It occurs to me that few people I know understand how right-wing radio really works because our information bubbles are close to hermetically sealed. I hear people say, “How can those Trump supporters think that?” Let’s see how it works.

The lead story for hour one of the Lars Larson yesterday was an oldie but a goodie for his listeners.  He recounted how recently an illegal alien brutally attacked and raped a woman in a Seattle suburb. The attack was especially awful because the criminal had to toss the woman out of her wheelchair first. It was a stranger on stranger attack. Captured, tried, the criminal was given less than a year sentence. The now felon assured the “liberal” judge he would immediately return to Mexico. When released to do so, he hunted down his victim and attacked her again as retribution.

I don’t know all the facts of the case, but everything about it sounds plausible. It has all the elements Lars needs for his listeners. It has the merit of being mostly true. Lars has to fill 20 hours of radio a week. He only needs about 10 of these types of stories to be supplemented with regularly available pieces on government waste and liberal overreach. That is a deep, constantly replenishing well.

He doesn’t have to make anything up. Across America, there are stories like this every day. His show is not just him making stuff up like others radio talkers. He dips into the news of the day then riffs and lets callers fill in the outrage. When Lars says, but for a working immigration system and better border controls that woman would have been safe, he isn’t wrong. When he criticizes “politicians” and “courts” for the plight of that woman, he is has real evidence to make his case.

Everyone choses where they get their information. It is an American right. I see the FoxNews complex as a sophisticated propaganda operation. There is maybe 15% actual news in any day. No news from the left or center is as intentional, or as pervasive, in its relentless agenda driven approach. Even though that is true, I have to fight the urge to reject the right-wing media consumers.  Here’s why….

Do you know what an “Angel Mom” is? If you listen to Lars you do. If you view FoxNews you do. Angel Moms are women who have had family members murdered by criminals who are illegally in this country. Trump brings them to the White House and trots them out at rallies. Their suffering is real. Their stories should never be rejected out of hand. The “but for” is the failed immigration system. For conservatives, no story of murder and rape in a central American country outweighs the suffering of those moms. For them, those American victims were, in effect, killed by our government.

Democrat politicos take note. About 25% of Latinos went for Trump. More than that are horrified at the stories like the one Lars gave yesterday. They consider it an evil mark on everyone who has come to America legally and built a life. The more stories like this penetrate the conscious of many legal immigrants the higher that percent for Trump will be. Slogans like “open borders” and “ban ICE” are not helpful because they do not seek a real solution. They don’t stop the creation of more Angel Moms.

If we really want to build a consensus around a solution for the immigration crisis then we have to be able to hold two ideas in our collective conscious, two different kinds of victims in our hearts. 

And this goes back to Lars and his listeners. They are not crazy. Much of what they hear is based in different truths that every day confirm a belief system and genuine emotions. I wish, deeply wish, that we all had shared facts but until we do, it is incumbent on us to understand both world views in the hope that when we meet someone with fundamental differences we understand where those beliefs originate. That small bit of shared humanity may be what is needed to create little slices of common ground.