Flagler Broadcasting President and WNZF’s Free For All Friday host David Ayres likes it when I make grim predictions because playing the law of averages they come true every decade or so. Like the time 17 years ago when I predicted I’d get fired from my job as a liberal editorialist as the News-Journal was about to take a turn for the dark side, or when the week before the last election I predicted Donald Trump’s exact winning margin in the electoral college. So here’s my next one: my days as a liberal voice on WNZF are numbered.
I don’t know how it’s going to happen or when. But it’s a matter of time before the red carpet David has extended me for the last 17 years is rolled up and my kind of voice is silenced, at least on the air. I don’t think David even knows it, but it’s coming. (FlaglerLive itself isn’t in danger: it’s occupation-proof.)
We are not headed into a new Red Scare or McCarthy era. We are in it, with worse ahead. We are not losing our democracy. We have lost it: Trump’s win last fall couldn’t have been predicted otherwise. He could not have won without a nation backing his anti-democratic program. He has not deceived. Congress has not yet voted him full dictatorial powers. It hasn’t had to. He has those powers. He is broadening them almost daily, with amoebas for members of Congress and a Shura Council for a Supreme Court. The public is less servile. Its resistance is paying dividends in some elections. But victories on the fringes aren’t enough.
We are barely a quarter of the way into this regime and it has already neutered the rule of law, major media and major universities while militarizing cities, terrorizing migrants, erasing entire classes of human beings from existence under the law, denying food and health care to millions, while resurrecting the heroes of the Confederacy, the morals of Jim Crow and the war crimes of My Lai. In an environment like this, it’s a matter of time before a made-up emergency, let alone a real one, silences opposing voices, especially on public airwaves. We’ve been getting samplers by drumbeats since the Charlie Kirk assassination, the censoring of “60 Minutes” our last pre-Christmas special. The Reichstag fire is not far ahead.
For all that, it’s worth celebrating the last 17 years.
WNZF, a right-wing radio station in a red county, is for those three minutes a week a throwback to the old days of the Fairness Doctrine. David of course remembers those pre-Rush Limbaugh days, if not too fondly: his talk radio format could not exist alongside the Fairness Doctrine. But his hat tip says something. Unlike the infomercials you hear by various local talking heads on this station, I’m not paying to air my commentaries, nor would I ever. David invited me to broadcast them in WNZF’s embryonic days, and has been among FlaglerLive’s most loyal friends, supporters and advertisers since. In those 17 years I think he’s broadcast over 700 of my commentaries. He has not once interfered with any of them. He’s never declined to run one, applied any editorial pressure or ever hinted at anything content-related despite the many headaches I’ve given him and the bitching phone calls he’s received. The most he’s done is to tell me to keep it to three minutes, which is sometimes torture for me.
I was just as impressed by the Palm Coast City Council earlier this year when it stood down a public demand that the city stop advertising with FlaglerLive. It was a remarkable display of leadership on the council, particularly on the part of Theresa Pontieri, even though my opinions make her cringe. They make me cringe sometimes. But I think she knows the difference between shrilly opinions and essential reporting, which is a rare trust and is the core of FlaglerLive.
After all, FlaglerLive’s fundraiser this Christmas season once again exceeded its goal in this red county, which also humbles me and fills me with hope about the community we are–despite and still, to borrow the words of Robert Graves.
I’d like to think that local democracy and the kind of courage we see on some of our local boards will end up saving our national democracy. That’s the leadership it takes on the local level to keep the twin towers of democracy and free speech standing in the face of authoritarian terror. But my fear is that our Pontieris, like our David Ayres, will be outflanked by a kind of nationalized January 6 mob before this is over. I hope I’m wrong, as I so often am.
Meanwhile, thank you David, thank you Theresa, Palm Coast and Flagler County, and Happy New Year.
Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive. A version of this piece aired on WNZF.
Dusty says
You’re so funny. It hasn’t been a difficult year it has been a great one. Although I don’t care for some of Trump’s manner and speech he is significantly better for our country and it’s taxpayers than rat face Joey and that idiot of a VP Kamala. Hopefully the country will come to its senses and keep voting as in the last election for quite a a while longer.