From the right: Rampant conspiracy, designed paranoia, devotedly mistaken, and hermetically sealed.

Rush Limbaugh and Chris Plante demonstrate how they lure their listeners into an inescapable Manichean world of fantasy.

The first audio comes from the Rush Limbaugh program that aired on December 5, 2016 (transcript below and at the link). Here are the cliff notes, drawn directly from the transcript:

The Obama stimulus in 2009 was not a stimulus. That was just rhetoric, and it was designed to fool people, low-information voters and others into thinking that $780 billion… Let’s use the term a trillion because that’s what it actually ended up being.
So where does Obama get that trillion dollars to put into the private sector? He doesn’t have it. [So he takes it from the private sector.]
Even if you’re printing it, or borrowing it, it’s still coming from the private sector and being put right back there. It’s nothing more… It was a scam. But it was a bigger scam than that because of where Obama stimulated. He stimulated unions! Seventy-five percent of that trillion dollars went to unions and union jobs to keep them employed during this recession. Why? Because union workers pay dues.
What does the union do with the dues? A lot of that money is donated back to the Democrat Party, which is used for campaign commercials, campaign elections and so forth. It’s used to elect Democrats. In one sense, it was a circuitous money-laundering scheme.
So Obama can’t go to the Treasury and withdraw a trillion dollars for the Democrat Party, but this was the next best thing.

Can you imagine how pissed off you’d be if this was true? That the Democrats took a trillion dollars in tax dollars, gave almost all of it to lazy union members (who are probably paid better than you, have better health insurance and retirement plans, and don’t work past 5 o’clock) and their corrupt bosses, and then got it back from the unions to support their re-election. If I didn’t know the truth*, I’d be white-hot with outrage (and rage). The picture he paints is utterly diabolical**.

Transcript:

Limbaugh: The Obama stimulus in 2009 was not a stimulus. That was just rhetoric, and it was designed to fool people, low-information voters and others into thinking that $780 billion… Let’s use the term a trillion because that’s what it actually ended up being. Obama created the notion, and the media helped, that a trillion dollars from somewhere was gonna be plugged into the private sector economy, and that that trillion dollars was gonna provide such a stimulus. New jobs! Economic growth! It was gonna be great; it was gonna be an automatic recovery mechanism from the Great Depression or Recession of 2008. But there wasn’t a trillion dollars sitting somewhere unused. We were, at the time, about, oh, 11 or $12 trillion in debt.

So where does Obama get that trillion dollars to put into the private sector? He doesn’t have it. We are in debt. He had one of two options. He could order the money printed, or he could get it from the private sector. In either case, that’s where it came from. The government does not produce anything. So Obama stimulating the U.S. economy with a trillion dollars is no stimulus at all because before Obama can get it… Well, more correctly said, before Obama can insert it into the economy, he has to take it from the economy.

So he gets a trillion dollars from the economy and then puts it back? There’s no stimulus. There’s no growth. There’s no additional money floating around, unless they printed it. And that’s his point. If they printed the trillion dollars, then they vastly increased the supply of dollars, which reduced the value of dollars, but there wasn’t a trillion dollars lying around someplace unused that we could put into the economy and have that trillion dollars added, because it had to come out.

Even if you’re printing it, or borrowing it, it’s still coming from the private sector and being put right back there. It’s nothing more… It was a scam. But it was a bigger scam than that because of where Obama stimulated. He stimulated unions! Seventy-five percent of that trillion dollars went to unions and union jobs to keep them employed during this recession. Why? Because union workers pay dues. They don’t pay dues when they’re unemployed. When they’re employed, they’re paying dues. The dues go to the union.

What does the union do with the dues? A lot of that money is donated back to the Democrat Party, which is used for campaign commercials, campaign elections and so forth. It’s used to elect Democrats. In one sense, it was a circuitous money-laundering scheme. Go get a trillion dollars from the Treasury, stimulate unions by giving it to public employee unions and teacher unions — and you go state by state, and you’ll find out where the money went. In Wisconsin, most of it went to teachers unions. In California, a mixture of teachers and public works unions.

And a portion of that is gonna be donated right back to the Democrat Party. So Obama can’t go to the Treasury and withdraw a trillion dollars for the Democrat Party, but this was the next best thing.

This next clip from Chris Plante, demonstrates how right-wing radio traps their listeners in a closed loop mental prison.***

Transcript:

Plante: What’s your take on all of this, Russia hacking, and what do you think happened, what do you think is happening right now and what ought to happen as we proceed as a nation? 888-630-9625. Let’s go to Cathy in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Cathy, you’re on the Chris Plante Show.

Cathy: Good morning Chris

Plante: Good morning Cathy

Cathy: I have been twitching at all this Russia stuff because first of all, if we really think Russia is as smart as they are then they wouldn’t leave their signature on any type of action. The agencies that were supposed to know about this didn’t, and the ones that did weren’t supposed to be in it, so… all that left to the side, my mind just goes to the fact that I want to know why Russia would want Trump in office. He is a strong defender of America – America First. Why wouldn’t they want little Miss Reset Button to take the oval office, I mean that would be so much easier for them. Nobody has explained why.

Plante: Well I’ve heard one theory that’s been thrown out there and that is that Vladimir Putin is angry with Hillary Clinton because when she was Secretary of State, the United States, the Obama administration, the Hillary Clinton State Department allegedly contributed to or was in some fashion behind the anti-Putin protests in Moscow and that he holds a grudge. Now this is one theory. I’ve heard the news media peddling it, I haven’t heard anybody else peddle it but news media and a couple of Democrats, but I repeat myself. So… It sounds like you’re skeptical.

Cathy: I’m more than skeptical. I think it’s, it’s…

Plante: Why? Why are you so skeptical?

Cathy: Because the media is saying so, number one.

Plante: Because what?

Cathy: If the media says so, I’m not listening.

Plante: Yeah, you’ve got to assume that they are advancing a political agenda rather than reporting the news.

Did you catch that? “If the media says so, I’m not listening.”

The only way many of your friends and neighbors will believe anything at all is if Rush Limbaugh tells them it’s so. To these folks, if it wasn’t on Fox News, it’s fake news.

This kind of oblivious circular thinking is characteristic of many, many people on the right. Did you catch it the first time? Cathy said, “if we really think Russia is as smart as they are then they wouldn’t leave their signature on any type of action.” In other words, if Russia got caught, then it couldn’t have been Russia because Russia would never do anything we’d catch. Sheesh… If I’m Russia, I’d want to live in a world full of Cathy’s (but only as long as Rush Limbaugh wasn’t telling her I was the enemy).

So that’s what we’re up against: Masterful storytellers that have captured the trust of their listeners and sealed up their listener’s minds so much that the audience is impermeable to outside influence.