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Jan. 20, 2016 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:35
January 20, 2016, Wednesday, Hour #2
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The views expressed by the host on this program, documented to be almost always right, 99.8% of the time.
It's a it's a real privilege, a thrill and a delight to be with you.
Great to have you here.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800-282-2882 and email address LRushbo at EIBnet.com.
If you are on hold, I just looked at the roster of people on hold, and I really want to talk to all of you, so I hope you can be patient and hang on.
I'm going to get to the phones as quickly as I can.
I want to read something to you.
I want you to really listen to this.
This was written back in 1996.
It was written by a man named Samuel Francis, who later in life suffered the acquired the reputation of being a white supremacist, undeservedly so, but there have been efforts undertaken to destroy his credibility and so forth.
He was an advisor to Pat Buchanan.
But don't let any of that cloud what I'm going to read to you yet.
I want to read to you from an essay he wrote called From Household to Nation.
It was published in Chronicles magazine back in, say, 1996.
Sooner or later, as the globalist elites seek to drag the country into conflicts and global commitments, as they preside over the economic destruction of the U.S., as they manage the delegitimization of our own culture and the dispossession of our own people,
and as the global elites disregard or diminish our own national interests and national sovereignty, a nationalist reaction is almost inevitable and will probably assume populist form when it arrives.
The theory is that this is Donald Trump.
The theory is that that, written back in 1996, foretold, if you will, or predicted the arrival of Donald Trump, not by name, but by virtue of somebody realizing what's happening and taking the bull by the horns and reacting it this way.
Imagine giving this advice to a Republican presidential candidate.
What if you stopped calling yourself a conservative and instead just promised to make America great again?
What do you think might happen in the current climate where the middle class of the country feels totally left out of everything going on?
They feel like they've been targeted by every liberal Democrat policy that has not been stopped by the Republican Party.
What if you stop talking about the free market?
Drop all of that.
And instead promise to fight the establishment selling out American jobs.
What if you just stop talking about reforming Medicare and Social Security?
Stop all of that.
And instead accuse the people in power of failing to deliver better health care at a reasonable price, accusing them of destroying it.
What if instead of talking about restoring the place of religion in society, you simply promise to restore the middle American core and everything it stands for?
You promised to restore the economic and cultural losers to globalization to their rightful place in America.
What if you said that you would restore them as the chief clients of the American state under your watch, being mindful of their interests when regulating the economy or negotiating trade deals?
What if you decided to go to middle America and tell them you're the guy that's going to make it right for you?
You're the guy that's going to speak up for them.
You're the guy that understands how they have been targeted, how their lives have been under the microscope, how the establishment has raised their taxes, made health care unaffordable, has caused cultural rot.
You can't save.
You can't send your kids to school anymore because it costs so much.
They end up with debt.
And besides, what's being taught in college, it reeks.
So what if you come along and promise to fix all that, but you don't call yourself a conservative?
You just say you're going to make America great again.
This is the advice this man gave Buchanan back in 1996.
He said, this is what you need to do, Pat.
Buchanan couldn't do it in 1996 because Buchanan was so identified with conservative policies, conservatism as a conservative.
He couldn't abandon it because that alone would have destroyed his credibility.
And somebody asked Buchanan recently after watching Trump run around the past few months, Pat, do you get the impression that Trump is talking about the same stuff you talked about way back when you ran for president in 1996, 1992?
Why do you think Trump's being heralded and supported and leading and you didn't?
Buchanan said, because 20 years ago, I was just sounding the warning.
None of this was really happening.
I was warning people it was coming.
Trump doesn't have to do it.
We're living it.
There's a 20-year record now.
So Trump doesn't have to warn anybody.
All he's got to do is let people know he recognizes it.
All of this comes from a column called From Household to Nation, written by this guy, Samuel Francis.
Pat Buchanan was the target back in 1996.
And here's the simplification of the theory.
It is that there are a lot of Americans who are losers, economic losers, not sad sack losers.
