The Talk Radio Right

Increasingly, I suspect the medium is the problem. The cocooned echo-chamber of shock jocks takes what might have been conservatism and turns it into some ghastly expression of contempt for others unlike themselves. It's easy to see how this kind of attitude can embrace torture, because the victims of torture have essentially ceased to be human beings in the rhetoric of the base-right. The suspects are held at such a distance from being like us that we can do anything to them we want. And, as the rhetoric worsens, the targets are now vulnerable children. From a May 28th segment of KRXQ 98.5 FM Sacramento's Rob, Arnie, & Dawn in the Morning:

Williams and States took turns referring to gender dysphoric children as "idiots" and "freaks," who were just out "for attention" and had "a mental disorder that just needs to somehow be gotten out of them," either by verbal abuse on the part of the parents, or even shock therapy.

"Allowing transgenders to exist, pretty soon it becomes normal to fall in love with the animals," they said.

For his part, States bragged that if his own son were to ever dare put on a pair of high heels, States would beat his son with one of his own shoes. He urged parents whose own little boys expressed a desire to wear a dress to verbally abuse and degrade them as a viable response. "Because you know what? Boys don't wear high heel shoes. And in my house, they definitely don't wear high heels.

"I'm going to go, 'You know what? You're a little idiot! You little dumbass!'" States sneered, adding later, "I look forward to when [the transgender children] go out into society and society beats them down. And they wind up in therapy."