First it was "leading conservative thinker" and then it became "true-believers on the right" and now it is "public face of the conservatives".
Tell us, Dave . . . are those goalposts getting heavy?
Howard and I have already explained this to you. The "public face" of which you speak are merely people in the anger business. You are one of their customers. There is no shortage of purveyors. The product is self-rightousness; rage dumbed down to the most base of levels. People like an Alec Baldwin or an Ann Coulter are not the least bit concerned with substance. They couldn't be if they tried; they don't actually
know the numbers, history, present, impact, reach, significance or implications of any issue about which they rant and spin. Nor do they care. It's just an endless series of "All Liberals are moonbat idiot America-haters and the definition of insanity!" and "All Conservatives are evil gun-crazy Bible mongers!" And it's all tiresome and it's all irrelevant. I know very very few people that look at screechy hate-artists in a serious light.
The hate-industry is a result of News as Entertainment. When American journalism standards began to erode, so rose the angry pundit. The deeper television news dug itself into filth, the filthier the pundits became. This unfortunate consequence escalates as network news continues its rapid descent. It parallels the drastic decline in what passes for comedy, for drama, for writing literacy, for integrity, for you name it, in all media.
Hate-mongers have latched on to a simple scheme. It's an age-old scheme but American hateologues and screamophiles have reinvented it and, in Hollywood fashion, made themselves larger than life through shameless self-promotion and thinly-veiled sycophancy, convincing unwitting customers that they are so smart to be so stupid. And it is a simple formula. They don't have an actual product. The manipulated emotions of their consumers
is the product. So simple. Pick one side of what is in reality a very very narrow spectrum and demonize the other side; satisfy half, infuriate half. There is a reason why if you stuck Coulter and Baldwin in front of a camera, let them shout over each other for half an hour, nobody would remember anything they actually said because they aren't actually saying anything. All anyone would remember is that one of them hates liberals and the other one hates conservatives. Why does it work? Because no matter who is watching, if they are low info enough, one of the hate-mongers is speaking to them, telling them exactly what they think they want to hear. And even though nothing of any substance would have actually been said, viewers divisively agree with only one or the other (it really doesn't matter which).
Don't confuse it with politics. It is entirely the entertainment industry. It's just a particularly loathsome form of entertainment. Rage veiled as politics is an industry that takes advantage of a low-info public. The medium is no longer the message. Why? Because the message is that there is no message anymore. Or it's at best disposable. I suggest you don't fall into the convenience of allowing drive-thru fast-opinion to pass for anything close to serious political analysis. I like to believe you are far too rational and bright of a chap for that.
I'd be interested in hearing what you consider to be the "American Right"
It's identical to what I consider to be the American Left. Citizens of America who are well informed, who study issues, who learn what impact legislation will have on them and their families and their business, who can articulately express views founded upon intelligent analysis of the various complexities they have studied. And who have come to an understanding of the numerous issues directly affecting them. Having done their homework they may opt to make an informed choice and affiliate themselves with a political party they believe will act in their best interests.
Those are people, whatever color they want to paint themselves, that I respect.
Hatepundits don't care about any of that. It is an error to consider any yapping-maw to be the face of the left or the face of the right. They are at best poorly-informed critics and at worst deliberately ignorant. They do not deserve to be taken any more seriously than an elementary school child's criticism of a Royal Shakespeare Company production of
Hamlet. In fact, less so, given that the child isn't paid to despise half of the characters.
Like it or not, people like D'Souza, along with other leading "intellectuals" like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and Jonah Goldberg are the public face of the Conservatives in the US.
Do you need a companion list of shills hawking the leftie side of ridiculous? No you don't. You can name them, too.
I urge you to look beyond hatertainment. It has no intellectual nutrition value whatsoever. And like its fast-food cousin, is simply unhealthy.