At last Michael Savage has someone to be really angry at. Not the faceless targets of many of his shows: hordes of disease-ridden Mexican illegal immigrants spreading cholera and swine flu, or black people taking jobs from better deserving whites because of affirmative action, or gays subverting the very foundation of America's existence. Not to mention Barack Obama's secret socialist agenda.
To the strains of Rule, Britannia! morphing into the old Soviet national anthem, one of America's most popular talk radio show hosts launched into what has become a daily diatribe against Britain's home secretary, Jacqui Smith, for banning him from the UK this week for hate speech.
Smith is a "witch lunatic" appeasing radical Muslims by picking on a Jew. Savage reminds his listeners who saved Britain from Hitler, digs up an old speech of Churchill's, wonders "will the Muslims in England evolve with the rest of humanity?" and then claims: "I am the beacon of liberty that they [the British] have been dreaming about."
"I have a very large following in America and they are not all these bumpkin Nazis that your home secretary says they are. They, in fact, are the mainstream of America."
He continued: "I, Michael Savage, actually represent what the majority of America believes. I represent what the American people believe. I talk about borders, language and culture. I am a traditionalist. I talk about family values. That's what America believes in, not these marginalised individuals who have hijacked a nation and have elected an extremist government in America."
The marginalised majority who elected the extremist Obama are quick to point out that Savage does not represent what most Americans believe. But his daily radio show does have an audience of around 8 million and, like other conservative hosts who dominate talk radio in the US, he helps set the political agenda, particularly with the collapse of Republican power in Washington.
The godfather of them all, Rush Limbaugh, with more than 14 million listeners, is now widely regarded as the effective leader of the Republican cause after the party was devastated at the elections, losing the presidency and control of Congress.
With a handful of other big national names, and hundreds more on local AM talk stations across the US, they spew forth a daily diet of real and manufactured anger at those accused of wrecking America. The primary targets are Democrats and anyone liberal on immigration, race or abortion, or taking seriously global warming.
"They claim that they're just entertainers and yet they deliver this toxic mix of pseudo journalism, misinformation, hate-filled speech, jokes," said Rory O'Connor, author of Shock Jocks: Hate Speech & Talk Radio. "It's all bound together so when it's convenient for them to be entertainers they say, hey, it's all just a joke. But when it's not, they say they're giving you information that you need."
Savage doesn't deny that he hates. After all, he has had a bestselling book called Liberalism is a Mental Disorder. In another of his books, The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture, he says: "I was raised on neglect, anger and hate … why should we have constant sympathy for people who are freaks in every society? I'm sick and tired of the whole country begging, bending over backwards for the junkie, the freak, the pervert, the illegal immigrant."
O'Connor says conservative talk radio taps in to a disaffected but vocal minority. "This movement was born 20 years ago out of a sense of victimisation and voicelessness by a reasonably large segment of the population, and clearly Limbaugh and the people who followed him tapped in to some real sentiments of people who felt they weren't being heard," he said. "There is a minority of the American populace which is angry about these issues. Savage has 8 million listeners but we are a country of 300 million people. It's a large niche audience but there is no way a majority of the people agree with him. But does it make a difference? Yes. They succeeded so widely that the conservatives they backed ended up controlling the [Bush] presidency, both houses of Congress and the supreme court."
The power of the talk shows was on display two years ago when Limbaugh, Savage and others combined against immigration reform. President Bush and the leaders of both parties in Congress backed a new immigration bill, part authored by John McCain when he was on the brink of running for the Republican presidential nomination, designed to tighten America's borders but which included an amnesty and path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Limbaugh, Savage and other talk show hosts took against it, in part arguing that the amnesty would reward people who broke immigration laws. But the drumbeat of rejection swiftly widened to racial invective with Mexicans, who make up the bulk of illegal immigrants, portrayed as diseased, criminal and indolent.
Savage didn't hold back. "Bring in 10 million more from Africa. Bring them in with Aids ... They can't reason but bring them in with machetes in their hands," he ranted.
The subject consumed the talk shows. In June 2007 an opinion poll showed that immigration had supplanted Iraq as the leading issue under discussion on the shows. "They forced this right to the top of the public agenda. They spent months denouncing the proposed legislation. They rebranded it as "shamnesty" not amnesty. Savage dubbed the bill the "i-bomb" and vowed to "derail this train of treason" Now with that type of talk it's not surprising members of Congress, including conservative Republican senators, not only hear from these people but are threatened by them," said O'Connor.
The bill was defeated as members of Congress retreated in the face of public hostility.
There are also those who say that the persistent invective against minorities and political opponents has other consequences. Last year Jim David Adkisson walked into a church in Tennessee where children were performing a play and opened fire with a shotgun. Two people were killed and several others wounded. Adkisson told the police that he had targeted the church because of its liberal teachings and its tolerance of homosexuals, and that all liberals should be killed. When the police searched his house they found a number of inflammatory books, including Savage's.
Until Obama came to power, Limbaugh and his fellow talk show hosts had moved from the voice of the marginalised 20 years ago to become part of the ruling political establishment even if they agitated from within.
With Obama's election, they are again asserting their claim to be the voice of the marginalised, oppressed masses, and attempting to whip up opposition to the president over taxes and his liberal social agenda.
But Limbaugh in particular is now looked on in some quarters as charting the future for Republicanism, even by some of its opponents.
Last month, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, was asked who he thought best represented the Republican party and he named Limbaugh. The Republican party chairman, Michael Steele, responded by dismissing Limbaugh as "an entertainer" and said his rhetoric is "incendiary" and "ugly". But such is the power of the talk show host that Steele was subsequently forced to call him and apologise.Still, there are other Republicans who also fear the talk show effect.
Colin Powell, the former secretary of state under Bush, said this week that Republicans need to stop listening to Limbaugh.
"Can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh? Is this really the kind of party that we want to be when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts?" he said.
Powell was promptly denounced on talk shows across the country as a closet liberal.