Former CEO of NPR: Leaving the Liberal Bubble

  • Thread starter Thread starter Theo520
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

Theo520

Guest
Has anyone read his book?
Republican Like Me: How I Left the Liberal Bubble and Learned to Love the Right
by Ken Stern

In this controversial National Bestseller, the former CEO of NPR sets out for conservative America wondering why these people are so wrong about everything. It turns out, they aren’t.

Ken Stern watched the increasing polarization of our country with growing concern. As a longtime partisan Democrat himself, he felt forced to acknowledge that his own views were too parochial, too absent of any exposure to the “other side.” In fact, his urban neighborhood is so liberal, he couldn’t find a single Republican–even by asking around.

So for one year, he crossed the aisle to spend time listening, talking, and praying with Republicans of all stripes. With his mind open and his dial tuned to the right, he went to evangelical churches, shot a hog in Texas, stood in pit row at a NASCAR race, hung out at Tea Party meetings and sat in on Steve Bannon’s radio show. He also read up on conservative wonkery and consulted with the smartest people the right has to offer.

What happens when a liberal sets out to look at issues from a conservative perspective? Some of his dearly cherished assumptions about the right slipped away. Republican Like Me reveals what lead him to change his mind, and his view of an increasingly polarized America.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Interesting. I used to have NPR on all the time, but it has taken a sharp turn into the left’s identity politics since the last election and of course radical anti-Trumpism.
 
Limoncello4021 said:
Interesting. I used to have NPR on all the time, but it has taken a sharp turn into the left’s identity politics since the last election and of course radical anti-Trumpism.
Click to expand...
They are still my primary car station.

I too have notice the hard shift toward anything disparaging about Trump. Yesterday they were rationalizing how NATO members really don’t have an obligation to even spend 2% on their defense. Their coverage on trade has also been atrocious, only interviews with people being harmed by tariffs and no discussion on benefits of increasing exports. etc etc.

Regarding the book in the OP, the author did not convert from Dem to GOP. I read the book is like a tourism guide to things conservative and thought provoking on Dem policies. It discusses issues from the Dem perspective but presents the nuances of the different positions, rather than polarize good vs bad.
 
NPR occasionally has a good program. You just have to hunt around for it. I remember a great program around the 2016 election on the conflict between the FBI and the DOJ, and a book review program a few years back on the Manson biography. However, if I flip it on and there’s anything playing about race, the police, women’s issues, or urban anything, I know I’m in for an hour of bleeding heart social drivel.
 
Occasionally? I know a lot of folks want to cut CPB funding but I do feel like PBS and NPR offers quality programming, particularly in relation to the current offers (i.e reality TV), granted that’s an extreme example. Or is it TV shows that are really the good stuff? And everything else in meh (I hear people like the music though).

If the deficit wasn’t so horrible (and was instead flipped with a strong surplus), using the CPB as a tool to help promote American culture through quality and sophisticated (as elitist/smug as it sounds) does seem like a rather nice idea.

In respect to the book, I read some Google Reviews and it seems like from my impression, that he tried (A for effort) but isn’t there yet. Perhaps, his time was too short and he needs to experience more things (and dialogue with more people) to get a more comprehensive view?
 
I don’t watch reality TV, or much of any TV except old History Channel documentaries and the annual Puppy Bowl and Kiten Bowl and EWTN special.
I prefer BBC World Service news to NPR if I’m driving in the car and need to find something on the radio once the Catholic station fades out of range.
 
CD45 said:
Catholic radio is like Rush Limbaugh with rosary beads…(snipped)
Click to expand...
Um, I think you are sadly unaware that there is more than one type of “Catholic radio” out there. I listen exclusively to WAOB (We Are One Body) radio out of western Pennsylvania. Its entire programming consists of Masses, prayers, homilies and talks by the likes of various Popes and Cardinal Sarah, and occasionally there is a talk show where two priests or brothers discuss the saint of the day, or devotion to Mary, or a passage from Scripture.

It is about as far away from your description as one can get and still be on the same planet. I’ve been listening for about 5 years and have never heard any mention of an election, sexual orientation, or any kind of layperson talk show, which is fine with me. I don’t need any more talk show garbage in my life and I don’t enjoy listening to Catholic laypeople talk. I prefer to hear clergy and religious. They’re pros.

Here’s the website if you want to check it out. It might broaden your biased mindset a little.
https://www.waob.org/
 
Last edited:
Aaaand this is where I turn my hearing aid off because the last thing I want to hear is two of these guys manufacturing controversy to sell the one guy’s station and the other guy’s books.

I really want to cue that Family Guy clip about “who the h*** cares” except I can’t because it takes God’s name in vain.
 
The video clip in the OP was enlightening. It indicated that most of the public money goes to support rural local stations, like in Alaska where they don’t have the donor population that big liberal cities do.
 
Kinda like New Yorker magazine. Sometimes I read it for the lulz.
 
Theo520 said:
Yesterday they were rationalizing how NATO members really don’t have an obligation to even spend 2% on their defense.
Click to expand...
Pardon the irrelevance, but I never miss a chance to say-

NATO should have been disbanded the minute the Warsaw Pact fell apart. It’s an unnecessary, expensive military body that circumvents our constitution’s requirement that only the American congress can officially declare war on a foreign country. It exists, now, primarily as a deterrent to a country (Russia) whose economy (read: potential war engine) is roughly the same size as Australia’s (no offense, Aussies). Waste.

And membership creep (Turkey) has neutered the Russian role as the traditional defender of Christendom in the east.
Ok, sorry for that. /end rant.
 
Last edited:
I’m good with a new pact with the EU, and letting them merge into a single army.
They’ll have to print everything in soo many languages lulz
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top