DEAR BUSINESS COMMUNITY: FEAR THE TEA PARTY? THEN STOP ADVERTISING ON FOX

Politico reported the obvious yesterday: that Dave Brat beat Eric Cantor in large part because of all the help he got from radio talkers:

Dave Brat didn't have much money, staff or name recognition — but he did have Laura Ingraham.

... Through endorsements, mailings, media appearances and stump speeches, Ingraham, along with a couple of other media personalities on the right, helped turn Brat into a conservative sensation....

Other conservative radio hosts played important roles as well: Levin hosted Brat on his radio show four times in the weeks leading up to the election. On May 29, Levin gave Brat a ringing endorsement, and encouraged listeners to donate to his campaign....

[Glenn] Beck also hosted Brat on his radio program, one day before the election....

Ingraham also credited conservative pundits Ann Coulter and Mickey Kaus, as well as the conservative news sites Daily Caller and Breitbart News, with paying attention to Brat's campaign when the national media was "asleep at the wheel." ...

If you're in the business community and you'd like to see immigration reform, or you fear more rounds of debt-ceiling brinkmanship in a tea-drenched Congress, the obvious thing to do would be to stop advertising on these shows, and on teabaggy right-wing sites. Back when Rush Limbaugh was trying to slut-shame Sandra Fluke, Premiere Networks sent an email to affiliates listing 98 big companies that no longer wanted their ads appearing on radio shows with "content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity)" -- but as it turned out, most were not regular advertisers. Limbaugh's advertisers tend to be smaller companies. And that's true of much of the right-wing media.

But not Fox. Fox, unlike most radio talk shows or right-wing sites, gets ads from blue-chip companies as well as smaller firms. That's insane if the interests of the blue-chip companies include a functioning government and the maintenance of that government's full faith and credit. The people who helped Dave Brat to victory are either hosts or regular guests on Fox, with the exception of Beck, who's an ex-host; in any case, Fox is where most of these people lock in their conservative-superstar status.

So stop feeding that beast. You're enabling the Dave Brats.