Running water on Mars?

[Ovinomancer]

Goodness, it's like you're all talking about the Boogeyman.

Umbran gives a list of accolades -- a nod from the President early in Rush's career, when he was far less bombastic; a honorary membership in the Republican freshman caucus one Congress; an award from a media group for being excellent in media, a conservative magazine of uncertain value (I've never heard of it and I've been reading politics heavily for decades) gave him an honor, and a CPAC award (btw, the bit about 'signed by B Franklin is intentionally misleading in that quote, it makes it seem as if B Franklin has something to do with the award when it's really just saying Ben signed the Constitution... weird) -- all over three decades? Youch, that guy's setting the world on fire! Then the list of times he's predicted or had an effect on an election are all confirmation bias because Rush says things every election and things rarely come of it, so pointing out the few times (twice?) where it did isn't actual proof of his power any more than finding a nut is proof a blind squirrel can see.

Homocidal_Squirrel's (heh, previous analogous pun was unintended) link just claims the same thing he claimed -- that Rush's listeners all believe him -- without any more support. Heck, the very next page from the one you linked says that a sport reporter that knew Rush distantly happened to be in a place where he overheard Rush say that his politics are all for the money and he'd switch for a bigger paycheck (that sourcing cracks me up, btw) but that he can't be just for sale because he has lots of money now and an ironclad 8 year contract and why would he keep doing it if he's already rich?! Thanks for that, it was a great laugh.

Limbaugh has a big audience, he says things people on the left are going to hate, and he says things people on the right are going to hate (much more of the former than the latter) but, at the end of the day, he has little power. If he really commanded an army of 20 million (or half that) of dedicated true believers, you'd see far more effect from his rhetoric than you do. But Rush is largely irrelevant except as a lightening rod. As that, he's one of the best assets of the Republican party, but he doesn't have much pull on anything else. Most of his rants never actually result in anything at all.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

For a guy who has so little power, there sure are a lot of republicans who are terrified of angering him.

http://www.politico.com/story/2009/03/steele-to-rush-im-sorry-019517

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2010/10/19/darrell-issa-is-the-latest-republican-to-apolog/172168

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politic...publican-leaders-are-afraid-of-rush-limbaugh/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...tes-to-cross/2012/03/05/gIQAb5JZtR_story.html

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/04/20/37693/tiahrt-limbaugh-apology/

By the way, since you've referred to him as being an entertainer rather than your superior, it's time you apologize to Limbaugh.

 

[Jhaelen]

I suppose it's a good thing I never heard of this Rush dude before. It would be sad if he had any actual influence in the US, though (not that it would surprise me...).

 

[Umbran]

Goodness, it's like you're all talking about the Boogeyman.

No. We are talking about a man who had significant influence, in his time. Thankfully, his time now seems to have passed. But, he's done a fair amount of damage that it is taking significant time to repair.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No. We are talking about a man who had significant influence, in his time. Thankfully, his time now seems to have passed. But, he's done a fair amount of damage that it is taking significant time to repair.

I'm confused. You say be has significant influence because of a few isolated incidents, but then say his time is passed because...? He's not losing venues it listeners, so I don't understand the metric here.

 

[Janx]

I suppose it's a good thing I never heard of this Rush dude before. It would be sad if he had any actual influence in the US, though (not that it would surprise me...).

ditto.


Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck feed a demographic of conservative extremists who don't trust mainstream media. All the folks people like me think are nutjobs or right-wing extremists, probably spend a chunk of their day listening to those two.

 

[Umbran]

I'm confused. You say be has significant influence because of a few isolated incidents

I say he *had* influence, and that it is waning.

What you call, "isolated incidents," I call, "events indicative of a pattern."

but then say his time is passed because...? He's not losing venues it listeners, so I don't understand the metric here.

He is losing venues and listeners, and more importantly, advertisers. His attacks on Sandra Fluke in 2012 lost him most of his major advertisers, and they still don't want to be associated with him. On top of that, his demographic is now white males 55+, and that limits how much he can draw in ad revenue.

Since he can't draw major advertising dollars, stations are trying to dump him - many can't do it for contractual reasons, as they are part of a media conglomerate. But highly-rated syndicated stations in Boston and Indianapolis have dropped him, and he got shuffled off to minor stations run by iHeartMedia in those areas.

At one time, Rush was the top rated radio show in Los Angeles. He's now 37th. In New York, he was 5th, and is now 22nd. That's the two largest radio markets in the nation, in which he is now being outdone by Spanish-language stations and NPR.

