[mg5150]

I'd say both. He took prevailing conservative groupthink of the Lee Atwater school and weaponized it to become one of the OG alt-reich trolls[1], to quote somebody who apparently plays too many JRPGs.

> The man was a fucking demagogue. He made his fortune peddling cryptofascist propaganda while calling himself a “conservative”. He helped set the stage for the resurgence of right-wing authoritarianism, white supremacy, and neo-Nazism in the United States. He was the OG alt-reich troll, and his grave should have a pay toilet in place of a headstone.

[1]: https://demifiend.org/articles/good-riddance-rush-limbaugh.h...

[ggm]

I think Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh and Joseph Kennedy have deeper roots in the American view of everything. Rush riffed on it, but he drunk from a well other people dug.

And he had enablers. To me, its like the post-death glorification of Reagan because <cold-war> =It's bullshit.

So "in our times" yea, he was a primary shaper. In broad sense? he was a follower. He had a script. Other people helped write the script.