My own better angel has been working overtime trying to disentangle the actual blame for the partisan divides and nationalistic differences that characterize this country at the moment. From the time representative Joe Wilson, shockingly and disrespectfully, shouted “you lie” at President Obama to the present, the big lie of election fraud has been circulating in the Republican Party. Even the simplistic rhetorical move, which involves labeling something with the goal in mind of socially constructing a new reality, and the truth of the label be damned, has become a powerful force in a fertile rhetorical environment ripe for growth and exposure.

Timothy Egan writing in the New York Times describes America as getting meaner. Tribalism, contempt for the press, intolerance, disinformation, and blatant lies are the currency of the day. Like me (https://peaceandconflictpolitics.com/?s=limbaugh),

Egan traces contempt for the press to Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh was one of the worst and most damaging public figures ever to disgrace modern media. You can note the decline in American culture and the thorough degradation of public political discourse by drawing a line from Rush Limbaugh through modern social media, to the main demographic pockets in the United States.

Rush Limbaugh created the subculture of talk radio. A subculture characterized mostly by anger, name calling, and the belief that anything someone believes strongly enough must be true. The Limbaugh subculture has devolved into narcissism and cults of personality fueled by the talk radio subculture’s big brother – Fox News. Any sensible concept of truth has evacuated. Just as Limbaugh initially twisted the perceptions of journalism and media to the notion that news is “fake,” the Republicans have stepped up their rhetorical domestic terror by turning little lies into big lies (election fraud), erecting structural barriers to political participation (voter suppression), eroding democracy (civil rights violations), and continuing to find new audiences and platforms for communication with new social media.

We have learned more in recent years about the kind of disinformation favored by those like Limbaugh. An organization called the Global Disinformation Index keeps track of disinformation statements by various politicians and ferrets out the data on who transmits the statement online to another blog or website (see New York Times, June 10, 2021 Business). This organization classified different accounts as either “left-leaning” or “right-leaning” in order to track which group ideology was being most stimulated. It became immediately apparent that Trump’s messages were forwarded to others by his followers thus continuing to spread his message. It didn’t matter very much that he was denied access to Facebook because his messages were shared anyway. In these situations Trump’s messages were passed on mostly by conservatives to conservatives. But when Trump criticized the Republican Party rather than just the Democrats his remarks were shared by both the left and the right.

These issues pertaining to how the blogosphere acquires and processes information are now receiving the research attention they deserve.