How Right-Wing Media Ate the Republican Party

In recent weeks, America got a preview of how the new Republican House majority would wield its power. In attempting to perform a basic function of government - electing a speaker - a coalition of 20 House members caused Kevin McCarthy to lose 14 rounds of votes, decreasing his power with each compromise and successive vote.
This is not normal. Party unity ebbs and flows, but the G.O.P. in recent decades has come apart at the seams. Nicole Hemmer is the director of the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Center for the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University, an associate professor of history and the author of two books about the conservative movement and media ecosystem, “Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics (www.pennpress.org/97808122243...) ” and “Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s (www.basicbooks.com/titles/nic...) .” And she says we can’t understand the current G.O.P. without understanding when, where and how these dynamics began.
We discuss why the Cold War bonded Republicans as a party, how the 1994 Republican congressional victory inaugurated a new era of intraparty fighting, how Rush Limbaugh’s rise created a new market for far-out ideas and new pressures on conservative politicians, why conservative media has had so much more sway than liberal media over grass-roots voters, how the business model of Fox News differs from that of MSNBC and what kinds of political ideas those businesses produce, how the G.O.P. is now caught between the pincers of the donor class and the grass roots, when the chief Republican enemy became the Democratic Party, why more moderate conservatives have become so weak and more.
Mentioned:
The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (global.oup.com/academic/produ...) by Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson
The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order (global.oup.com/academic/produ...) by Gary Gerstle
Asymmetric Politics (global.oup.com/academic/produ...) by Matt Grossman and David A. Hopkins
Realigners (us.macmillan.com/books/978037...) by Timothy Shenk
Book Recommendations:
Fit Nation (press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/...) by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela
Dreamland (uncpress.org/book/97814696730...) by Carly Goodman
Freedom’s Dominion (www.basicbooks.com/titles/jef...) by Jefferson Cowie
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [e-mail].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast (www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-k...) , and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-... (www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-...) .
“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Rogé Karma and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair. Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Pat McCusker and Kristina Samulewski.

[@fortynine3225]

How right-wing media ate the republican party and how liberals to the right..democratic party..ate mainstream media, critical media and the entertainment, sport and school industry. If you want to be someone in america you need to be affiliated with GOP or democrats and that is a problem for all of us, being affiliated free speech is stifled.

[@mossydog2385]

I think you guys have missed the point. Right wing media itself is inherently political because, in it's essence, it's propaganda and is unconstrained by the truth, but that's not why the audience shows up, the audience shows up for different reasons, chief among them is identity and community. Right wing media just chose ultra inflammatory rhetoric to excite their audience through wielding powerful emotional forces and connecting on that emotional level. Remember, Limbaugh was a failed evangelical multimedia preacher and I believe he failed because he had to stick with the story religion tells, not so in politics. In politics, one is unconstrained by ideology or a coherent story laid down centuries ago, in politics the goal is power - and fear, loathing, bigotry and hatred are powerful stimulants to which one becomes addicted. I _think_ that it's gotten a little out of control in that the narrative and addiction itself is leading now, because as in any addiction, eventually you need higher and higher doses to get your fix. I don't think they consciously chose fascism, an ideology not traditionally favored by a country whose fathers fought and died to defeat. No, their need to constantly raise the dose to get their fix led them into this form of very dangerous extremism.

[@andywinger4197]

I was about to copy this link to my FB and make some comment, but I think I'll just copy your comment as well. Very well put.

[@t.l.1610]

VERY well put.

[@joshntn37111]

Did you just make this up? Or are you just repeating something you heard somewhere? You have no idea how ridiculous you sound in this comment. It's obviously you have never spent time outside a city. You are way off.

[@billcoleman4258]

As a consumer of conservative media, I read and watch it simply in order to obtain access to news that the liberal media refuse to report.

[@kevinwoolley7960]

Right wing media also pays attention to issues that the mainstream media typically pretend don't exist, such as the crisis at the border and the obvious deteriorating mental status of Pres. Biden. Mainstream media are finally pivoting to these issues only because they have become outrageously obvious and can't be ignored in favor of stuff like climate change, gender identity politics, and Trump's outrageousness , which is their preferred milieu.

[@MartynCollins]

Rush is dead.

[@jimmiller1686]

The GOP might look like it's a mess, but it's a very small minority that wields the balance of power. If the GOP had a 60 vote majority in the House, the maga crowd would just be noise. But with a very small GOP majority, the maga people can decide which way the entire GOP goes. It's a little like the Irish Nationalists in the UK Parliament before Irish independence.

[@t.l.1610]

True. Looking at the popular vote VS. electoral college really makes that stark. (Edit: the last Republican POTUS to win both popular vote and electoral college was Bush in 2004. That’s absurd).

[@geofromnj7377]

The problem with the Left and media is easily explained. Wealthy liberals refuse to fund popular media directed at retail voters. Wealthy conservatives fund popular media because the messages conveyed convince listeners to vote Republican politicians who have been bought to support the financial interests of these wealthy conservatives.

[@kevinwoolley7960]

Bezos and WaPo anyone? This is pretty inaccurate.

[@kenmartin5299]

Msnbc has now followed Fox nov 2023

[@gazziejeff]

If the NY Times says it. It must be facts. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@johnstallings4049]

Why r u here? 😅

[@whazzat8015]

@@johnstallings4049 RU says it all

[@johnstallings4049]

@@whazzat8015 😶👌

[@Caspersconcretecontractors]

The GOP might look like it's a mess, but it's a very small minority that wields the balance of power. If the GOP had a 60 vote majority in the House, the maga crowd would just be noise. But with a very small GOP majority, the maga people can decide which way the entire GOP goes. It's a little like the Irish Nationalists in the UK Parliament before Irish independence.