They just lost out in the enterprise of economic globalization that has enriched a transnational global elite.
These middle Americans see jobs disappearing to Asia.
They see never-ending, increasing competition from unskilled, uneducated, increasing numbers of immigrants, most of them illegal.
They are stuck right in the middle of cultural rot brought about by liberalism.
And the key, they are also threatened by conservatives who they think would take away their Medicare, hand their social security earnings to fund managers on Wall Street, and cut off their unemployment.
Now that, wait a minute, wait a minute, why would these middle class?
Why wouldn't you conserve?
Well, because this goes back to the whole thing, folks, there's a lot of conservatives out there.
Many of you in this audience are.
But the theory now with Trump coming, let me just cut to the real chase.
The end of all this, people think that the arrival of Trump on the scene and the success he's having has blown whatever alignment there was between the so-called conservative movement and the Republican Party.
Because what is happening here, what is being exposed, what's being demonstrated is that, yeah, there are a lot of people who are conservative, but many will not call themselves that.
And they are not conservatives because of conservative policy.
In other words, they're not wonks.
They don't understand all the ins and outs of classical conservatism.
They're just who they are.
And therefore, it's not conservatism that is the glue that has this group of people, this coalition, held together.
It's quite a number of other things.
And right now, the glue is an absolute opposition to the Democrat Party, to the American left, to the worldwide left, and everything they have done and want to continue doing.
And as I said yesterday, if somebody comes along and convinces them that they're serious about stopping this and reversing it, they don't care if it's somebody from Mars.
It doesn't have to be a classical conservative promising this.
It can be anybody who makes them trust him.
Anybody with credibility.
So the fear is when you get inside the beltway that all of the conservative institutions, both in media and in think tanks, you name it, all the various components are being exposed as really unnecessary and irrelevant and really haven't done anything for people.
One illustration of that is the reaction to Sarah Palin from the Republican establishment.
She shows up, not the selection, but Palin showing up to endorse Trump.
And everybody says, why in the world am I here?
Let me ask you a simple question.
If you're Sarah Palin, what has the Republican establishment done for you other than try to destroy you?
The Republican establishment, they assigned people to shepherd her through the McCain campaign who ended up telling the media, my God, this woman is so stupid, I can't vote for McCain.
The thought this woman might become pre-oh, my God, I can't.
And HBO made a movie out of it.
So if you're Sarah Palin, you might ask, you're asking me why I'm endorsing Trump.
Why don't you ask me, what has the so-called conservative Republican Party done for me?
Tea Party is a different thing, obviously.
So the Trump triumph, the Trump coalition is exposing the fact that it isn't conservative orthodoxy or conservatism or any of the hard work of the conservative elite in persuading people and educating them and informing them that is causing people to be conservative.
No, it's something really basic and simple.
They are fed up with the modern-day Democrat Party.
They're fed up with Obama and all of these people who have set out to transform, which means destroy this country and rebuild it in ways it was never founded to be or intended to be.
They want it stopped.
They've shown up at the polls twice, 2010, 2014 to get it to stop.
The Republican Party establishment does not understand this.
They do not know who their conservative voters are.
They've overestimated their conservatism.
And by that is meant they think they're dyed-in-the-wool conservative theoreticians or absorbed in such things as the free market and all these other bells and whistles.
And they're not.
They're not liberal.
They're not Democrat.
Many of them do not want to be thought of as conservatives for a host of reasons.
So somebody who comes along and is able to convey that he or she understands why they're angry and furthermore is going to do everything he can to fix it is going to own them.
So what's happening here, nationalism, dirty word, ooh, people hate it.
Populism, even dirtier word.
Nationalism and populism have overtaken conservatism in terms of appeal.
And when this has happened, when it exposes what people in Washington are afraid of, and that is, you know, all this money we've asked people to send us and all these donations people have made, this movement promote that, where is conservatism in Washington?
They're asking.
Where is it?
