A change is gonna come
by Tom Sullivan
There have been times that I thought I couldn't last for longLaura Ingraham's "preplanned vacation" seems like a watershed moment. A mean-spirited Wednesday tweet from Ingraham about outspoken Parkland, FL massacre survivor David Hogg's rejected college applications has her sponsors jumping as if from the rails of the Titanic. Ingraham announced Friday she would be taking a week-long "Easter break" from Fox's "The Ingraham Angle."
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will
Benjamin Hart writes at New York Magazine that a few short weeks after the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the gun control movement led by teen survivors seems to have broken the grip of the NRA. Second Amendment defenders have come to depend on the country's attention rapidly moving on. After Sandy Hook, after the Pulse nightclub, after Las Vegas, the public's attention wavered. Until now:40 minutes into Laura Ingraham show and there have been 2 commercial breaks.
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) March 30, 2018
Some major national advertisers sticking with her (Gillette, Advil, Progressive Insurance)
But there was also a spot from the Ad Council, which is filler for when you can't sell ads
As the media-savvy students blanketed the airwaves with their eminently reasonable arguments, the big questions were whether the momentum they created could actually last, and, if it did, whether it might actually result in major changes to the country’s gun laws, a goal that has eluded activists for decades.Parkland students never learned you can't fight the NRA.
The second question is still up for debate, though initial signs are surprisingly positive. But the answer to the first question is clear: In just the last few weeks, there has been a significant change in the conversation around guns, one that seems likely to stick.
From my days writing op-eds, I learned there are two reliable signs you have hit political opponents' soft spot. Either they go silent, as Ingraham has for now, or they lose their composure and get ugly.
Hart observes:
Another clear sign that the winds of opinion are changing is that right-wing commentators have largely abandoned their well-rehearsed talking points about guns themselves in favor of ad hominem attacks against the Florida students.Threatened by an unarmed, skinny teenager.
As conservative websites peddle outrage and easily disprovable conspiracy theories about the students, commentators like Ben Shapiro and Erick Erickson have adopted a strangely aggressive attitude toward David Hogg. Lesser residents of the fever swamps have followed suit with the insults. On Saturday, gun zealot and White House guest Ted Nugent said that the Parkland student activists are “soulless” liars, and Hollywood also-ran Frank Stallone called Hogg a “pussy.”
Shortly after The New York Times announced Billy O’Reilly and Fox News paid millions of dollars to five women who said they were sexually harassed by O’Reilly, 77 advertisers left the show in a mass exodus.If that happens to Ingraham, the Second Amendment right will suddenly wail that its First Amendment rights have been violated by the fascist left. That is, as Parkland students say, BS. National TV platforms are not constitutionally guaranteed. Big gummint will not have closed down Ingraham, but capitalism. The Market giveth and the Market taketh away.
O’Reilly subsequently announced he would be taking a “scheduled” vacation that he had planned — but he never returned. O’Reilly was supposed to return on April 24 of last year, but on April 19, Fox News let him go.
* * * * * * * *
For The Win 2018 is ready for download. Request a copy of my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail. (If you are already on my email list, check your in-box.)