Dan Bongino and the Big Business of Returning Trump to Power

[Nevilledog]

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Vera Bergengruen
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“Spend several months immersed in American talk radio and you’ll come away with the sense that the violence of January 6th was not the end of something but the beginning.” @eosnos

Dan Bongino and the Big Business of Returning Trump to Power
The Secret Service agent turned radio host is furious at liberals—so he’s trying to build a right-wing media infrastructure in time for 2024.
newyorker.com
9:24 AM · Jan 7, 2022

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/03/dan-bongino-and-the-big-business-of-returning-trump-to-power

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Dan Bongino, one of America’s most popular conservative commentators, lives in the seaside city of Stuart, Florida, less than an hour from Mar-a-Lago, where his friend Donald Trump bridles against a forced retirement. Every weekday from noon to three—the coveted time slot once held by the late Rush Limbaugh—“The Dan Bongino Show” goes live across the United States, beginning with an announcer’s voice over the sound of hard-rock guitars: “From the N.Y.P.D. to the Secret Service to behind the microphone, taking the fight to the radical left and the putrid swamp.”

One day this fall, minutes before Bongino went on the air, he learned of an unfolding drama that offered prime material: in New York, a live interview with Vice-President Kamala Harris had been disrupted because two hosts of “The View” tested positive for breakthrough cases of covid-19. Bongino, who rails against vaccine mandates and calls masks “face diapers,” announced to his audience, “None of those seem to work on ‘The View.’ ” But, he said pointedly, he wasn’t gloating—“unlike insane leftists, who wish death on me and everyone else from covid, because they’re legitimately crazy satanic demon people.”

Bongino draws an estimated 8.5 million radio listeners a week, making him the fourth most listened to host in America, ahead of Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, and other big names, according to Talkers magazine, which covers the industry. Though he came to broadcasting only after three unsuccessful runs for Congress, he now commands a Fox News program on Saturday nights, a podcast that has ranked No. 1 on iTunes, and a Web site that repackages stories into some of the most highly trafficked items on social media. In recent months, according to Facebook data, his page has attracted more engagement than those of the Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal combined.

The history of broadcasting is replete with figures who play a combative character on the air but shed the pose when they leave the studio. Bongino is not among them. “For the fifteen-thousandth time, if you want to wear a mask, knock yourself out, daddy-o,” he told me recently, after finishing his taping for the day. “Whatever. You do you. This is what infuriates me: if you dare say anything like ‘Hey, do those things actually work?,’ people are, like, ‘What the fuck? You lunatic, heretic, you flat-earth son of a bitch! Kill this guy!’ ”

*snip*

[Dirty Socialist]

1. Oddly

My local right wing wacko AM station just removed Bongino’s show. Replaced him with another ultracon asswipe

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

3. Maybe Bongino got too expensive.

As they garner more listeners, their salary goes up and likely the cost to the station to carry them goes up, also.

In the end, that's what it is all about- $$$. These soulless assholes will say ANYTHING to make more $$$. Even if they know it is outright lies, they don't care. It doesn't surprise me there are far more conservative commentators than liberal.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

2. He rails against "face diapers" yet

if he needed surgery, he would certainly expect his surgeon to wear one.

This idiot ran for the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives in Maryland. Fortunately, he was defeated by Ben Cardin and then John Delaney. I'm not surprised he moved to Florida after that. Good riddance!

[hedda_foil]

4. Where is he getting the funding for his new media empire? Follow the money.