Republican Party isn't conservative.
Where is all these conservative people that are contributing to policy being implemented in Congress or in the Senate?
They don't see it.
I think I can take a break here.
We'll come back and continue after this.
Sit tight.
We'll be right back.
Okay, back to the phones.
Well, we haven't been yet.
So we're starting on the phones in Greencastle, Indiana.
Seth, it's great to have you on the program.
Hello, sir.
Hi, Rush.
Pleasure to speak with you as a father, as a husband, as a patriot.
I want to thank you for being our conservative champion out there, the voice of the unheard.
I appreciate your time.
Thank you, sir.
Hurry up.
I appreciate that.
I really do.
Yes, sir.
You know, I have heard so many folks call into your program here, and some of them have been upset because it sounds like you support Trump for a while, and then some have been upset because it sounds like you support Cruz for a while.
You know, I've tried to stay above the fray and think objectively for myself and listen to you.
I didn't turn the radio off when I didn't think that you agreed with me.
And I just listen.
I listen to the things that you did say.
I listened to the things that you did say.
And, you know, I think I've come to a conclusion as to what I've heard you say, Rush.
I think it's been very beneficial to we the people.
As I've been listening here, I've heard you talk about Trump, and I think that it boils down to your thrill that you're finally seeing someone being able to handle the media the way that you've been preaching now for decades that the media needs to be handled.
But I've also heard you, as I've listened to you closely, I've heard you talk about Cruz as a rock ribs conservative, as a thoroughbred, as a constitutional genius.
And you know, at the end of the day, whenever a call boils down and comes down to it, while being able to handle the media may be able to win you the presidency, it's not going to make you a good president.
And what we need at this time is we need a true, genuine, constitutional, conservative genius to champion the cause of we the people.
And I see that person as being none other than Senator Ted Cruz.
I understand.
I believe that.
This was a brilliant, brilliant endorsement at Ted Cruz.
Seth, if I were giving away prizes, I would give you one.
Thank you, sir.
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
Calls here praising me, explaining to everybody in the audience how I am brilliantly doing what I'm doing, softens me up to let him go ahead and make his Cruz endorsement.
He basically told me he thinks I'm full of excrement, but he didn't want to say it.
That is the most polite way I've ever been told to shut the hell up about Trump I have ever heard.
Very, very clever.
This is the kind of brilliant, smart people we have here in the audience of the Rush Limbaugh program on the EIB network.
But he raises an interesting point.
A lot of people, he says, I think I know what it is you like about Trump.
Trump really runs ACEs around the media and you love that and so forth.
And the reason I'm spending so much time, folks, today, yesterday, and I'm not through today with this.
The reason I'm spending so much time getting into it is because there are explanations for why people that you think and have always thought are tried and true conservatives are supporting Trump.
There are understandable reasons for it.
And then there are some of you who also consider yourselves conservative, who wouldn't want Ted Cruz anywhere near because of whatever problems you have with him.
What I'm trying to do here is explain why various groups of people think what they think and why it's valid.
This is actually a really fascinating set of options that have presented themselves here.
And the challenge for me here, what I'm trying to do is explain.
I know there are many of you out there.
I don't know how many, but I know there are a lot of you that hate Trump.
You just despite it on the base he's not a conservative and he's fooling everybody.
And how in the world, how in the world, because he's your conservative, how can anybody not do anything to condemn Trump?
And that's what I'm trying to explain to you.
Get past the emotion.
There are reasons people are doing.
And people who call themselves conservative are supporting Trump.
But more importantly, people who don't are as well.
So that's the challenge I've given myself here is to try to explain this as I am trying to figure it out myself.
I think it's a fascinating development, this entire primary season and the various elements and the people in it, as they seek your support, seek your votes.
It really is fascinating.
It's upsetting a lot of conventional wisdom.
It's turning a lot of conventional wisdom upside down and on its head.
And it's confirming others.
