My reaction was similar to most when I saw the headline: “Air America Ceases Operations.” It was “are they still on the air?” The liberal voice to counter screaming-lunatics radio during the awful Bush years never really had a chance because it was missing a crucial element: angry white men doing nothing.
Liberals skew young so they’re out working, not listening to the radio. They don’t care about taxes or abortion or anything because they don’t own property and don’t have families yet. They’re just trying to establish themselves. Conservatives, hence Angry White Radio, skew older, white and male. They’ve already established themselves, earned their money, lived their lives and they’re pretty much done. Now they’re puttering around the house, annoyed by things like their backs, blacks, their wives, and constipation. They’re looking for others who feel the same way to validate their complaints. Talk radio panders to cranks.
Most young people don’t even know what radio is. They get music through the Internet and on their PDAs, news on their Google home page and occasionally watch TV to see who’s winning college football or American Idol. So the good news is Right-Wing Radio will be dead in a generation as will its purveyors and stars. In the meantime, Fox News, Limbaugh, Beck and the rest of the pandering herd rule the airwaves- ugly and sad as they are. And Air America and liberal talk will never return- which is smart. Because radio’s never coming back either.
