I wasn’t a fan. At all.
But still the mechanics of getting rid of him are interesting. Once we recognize them we are more immune. Most of us “of a certain age” have never forgotten what they did to Judge Bork and as a consequence are unlikely to fall for it. People need to realize just how much of “public opinion” is fake and manufactured. We saw it with the attempted take-down of Trump, and ought to have recognized it with O’Reilly.
Still, O’Reilly is a grown man and gave his enemies the weapon. I can’t imagine Hannity ever being accused of anything similar, for example... Still, don’t doubt that they are out there right now digging for something to use against Hannity to take him out. And Tucker. With these two it might not be moral, it might be something else. Some ill-chosen word. And when they hit them with it and start pounding their advertisers and management, the temptation will be to cut them loose to make the pain go away. They will do it again and we have to be more energetic about defending even people we may or may not like that much. Because if we don’t eventually every voice “they” don’t approve of will be silenced.
I don’t like O’Reilly. But I’m sorry they took him out the way they did.
I agree. Rush did a study a year or two ago and proved that a handful of people (like 6-10) were able to run bots that generated tweets, emails, comments, etc.. that LOOKED LIKE tens of thousands of people. It's FAKE. But, it's effective... especially against scared advertisers.