Charlie Sykes: GOP, Toxic Narcissists and a Fundamentally Broken Congres...

Lots going on here. Think about this in terms of party polarization.



Who is Charlie Sykes?

. . . an American political commentator who was editor-in-chief of the website The Bulwark. From 1993 to 2016, Sykes hosted a conservative talk show on WTMJ in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was also the editor of Right Wisconsin which was co-owned with WTMJ's then-parent company E. W. Scripps. Sykes is a frequent commentator on MSNBC.

In an era when the national success of Rush Limbaugh was inspiring similar call-in talk radio shows around the U.S., Sykes started hosting talk radio in 1989 as a substitute host for Mark Belling at WISN in Milwaukee. Sykes got his own show on WISN by 1992. Lacking a contract with WISN, Sykes jumped to WTMJ within a year and hosted a morning show there until December 19, 2016.

In 2002, Sykes and fellow WTMJ host Jeff Wagner gained prominence in leading a campaign to recall Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament, who was embroiled in scandal for changing the county pension policy to give himself and close aides large payouts; Ament controversially retired at the end of February 2002, rather than resign, to retain his pension.

In a 2005 speech, Jay Heck, executive director of the Wisconsin branch of the liberal political advocacy group Common Cause referred to Sykes' influence on local politicians. "The Sykes Republicans from southeastern Wisconsin are worried that he will castigate them by calling them RINOs, 'Republicans in name only.' So (he makes it) very difficult for Republicans to be independent of the party line on any issue."

. . . In October 2016, Sykes announced that he had decided late in 2015 to quit his radio show for unspecified personal reasons. In December 2016, Sykes wrote an op-ed for The New York Times suggesting that the conservative movement had lost its way during the 2016 campaign, saying "...as we learned this year, we had succeeded in persuading our audiences to ignore and discount any information from the mainstream media. Over time, we'd succeeded in delegitimizing the media altogether — all the normal guideposts were down, the referees discredited."

For our look at political polarization

- The polarization in today’s Congress has roots that go back decades.

- US Congress is on track to be the most polarized ever, data shows.

 - Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says.

- The polarization paradox: Elected officials and voters have shifted in opposite directions.