators and how many were dead.
But New Yorkers learned last month
that some of the data were not accurate.
Letitia James, the state’s attorney-general
and a close ally of Mr Cuomo, released a
damning 76-page report saying his admin-
istration had understated the number of
covid-19-related deaths in state nursing
homes by as much as 50%. Nearly 15,000
people died in nursing homes and long-
term care facilities, over 5,000 more than
originally disclosed. It also revealed that aNEW YORK
Andrew Cuomo faces a reckoning for
his handling of New York’s pandemic