I recall decades of conservatives being silenced by screams of RACISTS! BIGOTS!
I recall that when modern talk radio started in the late 1980s and early 1990s the most oft heard caller expression was something like "I didn't know that other believed as I do! I thought I was the only one".
We weren't the silent generation of the '60s - 80s we were the silenced generation -- Limbaugh started talking and Savage showed how to get through! Others followed.
Then Savage changed but this time fortunately the rest of talk radio did not follow or it would be a kind of balkanization with name-calling and hosts maligning each other.
Yep. The name calling started in summer 0f 2004 when Savage first nicknamed Oreilly the Leprechaun and his show went downhill since. Sad. No one could be more entertaining and humorous than Savage, i dono why he changed path.