We're in a new era. Social media allowed citizens to repudiate the war on women launched nine months ago by Rush Limbaugh.
Limbaugh initiated the climate of hate with his attack on Sandra Fluke in the immediate aftermath of Komen's attempt to defund Planned Parenthood. Now we have irrefutable evidence of where our society stands on women's rights, and on attacks against their dignity:
Joe Walsh, Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, and Roger Rivard lost their elections. Barack Obama defeated the guy who wouldn't stand up to the haters. Allen West lost, but is demanding a recount. Claire McCaskill, Tammy Duckworth, Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin won.
In one of the most important demographics, single women — far and away the single demographic group most likely to support Obama, and many of whom Rush routinely refers to as "feminazis" — voted against Romney by the astonishing metric of 68 percent.
Big money didn't carry this election, social media did. Social media will dictate who wins and who loses, from now until forever. Social media is people power, in a way that has never before existed.
Rush Limbaugh, up against it
Rush Limbaugh is master of the old way — one voice to many. Limbaugh doesn't allow conflicting concepts to be aired on his six hundred radio stations. The moment a caller says a word that Limbaugh doesn't like, the call is disconnected. When the Limbaugh team created Rush Babes for America on Facebook, they selected options that prevent non-admin participants from starting conversations. When the Limbaugh team created a Twitter account, they invited followers by giving gifts, and followed zero others.
Such backward implementations of social media do not work well. In the past five months, Limbaugh has tweeted twice. Rush Babes is a page for top down information sharing, not for organizing and interaction. (Facebook link)
Limbaugh has been called (and has called himself) the titular head of the Republican Party. The most prominent Republicans have long paid obeisance to him, and groveled at his feet over any minor transgression. Eighteen months ago Michael Steele, the actual head of the party at that time, commented that Limbaugh was an entertainer who can be ugly and incendiary. Steele was forced to crawl to Limbaugh asking forgiveness.
Limbaugh's attack on Sandra Fluke was a turning point. Limbaugh didn't believe it; in spite of losing hundreds of advertisers, he continued to attack her dozens of times after the notorious three day onslaught in February/March. For the most part the media hasn't reported the continuing disgusting references to Fluke and condoms, Fluke and body fluids, Fluke and pregnancy, Fluke and abortions. But social media tracked them.
Limbaugh's three day attack on Sandra Fluke
Other Republican leaders, mindful of the humiliation of Michael Steele and others, failed to criticize Limbaugh's "slut" and "prostitute" comments in February/March, or even his demand for sex tapes. Now, a day after an election that routed some of the wost of the right wing fringe, that has changed:
Republican strategist Steve Schmidt said early Wednesday morning on MSNBC that it’s time for Republican leaders to stand up to “extreme statements” and “nonsense” coming from within the GOP, including Rush Limbaugh...
"There has been a culture of fear and intimidation, that you are not a real conservative if you won’t, you know, if you won’t, you know, stand — if you stand up to these extreme statements, whether it’s Rush Limbaugh calling that young lady a slut, or a hundred other examples over the last four years."
Schmidt was referring to Sandra Fluke, who Limbaugh called a slut in February on his radio program after she testified on Capital Hill about contraception.
—Steve Schmidt: GOP must muzzle Rush Limbaugh, November 7, 2012
But the Republicans won't reign in Rush. Millions tuned in to his program the day after the election to seek his counsel in these "troubled times". The Republican brand may have been damaged, but Limbaugh will remain the patriarch of the pariah party, whether you define that as the niche carved out by Tea-publicans, or the GOP itself.
Rush has another problem. The Flush Rush movement has punished Bain Capital's Clear Channel radio network, and other networks, costing them countless millions for shielding Limbaugh's depravity. Ad revenues have dropped by as much as fifty percent in some markets.
Since January, Limbaugh has dropped from first to second place in streamed audio audience share. His share was 18.4 percent in January; it dropped to 9.6 percent in September.
It promises to get worse for the titular head of the pariah party. Now that the election is over, new activists have already started flooding into the Flush Rush group on Facebook.
Flush Rush on Facebook: http://facebook.com/...
Stop Rush database: http://stoprush.net
My Stop Rush blog posts: http://dailykos.com/...