Bryan Fischer
Big difference between now and 1996 shutdown: alternative media
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
There's a very simple but decisive factor that many folks are overlooking in comparing the 1996 government shutdown to the 2013 government shutdown.
That factor is the presence of alternative media and talk radio.
In 1996, conservative talk radio consisted of Rush Limbaugh, period. Now the airwaves are chockablock full of voices who speak persuasively and loudly to growing audiences, articulating a conservative political and moral worldview. AFA's own talk network, AFR Talk, has a presence in 35 states with a network of 125 stations, proclaiming and defending a biblical and constitutional worldview 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
These voices did not exist in 1996. What people got in 1996 was Gerber baby food. What they got was pabulum. The news had been pulverized and mashed to unrecognizable pulp by the time it reached the consumer. Citizens hungered for steak and got pea mush instead. And like infants, they didn't even know that corn-fed beef existed.
In 1996, there was no Drudge Report. There were few if any conservative websites available to ordinary citizens at the click of a mouse. Today there is not only Drudge, there is National Review Online, Heritage Foundation, Daily Caller, Weekly Standard, the Washington Times, Washington Free Beacon, Washington Examiner, etc. etc. All these websites and many more I read voraciously each day in doing show prep for my radio program. These resources were not readily and instantly available to conservatives or the public 17 years ago.
In doing show prep and writing columns, I literally review thousands of headlines every single day. Even now I consistently read the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the New Yorker, etc. etc., but 17 years ago their twisted slant was about all anybody read or could read.
Today there is a wealth of information and a vast chorus of conservative voices to give citizen class Americans an alternative source of information and perspective. And consequently people are abandoning the wingerleft media in droves. They are no longer chained, bound and blindfolded by the major three networks. The viewing audience of network news is shrinking by the day, MSNBC barely registers a blip on the Nielsen radar, and CNN now stands for "The Collapsing News Network." Meanwhile, Fox continues to gain audience and the Wall Street Journal, with its conservative opinion page, has overtaken the New York Times as the nation's most widely read newspaper.
All of which means the secular fundamentalist, socialist-leaning meanstream media no longer has a monopoly on news and information. The meanstream propaganda mafia has been busted up, and fewer and fewer people trust anything they see or hear in the dinosaur media.
Thus Americans who have been released from the Babylonian captivity of ABC, NBC and CBS know the truth about the shutdown. They know that President Obama and Harry Reid are in fact the ones who have shut down government. They know, in fact, that government doesn't even really shut down in a shutdown. They know that ObamaCare is European socialism and that it cannot work and will destroy the greatest health delivery system in the world. They know that it is Obama who stubbornly and intransigently refuses to negotiate. They know that the Constitution gives the House the responsibility and the authority to defund any government program it wants to.
They know that the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns were not the disaster for the GOP the nattering nabobs of negativism in the meanstream media want you to believe. They know that the GOP picked up senate seats, retained control of the House, got DOMA, welfare reform and a balanced budget out of that showdown. In other words, they know that the shutdown was actually far worse for the Democrats than for the Republicans.
But the left blindly soldiers on, foolishly thinking the media landscape is the same as it was in 1996. Their Luddite template, their failure to adapt to the seismic changes shaking the ground beneath their feet, will in the end prove their undoing.
America now, through the alternative media and conservative talk radio, has received a giant jolt of truth serum. And they like it.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
October 2, 2013
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
There's a very simple but decisive factor that many folks are overlooking in comparing the 1996 government shutdown to the 2013 government shutdown.
That factor is the presence of alternative media and talk radio.
In 1996, conservative talk radio consisted of Rush Limbaugh, period. Now the airwaves are chockablock full of voices who speak persuasively and loudly to growing audiences, articulating a conservative political and moral worldview. AFA's own talk network, AFR Talk, has a presence in 35 states with a network of 125 stations, proclaiming and defending a biblical and constitutional worldview 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
These voices did not exist in 1996. What people got in 1996 was Gerber baby food. What they got was pabulum. The news had been pulverized and mashed to unrecognizable pulp by the time it reached the consumer. Citizens hungered for steak and got pea mush instead. And like infants, they didn't even know that corn-fed beef existed.
In 1996, there was no Drudge Report. There were few if any conservative websites available to ordinary citizens at the click of a mouse. Today there is not only Drudge, there is National Review Online, Heritage Foundation, Daily Caller, Weekly Standard, the Washington Times, Washington Free Beacon, Washington Examiner, etc. etc. All these websites and many more I read voraciously each day in doing show prep for my radio program. These resources were not readily and instantly available to conservatives or the public 17 years ago.
In doing show prep and writing columns, I literally review thousands of headlines every single day. Even now I consistently read the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the New Yorker, etc. etc., but 17 years ago their twisted slant was about all anybody read or could read.
Today there is a wealth of information and a vast chorus of conservative voices to give citizen class Americans an alternative source of information and perspective. And consequently people are abandoning the wingerleft media in droves. They are no longer chained, bound and blindfolded by the major three networks. The viewing audience of network news is shrinking by the day, MSNBC barely registers a blip on the Nielsen radar, and CNN now stands for "The Collapsing News Network." Meanwhile, Fox continues to gain audience and the Wall Street Journal, with its conservative opinion page, has overtaken the New York Times as the nation's most widely read newspaper.
All of which means the secular fundamentalist, socialist-leaning meanstream media no longer has a monopoly on news and information. The meanstream propaganda mafia has been busted up, and fewer and fewer people trust anything they see or hear in the dinosaur media.
Thus Americans who have been released from the Babylonian captivity of ABC, NBC and CBS know the truth about the shutdown. They know that President Obama and Harry Reid are in fact the ones who have shut down government. They know, in fact, that government doesn't even really shut down in a shutdown. They know that ObamaCare is European socialism and that it cannot work and will destroy the greatest health delivery system in the world. They know that it is Obama who stubbornly and intransigently refuses to negotiate. They know that the Constitution gives the House the responsibility and the authority to defund any government program it wants to.
They know that the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns were not the disaster for the GOP the nattering nabobs of negativism in the meanstream media want you to believe. They know that the GOP picked up senate seats, retained control of the House, got DOMA, welfare reform and a balanced budget out of that showdown. In other words, they know that the shutdown was actually far worse for the Democrats than for the Republicans.
But the left blindly soldiers on, foolishly thinking the media landscape is the same as it was in 1996. Their Luddite template, their failure to adapt to the seismic changes shaking the ground beneath their feet, will in the end prove their undoing.
America now, through the alternative media and conservative talk radio, has received a giant jolt of truth serum. And they like it.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
