In the era of Father Coughlin, I believe his communications and opinion making status was far above that of the late Limbaugh. He was on the air and in the popular and prestigious magazines for a long time. Plus the Catholic church was far stronger and more antisemitic prior to World War 2 and the Second Vatican Council. The US also had strong antidemocratic (populist) leaders such as Huey Long. And Democracy was doing even worse than it is now and racism more endemic. We had popular heroes such as Charles Lindbergh practically rooting for the other side.

On the other hand, we did not have the unbelievable speed, spread, and flexibility of the internet and its abuse by everyone from major governments to weird nerds.