Trickle Up Poverty
The Savage Nation, as Michael Savage claims, is the silent majority that is no longer silent.
They can’t stand the waves of communism and socialism that has eroded American greatness. Disloyal, ungrateful, lazy, un-American liberals have infiltrated and rotted the core of the values that America should have to be Great Again.
This is the thread that joins multiple complaints, extremely personal accusations/insults, and blatant racism veiled as “common sense”. Michael Savage wants to portray a rather simple fix to the myriad of complicated issues that we as a country face.
The “simple fixes” generalize and enflame, paint an easy “good/bad” dichotomy, and use anecdotal evidence to support a claim as opposed to analyzing evidence to draw a conclusion.
It shares jarring similarities to what liberals propagate about the conservative side.
But let me make no false equivalency. Extreme liberals and progressives do have issues with elitism, groupthink, hypocrisy, and suffocating/inefficient political correctness.
But Michael Savage comes from a place of anger, racism, and prejudice to level unsubstantiated, conspiracy-theory, playground-worthy, or just plain false accusations at nearly everyone who doesn’t agree with him and then retreats to the label of patriotism.
Enemies of America include Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Janet Napolitano, the media, immigrants, liberals, Muslims, Iran, Palestine, Russia, China, Terrorists, Socialists, Liberals, Communist, Red Diaper Doper babies, Hedgefunds, the EU, and millennials.
Michael Savage is supposed to represent and stand up for the everyman. He grew up in Long Island. Worked in his Dad’s shop at a young age, learning respect and the merits of hardwork and individualism and Godliness, while everyone else listed above was taught by [or sympathetic to] a mix of Stalin, Lenin, Mao, and the Devil.
The book is extreme. It’s hard to get through. A mixture of propaganda, schoolyard insults, sarcasm, and nonsensical phrases.
He both cites newspapers but also insults them as the Old York Times. Repeating phrases gives them a sound of validity. Easy generalizations like ‘releasing our military might’, plays into his perverted idea of American exceptionalism. Playing racism-lite and then complaining about PC culture caters to the base human rational to oversimplify and discriminate against swaths of the population.
“They’re racists, rapists, drug dealers”
But this works. People listen to this. They believe it; they want to believe it. Problems with Healthcare can be boiled down to “Obamacare” and “illegals” rather than the complicated, nuance, and opaque reality of the private insurance/pharmaceuticals/hospital triangle.
Being “anti-military” or bowing to foreign leaders can explain away the dwindling VA/veteran mental healthcare endemic and ignore the military industrial complex.
Delegitimizing the media means they can further cement their position. Everyone else is wrong and brainwashed; I’ve taken the red pill and I can see.
And frankly all of those arguments can be flipped.
Much of the liberal leaning media does continue to reinforce the echo chamber. Rather than having any level of in-depth or thoughtful discussion, headlines will blare about Trumps latest gaffe or the next piece of outrage. Not a place for follow up reporting/discussion. Not a place for researched and nuanced [and boring] policy discussion. [Tell me one thing we know about the last UN Summit besides the laugher….]
No, politics has become a cage match, more WWE than CSPAN. And while Michael Savage is just awful and incoherent, he’s far from the only one doing it.
Truthfully, I don’t have any notion of a solution. The system is too large for me to be an influential voice at scale [yet.]
But here’s what I’m doing. I’m working in my communities. Trying to give time and effort to building and working with/for people and organizations to help where I can. I’m trying to listen more. I’m trying to ignore my base instincts and give consideration to all perspectives. I won’t stand for intolerance, but I’m trying to be fight it with more inclusion instead of inflammation.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” –MLK
I will be lighter. I will love harder. I will drive out the darkness.
Michael Savage, bring your worst. Your time is limited and history will reveal the truth and then wash you away.
Meanwhile. 0/5.0 This book is not worth reading in the slightest. No challenge of vocabulary, phrases, thoughts, or ideas. Pure garbage from start to finish, written at a first grade level [from the bully that should be in 4th grade by now.] Interesting only as an exercise in perspective.