Craig Silverman, a former chief deputy district attorney in Denver, CO. and the host of The Craig Silverman Show on Salem Radio’s “conservative” talk station 710KNUS, was unceremoniously fired while on-the-air this past Saturday after daring to criticize Donald Trump on his show.
In an interview yesterday on CNN’s Reliable Sources, Silverman confirmed that his abrupt termination was more evidence of Salem’s intolerance of unfavorable Trump content.
Silverman’s conclusions are spot-on. Salem Media and the rest of the so-called conservative media have become willing allies with Trump in his war on conservatism and conservative values.
We’ve witnessed how personalities like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity turned FOX News into Trump TV, and we’ve watched as Mark Levin and Glenn Beck merged Conservative Review and Blaze Media to create the pro-Trump echo chamber known as BlazeTV.
In the case of Salem Media, they fired all of their “anti-Trump” writers for their various online publications last year, and they did something similar with their radio hosts, giving prime programming slots to Trump loyalists like Sebastian Gorka and Steve Bannon.
If you’re a regular reader/listener of the Strident Conservative, you know that defending conservatism and the Constitution often puts me at odds with faux-conservatives in politics as well as in the media. You may also be aware that I provide a daily two-minute radio feature and pay to have it distributed by Salem Radio Network.
Until recently, these two realities have been able to co-exist, but that’s no longer possible in the Age of Trump.
While I’ve been told it was done for reasons unrelated to the content I provide, my feature is no longer listed along side Trumpists like Lou Dobbs in the “Daily Commentaries” section of the Salem Radio landing page where station managers might go to find new programs. Instead, I’ve been relocated to the “SRN Distribution Partners” section where you’ll also find programs about fishing, RV living, and other non-political content.
This brings me to the “heads up” I posted on my social media accounts over the weekend. I’m severing my relationship with Salem Radio.
This move, the first of many changes coming down the pike, will free up my time and financial resources in ways that will give me the freedom to create content better suited to my mission and message. I will continue offering my daily two-minute feature, and I hope to eventually begin broadcasting a one-hour podcast. I’ve already been in discussions with people who will help with distribution and production, and I believe this will lead to greater exposure.
Eventually, I will also offer subscription-based access to exclusive content along with possible “live” programming.
To break free of the faux-conservative Matrix, it’s time to stop playing the go-along-to-get-along game played by so many in the Age of Trump. We need to dedicate ourselves to fighting for what we believe in as conservatives: liberty over tyranny, freedom over slavery, revolution over surrender.
This decision, no doubt, will make things challenging for me. But to paraphrase the words of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, I know I’ll make it with a little help from my conservative friends.
David Leach is the owner of The Strident Conservative.
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