During the pandemic, at a rural Minnesota gathering to air concerns about another impending widescale business shutdown, a MAGA supporter engaged me in conversation.
We were in an Ottertail restaurant, and I was there as a journalist.
During our talk, she asked me if I liked public radio.
The question gave me pause. It wasn’t an innocuous question, or a simple one. It wasn’t like asking if I liked baseball or gardening or scary movies.
It was like being an omnivore at a vegan gathering and asked if you eat hamburgers.
If I admitted to loving public radio, then I would confirm to her that I was the enemy — a godless leftist who hated the flag, private enterprise, and white people. If I despised public radio as she did, then there was hope for me.
I happened to enjoy public radio (as well as our flag, private enterprise and white people, for the most part), but I kept silent because I was there to document their concerns, not talk about myself.
The antipathy some in rural Minnesota feel toward public media may soon pay off. Now that Republicans control all branches of the federal government, they have once again launched an all-out assault on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps pay for not just PBS, MPR and NPR, but a variety of programming and many small radio stations that use public airwaves in greater Minnesota. The House has already approved defunding CPB and the Senate is expected to vote this month.