Carrie Sheffield in Salon:
The conservative media needs an intervention. Glenn Beck told Vice this week that he doesn’t think he helped create Donald Trump; rather Trump seized the moment that Beck helped build with his message and method: hate anyone in office who tries to compromise, cry “throw the bums out,” default to an anti-establishment stance, erect barriers between Wall Street versus Main Street, and so on. While Beck is truly a brilliant innovator and disruptive thinker, he is refusing to take responsibility for his role in paving the way for Trump’s ascent. In the Vice interview, he actually blamed Roger Ailes — the man who helped create Beck’s empire. Of course, Beck (or Ailes) isn’t alone: Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Breitbart.com (Andrew Breitbart’s successors are the culprits; he was more pragmatic and less dogmatic himself) and many other conservative media forces created the echo chamber that gave rise to Trump. We need new ways to create conservative media as an antidote to this toxic echo chamber. As David French pointed out in National Review, the drive to become “Fox News Famous” is alluring, but it doesn’t win conservatism any converts. Until we conservatives see how polarized and culturally isolated the conservative media has been from the rest of the country, we will continue to be irrelevant and marginalized at the ballot box. (Case in point: The GOP has won the popular vote in just one of the past six presidential elections).
The demographics of America do not bode well for conservatives, and consumers of conservative messages reflect the leanings of an aging, white population. Yet 43 percent of millennials are nonwhite, and the majority of babies born today are nonwhite. It defies logic to think that a candidate whose people cavort with the alt-right — including Breitbart.com — could ever appeal to the future of America. Trump is polling at between 0 percent and 3 percent among black voters and less than 10 percent with Latino voters. The 2012 GOP autopsy was spot-on and has been shredded to bits with Trump.
More here.
