The Right Wing Echo Chamber

                                                     

Since the 1980s conservatives have developed a powerful propaganda machine that is heavily funded by the Koch brothers and other far-right groups. Lots of money is given to conservative think tanks where well-paid staffers develop position papers. The think tanks release the position papers and then an army of publicists place the pundits from those think tanks in media appearances to repeat the talking points. The corporate media parrots these positions as if they're fact; conservative politicians (funded by the Kochs and other conservative donors) embrace and promote the same talking points as if they're fact. The talking points are repeated on thousands of blogs, many of which are also funded by the Kochs and other conservative sources, and they are passed around via emails by a lot of elderly folks.

Many lies and half truths are repeated endlessly until they take on a life of their own and become conventional wisdom for a lot of people, but they remain a bunch of lies and half truths.

To see an example of how the echo chamber works, take any current Republican attack line and Google it. Try "Obama's Attack on Workfare." You'll see page after page of search results that repeat the exact same phrase. This does not
happen by accident. This is the right-wing echo chamber in action.

 

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