LETTERS EDITOR TO THE

To the Editor:

Decline and Pending Downfall of Our American Republic: Ronald Reagan (Part 5)

This series of letters to the editor has been attempting to show how the Republican Party incrementally descended into a Trumpista cult that now doesn’t even support the peaceful transfer of power. The Reagan Revolution that began with Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 did not end with the Election of 2020. Many hoped it would have ended after the Elections of 1992 (w/Bill Clinton) or 2008 (w/Barack Obama), but instead it continued to devolve into the Trumpistas’ current threat to our democracy and constitutional system. What follows is another action of the Reagan presidency that set the stage for these trying times.

The Fairness Doctrine was introduced in 1949 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It applied to radio and TV stations that received licenses from the FCC to use the public airwaves. It required broadcasters to provide opposing views to controversial issues. Originally it rarely required enforcement because stations voluntarily honored their license agreements.

That began to change in the sixties when rural stations began airing one-sided views against the Democratic administrations of JFK (New Frontier) and LBJ (Great Society), often in opposition to their civil rights efforts. Both administrations filed lawsuits against stations that were violating the Fairness Doctrine. The debate essentially asked which was more in the public interest: free speech providing only one side of an issue or free speech that’s fair and balanced?

By 1987, the FCC consisted of three commissioners appointed by Ronald Reagan and one appointed by Richard Nixon, and it voted 4-0 to repeal the Fairness Doctrine. The Democratic-led Congress responded by passing legislation that reinstated the doctrine, requiring the FCC to enforce it, but Reagan vetoed the bill. Another effort was made in 1991, but it died when George H. W. Bush threatened that he, too, would veto it.

Just as Reagan’s failed nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court opened Pandora’s box, causing a proliferation of reactionary Federalist Society-endorsed judges to the federal courts, so too did ending the Fairness Doctrine. This time it released an explosion of extreme right-wing talk-radio hosts who appealed to the worst instincts of their listeners.

The pioneer of what became known as “hate radio” was Rush Limbaugh, a latter-day Father Coughling of the preWWII era. In 1988, Limbaugh signed

a nation-wide syndication contract, and his show was offered to stations at no cost. From the get-go he espoused wacky conspiracy theories and divided America into “us” versus “them.” The most common description of him was “vicious,” a word he wore as a badge of honor. Not surprisingly, Donald Trump trashed the once-prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom by bestowing it on him shortly before Limbaugh’s death.

In 1996, Rupert Murdoch created FOX NEWS as a conservative cable alternative to mainstream CNN and the major networks. Billed as being “fair and balanced,” it conspicuously began as a propaganda arm for the Republican Party and eventually became a policy-making tool as well. David Offutt

El Dorado