Chapter 31
ANOTHER IDEA PROMOTED, ALTHOUGH NOT CREATED, by think tanks and talk radio bullies was that everything ever reported by the media was slanted. It was liberal. It was suspect. And tainted. And if the so-called news was only the opinion of a bunch of East Coast elites, then everything in the news was just their damn opinion, anyway. And if it’s just a matter of opinion, then Rush’s opinion, and people who liked Rush’s opinion, had just as good opinions as anyone in the liberal news.
With factual history broken down into a contest of who could yell the loudest, anything was rhetorically possible. Now, any fact could point to any conclusion. Republicans could believe the sky was green and no one could stop them. And once the foundations of a shared reality were swept away, those with the loudest voices got to have their way with history, too.
And a voice in Wisconsin, echoed the indignation: “Just like a liberal to complain about the fifties.”
“Oh, but those liberals sure loved the Sixties, didn’t they?”
“Everyone knows that the Sixties are when the company – I mean country — went bad.”
“Everyone but the liberals.”
“In their post-modernist, PC world, the Sixties are when things turned good.”
“For them, race riots are a positive thing.”
“For liberals, hippies swarming the Pentagon were good for America.”
“For liberals, children conceived in the mud of Woodstock are the ultimate concert souvenir.”
“Yes, to liberals, tripping your balls off on tabs of brown acid while sliding naked down mud paths in the rain is what we should do every weekend.”