The Great Reset Picks Up Speed

Just as it was in 1992 and 1996 and 1998 and 2000 and 2004 and 2008 and 2010 and 2012 (and don't come at me if I missed a few years because this is not a fucking PhD dissertation), once again all of the inconvenient history prior to the media's new, agreed-upon Year Zero is being pureed into an undifferentiated fog of who-even-knows-who-did-what-or-why and replaced by a new, official Sanitized History of the Republican Party.

I've already written more than I every wanted to about this latest abolition of history (here "The Great Reset Begins Anew" and here "The Great Reset Is Already Underway", for example) just as I've written about all the previous Strategic Forgetteries and memory holings since my earliest blogging days.  Hasn't done a lick of good as far as I can tell: all the same monsters who got away with murder during the previous resets will almost certainly get away with murder again this time around.  But it seems to me that someone ought to at least pay attention as Clio the Muse of History is once again carted out behind the barn and put to the sword.  

Today we find Amanda Carpenter writing in The Bulwark about propaganda and the Republican Party, and then basically having her column read back to her by Mr. Charlie Sykes on The Bulwark podcast.  Nothing wrong with that.  Hell, I wish more people were writing articles that began with headlines like this -- 

The GOP Is a Propaganda Party

 -- and ended with sentences like this:

The propaganda is the party and the party is propaganda. Sink or swim.

But then a careful reader might think to peep Mr. Carpenter's bio at the bottom of the page -- 

Bulwark political columnist Amanda Carpenter is a CNN contributor, author, and former communications director to Sen. Ted Cruz and speechwriter to Sen. Jim DeMint.

 -- and then bother to check her Wikipedia page and notice that her bio lists her as a former "journalist" for the Moonie Times, a regular guest on such Fox News shows as The O'Reilly Factor, Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld and Hannity & Colmes, and the author of The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy's Dossier on Hillary Rodham Clinton which Ms. Carpenter's Amazon page summarizes thusly:

They adore her in Manhattan. They worship her in Hollywood. They idolize her in the liberal media. But out in the real world are those of us who see through her lies about her husband, reject her socialist economics, and despise her radical social agenda. We are the members of what Hillary Clinton described as a "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy," and at VRWC headquarters, we've been keeping a file on her. If you're one of us, The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy's Dossier on Hillary Clinton will give you all the ammunition to help end Hillary's White House dreams once and for all. It's all here: the dirty deals, unsavory incidents, insane proposals, revealing comments, and outright flip-flops in Hillary's past. You'll also find the complete record of her activities since leaving the White House and the machinery she already has in place to return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

At thing point a careful reader might speculates that since Ms. Carpenter's career was spawned in the fever swamps of a Right Wing Pretty Hate Machine that has been shaping the GOP for decades, there might be a big, shiny razorblade buried in today's juicy, red apple  And sure enough, at the fourth paragraph in, there it is.  I'll put it in bold so you won't miss it.  

For a long time, most influential right-leaning media figures were content to swim alongside the GOP, flowing along in the same general direction. Until Donald Trump came along. Then they saw an opportunity to burrow deep inside the GOP and wield real power.

Like all the Conservative oxen that have made their living for decades treading the wingnut grain, Ms. Carpenter very much wants you believe that Fox News/Hate Radio had virtually no real-world influence over the trajectory of the Republican Party until Donald Trump came along.  After all, if, say,  all the way back in 1994 when Ms. Carpenter was 12 years old the Republican Party had thrown a big parade for a Hate Radio kingmaker and credited him with sweeping them to power, well, she sure would look pretty fucking ridiculous stupid claiming that Hate Radio was little more than a mouthy hobo catching a ride on the GOP train until Donald Trump came along.  

 From The New York Times, December 1994:

Republicans Get a Pep Talk From Rush Limbaugh

BALTIMORE, Dec. 10— To all the advice for the new Republicans coming to Congress, add this from Rush Limbaugh: A hostile press corps lurks inside the Beltway.

"You will never ever be their friends," the talk-show host warned most of the 73 Republican freshmen at a dinner here tonight. "They don't want to be your friends. Some female reporter will come up to one of you and start batting her eyes and ask you to go to lunch. And you'll think, 'Wow! I'm only a freshman. Cokie Roberts wants to take me to lunch. I've really made it!' " The audience laughed.

"Seriously," he added. "Don't fall for this. This is not the time to get moderate. This is not the time to start trying to be liked."

The freshman class, which included not a single "femi-Nazi," one of Mr. Limbaugh's favorite epithets for supporters of women's rights, whooped and applauded, proving itself one big fan club of the man it believes was primarily responsible for the Republican avalanche in November.

Mr. Limbaugh was made an honorary member of the class as its members tonight finished a three-day orientation here sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and Empower America, two conservative Washington research organizations.

Barbara Cubin, an incoming freshman from Wyoming, told Mr. Limbaugh that because 74 percent of the nation's newspapers had endorsed Democrats, "talk radio, with you in the lead, is what turned the tide." On behalf of the women in the class, she gave him a plaque that said, "Rush Was Right." He also received a pin like the ones the freshmen wore, saying, "Majority Maker."

"Rush is as responsible for what happened here as much as anyone," said Vin Weber, a former Representative from Minnesota, now of Empower America. Citing a poll taken after the election by Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, Mr. Weber said that people who listened to 10 hours or more a week of talk radio voted Republican by a 3-to-1 margin. "Those are the people who elected the new Congress," he said...

Just as Ms. Carpenter would surely look like a complete idiot if, say, back in 2009 when Ms. Carpenter was 27 years old and just beginning her career at the Moonie Times, that same Hate Radio kingmaker had amasses enough influence over the GOP that he could force prominent Republican politicians including the chairman of the GOP to publicly grovel for his forgiveness and approval if they said anything that he deemed badthinkful.  

From Politico in March of 2009 (which, for those of you keeping score at home, was well before Donald Trump came along):

Steele to Rush: I'm sorry

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he has reached out to Rush Limbaugh to tell him he meant no offense when he referred to the popular conservative radio host as an “entertainer” whose show can be “incendiary.”

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”...

Does the name "Tony Snow" ring any bells?  Snow, who "was the primary guest host of Rush Limbaugh's program beginning in the mid-1990s." , and who had his own show on Fox News Radio until he made the seamless transition to Dubya's White House Press Secretary in April 2006.  A position which he held until he left due to illness and was replaced by Dana Perino...

...who made the seamless transition to Fox New talking head after Dubya left office in 2009.

Or Karl Rove who went from Dubya's ratfucker-in-chief to Fox News regular without breaking stride?

Or unreconstructed Iraq War pimp Bill Kristol, who has been through the Republican Party political advisor/wingnut pundit revolving door more times than I can count?

Shall I go on?

But what really elevated Ms. Carpenter's appearance on The Bulwark podcast to the level of high art was the fact it consisted largely of Charlie Sykes -- Wisconsin radio's longtime Rush Limbaugh acolyte and imitator -- reading selections from her column back to her in eager, nodding agreement.

So remember kids, if don't want to waste your time and talent as a Liberal blogger out in the sticks but instead dream of glory as a well-paid mainstream media political pundit, the shibboleth you will need to memorize and repeat three times to get past the guards at the gate is, everything was just fine...

...until Donald Trump came along.

...until Donald Trump came along.

...until Donald Trump came along.

Behold, a Tip Jar!