Howie Carr is peddling a new book called What Really Happened of the story of election of President Trump and how he helped get Donald Trump elected. It appears to be a spoof of Hillary Clinton’s What Happened book. I wrote back in March how Howie Carr has lost a lot of local relevance in just the last three years once he left WRKO, initially loosing them as an affiliate, but also to do the show..
I am writing this in pure coincidence because I realized that I left you hanging about him selling out.
Two months in to him being an indie talk show host* , a guest circa January was scheduled to come on at 4:10 or 4:30 Eastern Time of a man named Donald Trump, who was the president of The Trump Organization. This wasn’t the first time he flirted the idea of being President of the U.S. In fact, he got onto social media early on just before the 2012 election but never followed through. Well he blew off the appearance that day. The Chump Line, the voice messaging service where callers, trolls, lovers or haters of Howie, often with cute poems, sassy one liners or give cheap shots, was actually mocking Trump and some of the voicemail that played had people acting like Donald Trump as if he was too cool to be on the Howie Carr Show.
* this meaning he had no radio station to report to, apparently for a while he was in an area office building where money talker Barry Armstrong would do his radio shows. Being indie means he doesn’t have to get fired from the station for making insensitive remarks, or get suspended for other statements. Other than the standard fare of FCC regs, Howie today is a loose animal.
Despite any grudges, if anything, Howie gave Mr. Trump all access for New England, and virtually all 6 states in his path to presidency.
Pumping and Dumping past GOP Polis
Listening to Howie since the early 2000s, never had a Republican that he really liked, he bitched about Bush, bitched about Jane Swift, gave the late Christy Mihos plenty of air time as he was on the board of the Mass Pike, after leaks started to fill up with water on the Tip ONeil Tunnel, or worse during panel collapsed that killed a woman in 2006. Howie basically pumped-and-dumped any Mass Republicans, or leaned right. Mihos ran for Governor in 2006 as an Independent in a 4 way race of the with a woman in local Green Party, Democrat Deval Patrick, Republican Kerry (as Howie calls her “Muffy”) Healy, Mitt Romney’s #2 at the time (of which that man got the support and the diss too by said talk show host.)
The most recent case was Charlie Baker, who has been name called by many harder right (Howie included) as “Tall Deval”. Makes good for a Herald headline, not so much for intelligent political discussion.
So I outlined many examples of his pump-and-dump approach to Massachusetts Republicans, would he do the same for Donald Trump?
There is a lot of loyalty of him and Trump. Howie has “moderated” town meetings, had also attended a gathering on Ernie Boch Jr’s compound on the North Shore, and even did a remote there; and the list goes on.
Howie even allowed air time “AL” Baldasaro, a New Hampshire State Representative to say really threatening things to Hillary Clinton that was said originally on a WRKO based midday show via a strong rant, to then go on air with Howie Carr a day later to double down that rant as a “first amendment”. He basically was implying to have someone harm Clinton just months before the election. While Baldasaro can come off as very threatening in real life (I have personal experiences despite not knowing him personally only been in passing, so I can attest over my dead nana’s body) – he is not the Republican Party as a whole.
“Fake News” = “Alt Left” News
Whether or not you agree with President Trump’s views or not, Howie as of this week continues to be happy and watch liberal commentators with glee with their “views” (I should myself put in air quotes because it’s so not appropriate for cable “news”.) Howie also has mocked the left byt adding “Alt left” as his groups had been labeled as extremists and then called them “alt right” groups. Howie is pulling a “you hit me, I’ll hit you back” almost a feminine like approach. That kind negates him calling weak guys as “girly men” for so many year. When a liberal calls in he will yell at them (i.e. try to shut them up) in getting even of whatever the democrats had done over the previous 8 years, again trying to get even, almost saying “the Moonbats are worse than we are” attitude. Defensive, Deflective and Defiance is been the mantra of the hard right all along, but gotten worse in recent years.
Local issues doesn’t even get a full 6:00 hour anymore. One day I was listening, and they were talking about the infamous scandal at the Massachusetts State Police, and story came from a blog where the blogger/investigative reporter also called the current governor, “Tall Deval”.
I should mention that discussion was truncated because a man named Bruce Mittin, who runs a large ad agency in the Boston area and owns a few commercial radio licenses, comes on Mondays to diss the media, mock the press, or just talk like old guys how they are so happy how some networks are struggling with political coverage.
It’s easy to guess Howie’s audience have evolved from escaping the politics for a couple hours a week and not watch entertainment. Howie for years called TV shows “crappy” and I took it as affectionate, but in reality no shows pleases him. When he refers to “Fox” he’s referring to the Fox News Channel, where he has put it on the highest pedestal alive as that network has never did anything wrong. He literally lives around that “Fox” bubble.
As of that result, the long time TV expert, Max Robbins has since fallen off the radio face of the earth, whom had strong credentials for the TV business, news business, and ratings and insight of entertainment shows, dramas and comedy, while having a more leftist view. He was once the top editor of TV Guide as well as the top dog for the default trade magazine in newsrooms with it’s large sized magazine known as Broadcasting & Cable. As a result Max was gone sometime many years ago. I lost track.
Howie’s a brand, he’s his own boss of his own company producing 16 to 20 hours a week of talk shows of people calling in and talking like folksy people how happy their favorite pols are taking control
Howie as of late is who he is in real life, behind the microphone and social media, known to scream and repeat a narrative again and again.
Because screaming to people will make your point be taken more seriously.
In fact Howie, has since been a shill to Mr. Trump (again because he’s indie, he’s not required to give the FCC any information of his conflicts of interests.) Because of this loophole, Howie can be a shill for Trump, say nice things only and being the man who doesn’t like disclosure, can get away with it.
The sad part is how he won’t be dumping his support anytime soon. He helped him get elected, and didn’t really disclose that. He did things that were in some other circles unethical. He is a talk radio show host and a newspaper columnist, not “the Last American Dishwasher” as he self bills himself, implying that he’s one of you and not one of them (i.e. part of an establishment.)
Since the last 10 years, I have strong views of on air talent acting like normal people on TV or radio; because our consumers are more ignorant and mentally handicapped that just because normal people are on media does not mean that they should be.
Anyways it was pathetic to witness one of the last major market talk radio show host to loose his local status in the means of selling out to get a President elected and devalue local democracy. That person has been Howie.
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