You believed in him. He betrayed you. You don't have to be a "lib" to not be MAGA.

The sunsetting of the fairness doctrine brought us here

What Caused This?

The short and concise answer is money.

People thought they could manipulate you with your vote on a single issue vote. They tried this after the passage of Roe v. Wade, when both the Republican Party and Democratic Party were nearly identical, and both parties agreed that Roe v. Wade was a good decision.

The parties tried to distinguish themselves from each other, but the democrats at the time were able to do that more effectively than the Republicans on a total platform basis. Republicans had the bright idea, that maybe instead of changing the platform, because they were at the time and for nearly 50 years after, identical, they would target the “single issue voter.”

The “single issue voter” was someone that would show up and vote on an issue, irrespective of the party, and vote for that issue. They tried many issues for around a decade, and then they tried abortion.

Mind you, everyone when Roe v. Wade passed was on the same page, but they promoted the republican party as the party against abortion in the early 1970s, and that made a difference.

Remember, both parties agreed, prior to the Republicans trying to manufacture an issue, recruit the single issue voters to vote against abortion, despite the party stance, was their way to differentiate themselves from the Democratic party.

The single issue voter was born. A voter not on policy, not on history, not on what they would do, but what they stood against, an issue that they had no say in, could not change, because the Supreme Court ruled that is was legal, but an issue they could campaign on to recruit people to vote for them, on an issue they could do nothing about.

Abortion became a reason that people would vote for someone, regardless of their qualifications, message or anything else. They would vote for the person that said they were against abortion.

While this was not really the case, no politician, by themselves could do anything to change the Supreme Court’s opinion of Row v. Wade, people turned out in droves to vote for politicians that spoke out against abortion. The marketing / manipulation of voters worked. All these politicians had to do was say they were “against abortion”, and they would win. Once they won, they could do whatever they wanted, as long as they attempted to pass some anti-abortion legislation that would never go anywhere because abortion was the law of the land.

This was the start to a marketing machine that would target and manipulate voters to voting for candidates that were unqualified, but there was a legal obstacle from them going much further. The Fairness Doctrine required any licensed news organization to report on issues, and present both sides of an argument.

This stood in the way of sensationalizing the news, it required journalists to fact check, present opposing opinions, and they couldn’t just say whatever they wanted. Under the Reagan administration, and at the request of Rush Limbaugh, who saw a way to make a fortune by presenting only one side of the story to an audience, the Fairness Doctrine was sunset.

This allowed Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and other organizations to present whatever they wanted and call it news. It was lies, manipulation and half-truths, and they were able to make money hand over fist. They divided our country, and made billions off of single-issue voters.