Tonight, will PBS finally debunk the liberal lie about Orson Welles’ broadcast?
The notion that “millions” of Americans were duped into believing that a radio play was really a news broadcast persists for the same reasons similar myths persist:
That myth is useful to progressives.
Like other overblown liberal fairy stories — the murder of Kitty Genovese; that “Super Bowl Sunday wife-beating epidemic”; “the Milgram experiment;” imaginary “No Irish Need Apply” signs and other instances of make-believe “racism” — the “War of the Worlds” “panic” is cited as proof that the average American is an impressionable bumpkin, poised to bully, mob and riot at the slightest provocation.
Progressives believe that only they — the enlightened, educated elite — can possibly keep their fellow citizens’ baser instincts in check, through regular scoldings from on high, through “better education,” through bigger government, and cradle-to-grave “protection.”