He may still be the single most-listened-to radio program, but he's not what he once was.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I say he *had* influence, and that it is waning.

What you call, "isolated incidents," I call, "events indicative of a pattern."

I still say that's just confirmation bias, as Rush is always saying things and nothing happens because of it. That it did happen to make a difference a few times (mostly around the big TEA party push, which unsettled a bunch of things during that time) doesn't a pattern make. The long term pattern for Rush is nothing.

He is losing venues and listeners, and more importantly, advertisers. His attacks on Sandra Fluke in 2012 lost him most of his major advertisers, and they still don't want to be associated with him. On top of that, his demographic is now white males 55+, and that limits how much he can draw in ad revenue.

Since he can't draw major advertising dollars, stations are trying to dump him - many can't do it for contractual reasons, as they are part of a media conglomerate. But highly-rated syndicated stations in Boston and Indianapolis have dropped him, and he got shuffled off to minor stations run by iHeartMedia in those areas.

At one time, Rush was the top rated radio show in Los Angeles. He's now 37th. In New York, he was 5th, and is now 22nd. That's the two largest radio markets in the nation, in which he is now being outdone by Spanish-language stations and NPR.

He may still be the single most-listened-to radio program, but he's not what he once was.

Fair enough.

 

[Umbran]

I still say that's just confirmation bias

It doesn't seem to me that you are particularly free of bias yourself. You consider yourself a conservative, yes? With that affiliation comes an emotional need to have conservatives viewed in a positive light (just like any group affiliation does). It then serves your needs to dismiss or discount that which makes the team look bad.

I have presented evidence - major candidates using his arguments and phrasing, him given accolades, analytical authors noting his was pretty central to the development of the Tea Party movement. And you have given what, other than just denial?

Simple question - what, if anything, would convince you? I think at this point we should see what your standard of proof is.

as Rush is always saying things and nothing happens because of it.

I think you're pretty selectively remembering the political discourse of the 1990s and 2000s. But, until I know what sort of evidence is required for you to not dismiss it, there's little purpose in continuing to discuss.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It doesn't seem to me that you are particularly free of bias yourself. You consider yourself a conservative, yes? With that affiliation comes an emotional need to have conservatives viewed in a positive light (just like any group affiliation does). It then serves your needs to dismiss or discount that which makes the team look bad.

I'm less concerned that you'd think, but stipulated.

I have presented evidence - major candidates using his arguments and phrasing, him given accolades, analytical authors noting his was pretty central to the development of the Tea Party movement. And you have given what, other than just denial?

The years and years of Rush Limbaugh being on the air, saying things about politics and candidates, making overbroad predictions so he can't be wrong, and having no impact whatsoever on the national scene. That's my evidence, a huge gaping hole of nothing. I can't offer specific evidence of nothing, because there's nothing there to offer except the nothing. For the vast, vast majority of his time on the radio, Rush Limbaugh has had very little effect on the national political scene. I can't prove this, no, but then you can't prove a negative. You offered some legit evidence, yes, and stipulated it's good and true evidence. However, compared to the thirty plus years of nothing, it's a vanishingly small amount of evidence.

And that's what confirmation bias is. Not just bias, which we all have, but the specific bias that occurs when you only look at those data points that affirm your position and discount those that don't. In this case, there's a huge amount that doesn't confirm that Rush Limbaugh is very influential on Republican and/or national politics, and a handful of instances where he is. If you graphed the number of instances against the length of his career, they would be very lonely points.

Simple question - what, if anything, would convince you? I think at this point we should see what your standard of proof is.

I'm easy, more evidence that he's been influential. Get the graph to look more spikey, and I'm your huckleberry.

I think you're pretty selectively remembering the political discourse of the 1990s and 2000s. But, until I know what sort of evidence is required for you to not dismiss it, there's little purpose in continuing to discuss.

In what way? Rush saying outrageous things, getting into the news as 'how dare he', and angering the left? I remember that pretty well. If your test is 'Rush is a media phenomena" or "Rush has been a lightening rod", I've already agreed to that. My contention is that he's not actually been influence on politics or politicians outside of occasional lip service (and most of your sites are just that -- lip service). Rush doesn't get invited to strategy sessions, he very rarely gets interviews with prominent Republican politicians (the littler guys are more looking for exposure than a specific Rush stamp, so they can become bigger guys). He doesn't get White House invites to discuss politics. He never makes statements to the effect that he's going to get something changed or done because he knows he lacks the ability to do so and failure would actually affect his listenership if they realized how little power he actually has. Rush is a paper tiger, and so long as you're wasting time fighting him, he's ecstatic.