Dick Cheney, America’s most powerful modern vice president and chief architect of the “war on terror,” who helped lead the country into the ill-fated Iraq war on faulty assumptions, has died, according to a statement from his family. He was 84.

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
    10·
    2 hours ago

    Many will forget that in the wake of Nixon’s resignation, WH staffers Cheney and Roger Ailes decided that it was the fault of the “liberal Hollywood media” for relentlessly hammering the Republicans (for their crimes).

    So they conceived a Conservative Propaganda Machine to get their message out. First they found Rush Limbaugh, and started to syndicate him across the country. Conservative talk radio was everywhere, but several limited by the Fairness Doctrine.

    Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and instantly radio stations across the country went to 24 hour conservative talk, with Limbaugh as the anchor.

    In the early 90s, with Roger Ailes producing, they tried a 30 minute TV show, to run following the news, so conservative viewers didn’t have to go from the news directly to a late night talk show bashing Republicans. It ran for about a year, but they quit because it too much for Rush to do a 3 hour live radio show, then a half hour live TV show, but it was proof of concept.

    With that success, they launched Fox News in 1977 1997, and that became the tentpole of the Conservative Propaganda Machine.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
          2·
          2 hours ago

          Sorry, I meant 1997, but fat-fingered this new phone. Still a year off, but close enough for going off my mental notes.

          The point remains - rather than remembering Cheney for opposing Trump at the end, remember that he devised and built the Conservative Propaganda Machine, which has lied and cheated relentlessly, and allowed the rise of the worst brand of Sociopathic Oligarchs, and the scummiest form of Republicans that he eventually opposed. He holds a lot of the responsibility for MAGA.