I'm not sure I understand what you are saying Limbaugh (as a symbol for all the American right wing media, I guess) should have done instead. Let's leave aside the question of whether Limbaugh, Downey, Miller and all that gang are in fact just showmen mainly interested in stirring up controversy and let's face it, hate, for the sheer ratings and notoriety of it all, and suppose some of them actually are seriously trying to bring about a conservative political vision. God knows I always thought they were.
They deal in controversy and hate, in my opinion, because a conservative regime in the USA is not in the rational interest of the majority of Americans. It is in the interest, arguably, of the rich. Even the rich ruling class, I would suggest, has an enlightened self-interest that takes a higher road, but unlike the majority of Americans, they have a fallback in the conservative program, and the conservative program is easier to enact--win-win for everyone by taking a high road is risky, whereas betting on the general degeneration of world civilization into a dog-eat-dog clusterfuck is a pretty sure thing, if no one with power and influence is trying to head it off. The path of US conservatism, as I have observed it to operate in my lifetime, is all about getting on a winning team and to hell with everyone else. Get rich, get safe behind the walls of your gated community, and feel free to fire on the rabble outside while you send lowly servitors to rob them. That's modern American conservatism, and the best deal it has to offer the common listener is to be one of the trusted lowly servitors robbing the other rabble under orders, for table scraps.
There isn't any positive substance to it whatsoever. That's why it is all showmanship, no substance, and that is why it is a politics of hatred above all else. There is no brass ring for the common listener, only the illusion of sitting at the right hand of the righteous war god who is going to smite all the filth, all the bad guys, all the losers. Don't be on the wrong side when Judgement Day comes, is the sum and total of the message.
Perhaps someone can show instances where any of these fellows ever had any message of substantial positive value to the mass audience, other than "hate and blame these scapegoats and not your boss for your problems?"
The closest thing to it is people like Pat Buchanan who might be sincere in believing that the standard of living of working class Americans can be raised--but only by taking actions that directly lower the standard of living of foreigners. Here too it is zero sum thinking; I wouldn't expect to win an election in the USA by suggesting that foreigners take priority over Americans, but I still have some hope a decent majority supports the idea they are anyway equal.
Maybe not. I remember corresponding with a guy re the younger Bush's invasion of Iraq, who remarked that his son went to Iraq to risk his life, and we still don't have cheaper oil. Apparently there are plenty of people who actually do think the USA has a God-given right to commit plunder and piracy for our own profit--in short their notion of Uncle Sam is indeed some kind of gangster.
The only light in which these Culture War Conservatives can come across as compassionate or even patriotic is that light, the one that says Americans are gods on the Earth entitled to prey on the lesser breeds, and has concern at injustice among our godly privileged selves. That such people generally are not agreed that all of us born here, even those whose ancestors have been here twice as long as say mine (because they were brought over as slaves the century before mine immigrated) actually qualify as being in this privileged circle seems only sensible to me. If we exclude all of humanity who are not US born as having full human rights, why not exclude tens of millions who are?
They can't bear too clear a light on what they are about, in my view, so personal attacks are of the essence.