And, Reagan added a touch of "populism" to the Right's messaging with his "government is the problem" mantra. This anti-government "populism" would remain central to the Right's fortunes over the ensuing three decades, as wealthy corporations and rich individuals quietly funded groups that would rally average Americans against "big government," a strategy that helped corporations maximize profits and consolidate their control of U.S. society.
Corporate titans understood that an energized and democratized federal government was the only meaningful force that could limit their power. So, they did what they could to hamstring and hobble the government, often under the false flag of "populism."
In the 1980s, the American Left followed a different path, ignoring the importance of having a media infrastructure that can get out its message, instead favoring vague concepts like "organizing" and "going back to the roots." The Left embraced the bumper-sticker slogan, "think globally, act locally," and largely abandoned the front lines of Washington.
What money the Left did spend on national politics was devoted heavily to "campaign finance reform," pushing for laws and regulations that supposedly would limit special-interest donations given to political parties and candidates. While well intentioned, the logical flaw of this approach was that it limited what could be spent by politicians on campaigns but ignored the Right's unrestricted and unmatched investment in media.
In other words, while both Republican and Democratic candidates faced limits on what they could raise for their campaigns, the Right's rapidly expanding right-wing media pounded liberal politicians 24/7/365 and, indeed, demonized liberalism itself. The Left largely ignored this imbalance.
Subject to these endless assaults, many Democratic politicians trimmed their sails and tacked toward the perceived safety of more conservative-sounding positions. But that only infuriated the Democratic purists more. They called on politicians to sail directly into the gathering storm.
The Tempest
In the 1980s, I found myself in the middle of this tempest since it also roared through mainstream journalism. On the Associated Press Special Assignment Team, I focused on Reagan's bloody policies in Central America, leading me to discoveries about the secret activities of White House aide Oliver North and ultimately what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal.
Despite some success in exposing those secrets and getting a new job at Newsweek after the scandal erupted in late 1986 I learned painfully that the Right had made extraordinary progress in setting parameters for what mainstream journalists could report on, without risking their careers.
My efforts to explore the dark corners of the Iran-Contra affair, including cocaine trafficking by Reagan's Nicaraguan Contra rebels and the origins of Reagan's secret dealing with Iran, met with anger from Republicans and resistance from my Newsweek editors who had cozy relations with Henry Kissinger and other influential Republicans.
Those battles led me to leave Newsweek in 1990. Afterwards, I began contacting wealthy progressives with warnings about the dangerous changes occurring in Washington's news media. But I often felt like Cassandra, foretelling disasters that no one wanted to recognize and confront.
Then, in 1992-93, a Democratic-led House investigation of Reagan's 1980 contacts with Iran unearthed strong evidence of Republican criminality. But just like in 1968, senior Democrats in this case led by Rep. Lee Hamilton chose to look the other way. The Democrats even hid evidence, again presumably for "the good of the country."
My discovery of some of those documents in late 1994 and early 1995 and my inability to interest several "liberal" news outlets in the story led to the creation of the Consortiumnews.com Web site as a means of getting such suppressed history to the American people.
But my appeals to wealthy liberals and progressives for support continued to fall on deaf ears. They didn't see much value in backing independent media outlets like ours.
As for the ever-expanding right-wing media, which by the mid-1990s had spread from magazines, books and newspapers to talk radio, cable TV and the Internet, some progressives would just say, "turn it off." But millions of Americans clearly were listening, watching -- and adopting right-wing views.
The Gore Debacle
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