Newt And Rush Are Twin Towers Of Dysfunction (in hyper-partisan politics)
Getting back to polarization: As I previously mentioned, to the extent governing isn’t working well today I very much agree with Sean Theriault that “partisan warfare is the problem” (see also Ed Kilgore). The trouble with Washington isn’t that the parties are each internally cohesive or that Democrats are too liberal or Republicans too conservative. The problem resides in a Republican Party that too often treats hostility to compromise as an end in itself, and that has come to value destroying opponents more than enacting its public policy preferences. (Theriault properly uses Republican senator Ted Cruz of Texas as an example of this mindset.)
So how did Republicans get that way? It basically comes down to two names: Newt and Rush.
Newt had little to do with the 1994 outcome, and his subsequent efforts, including shutting down the government in a budget battle and impeaching President Bill Clinton, were pretty much disasters. Even so, you can trace a direct line from the party’s current political culture back to Newt. Like Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy, two other unsavory influences, Newt was never noted for consistent, hardcore conservative views. His specialty was tactics and strategy, not ideology.
The other contemporary influence is Rush Limbaugh, whose major contribution is not so much a particular style of rhetoric, whatever one thinks of it, but the development of the extremely lucrative conservative marketplace.* That market creates perverse incentives for Republicans. For one, conservative consumers are generally more eager to listen to conservative talk shows and spend on books and the like when Democrats are in power. As a result, talk-show hosts, authors and others in the Republican-aligned news media have an incentive for their party to lose. For another, there’s so much money sloshing around that politicians, campaign operatives, governing professionals and other party actors have a viable — and often more lucrative — career path when they lose elections.
I strongly disagree with those who argue that the problem stems from Republicans being too conservative. For a party to have strong policy views on the fringes of public opinion may be an electoral problem, but it doesn’t present a governing problem. Even legislators very far from the mainstream can nudge outcomes a bit closer to their preferences as long as they’re willing to cut deals.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/newt-and-rush-are-twin-towers-of-dysfunction/
I always figured that Rush made more money when Democrats were in power, but had not thought much about "talk-show hosts, authors and others in the Republican-aligned news media have an incentive for their party to lose."