You missed the Gilded Age of lunatic fringe shortwave radio, Matt. The 1980s-early 2000s were a nonstop turdfest of religious and radical fringe radio.
Brother Scare is the last of his kind. He's actually pretty harmless compared with some of his ilk. The next closest thing to Bro Scare was Brother Sominex, Harold Camping, longtime Family Radio broadcaster. Brother Sominex died in 2013 after a couple of failed end times predictions, which he admitted was a mistake. Camping was actually entertaining in a low key way. Good bedtime listening. Brother Scare's frantic delivery wears thin pretty quickly.
But those fellows mostly emphasized good ol' hellfire and damnation gospel, not paranoid conspiracy theories, anti-government or race baiting stuff. WWCR, WRMI, WBCQ and others were febrile outlets for fringe radio programmers. Good fun before we realized they were serious.
Also gone are Peter J. Peters (presumably died of excessive bile), Hal Tuner (imprisoned for chronic jerkitude), Bill Cooper (lost a gunfight with cops), Chuck Harder, and many others who died or simply faded away. Actually, I shouldn't lump Cooper into that clot. Cooper was brilliant at true dialectics, the synthesis of seemingly disparate and apparently unrelated issues and weaving fascinating stories. Worth a listen -- you can find his old Hour of the Time broadcasts online. I never missed a show back in the day.
Anyway, the lunatic fringe message didn't fade out. It just went mainstream and found a more vigorous and cost effective home on the internuts.