It's confirming certain things and it's standing other things we all thought we knew and understood upside down.
And if you're not clear, if you're not certain, you're not being totally confused, which leads to anger and so forth.
Let me, when we come back, let me read some of the portions of Sarah Palin's speech that she made yesterday in her endorsement of Trump, because that might facilitate this effort here a little bit.
In the meantime, sit tight, and I'm going to go back to solving my battery life problem here.
By the way, folks, Angelo Codeville, in that original piece he did on the ruling class versus the country class, he predicted this as well.
It's not just this guy back in 1996 whose name was Samuel Francis.
What's interesting about the 1996 piece is how right on it is in foretelling Trump and the way he's campaigning and what he's saying.
I mean, this is a guy back in 1996 urging Buchanan to just go all in.
And you see, forget conservatism, Pat.
You're going to turn too many people off.
Some people who are conservative, but they don't want anybody to know it.
They don't want anybody to think it.
They're embarrassed of it for whatever reason.
Don't even go to conservative.
Don't even mention the word, Pat.
Just go just pro-America.
Just go nationalism, populism, whatever, and you'll rake them in.
You don't need those people, Pat.
This is the summation of his advice.
They'll drag you down.
All they'll want to get in is own your campaign, be your policy expert.
You don't need them, Pat.
They're not going to help you.
Just go.
But he couldn't.
Buchanan couldn't abandon conservatism.
He was too identified as one.
But Trump, nobody's ever thought of him as a conservative.
He doesn't have to abandon anything.
Codeville predicted this as well more recently.
Codeville said that it was only a matter of time.
The country class would figure out that the ruling class, not only not listening to them, but is actively suppressing them.
And there would be a price to pay for this.
At some point, the country class, which considers itself the group of people that actually make the country work, would simply revolt and abandon the conventional arrangements that have always existed, the parties, party loyalty, schmoyalty.
It would come down to who is going to fix the problems that everybody agrees are taking place that we face and are being pushed by people in Washington.
Now, as it relates to Trump, I think that there's a visceral reaction to Trump.
If you look at George Will, he's written pieces on Trump that are, I mean, he was just as angry as he was that one night he was on with O'Reilly about O'Reilly's book on killing Reagan.
And if you remember that, I mean, that was, but it's not just George Will.
I mean, every week, somebody in the Republican establishment, this week it's Michael Gerson, who was a speechwriter for Bush, and this is not his first.
Gerson's out there writing yesterday that if Trump or Cruz wins, it's the end of the Republican Party.
That's it.
We don't know it anymore.
It's gone.
The Republican Party will be gone.
And what is noteworthy about this is the people in the establishment of the Republican Party who are writing this stuff and speaking this stuff haven't made one serious effort to understand why so many in their own party want to abandon them.
They're just chalking it up to the fact that they're conservative, and that means they're cooks or they're lame or they're single issue or they or what have you.
And they are totally misunderstanding the people who have supported them, who have sent them money, who have voted for them.
There's a total disconnect.
And there's an anger over being rejected, or and the anger, I think, really is the fact that here's what it boils down to, folks.
This is what angers the so-called, when I say conservative movement, by the way, see, that has to be defined too.
Snerdley, let me run a test here.
Be honest.
Now, there's no right or wrong here.
When you hear the term conservative movement, what or who do you think of?
What is it?
And don't suck up and say it's me and whatever I'm doing.
What is the conservative movement?
Is it the blogs?
Is it conservative media?
Is it think tanks?
Is it who?
Okay, conservative media and grassroots groups.
Conservative movement.
Okay, people assume that because there's a conservative movement, therefore it is conservatism.
The principles, the beliefs, the intellectually tested, tried, and true philosophies that unify everybody into this movement.
And it turns out, with Trump attracting so many conservatives, it obviously isn't that that unites the conservative movement.
It isn't conservatism.
It isn't the understanding and belief in Edmund Burke and all of Buckley.
Take your pick of any of the intellectual conservative founders, if you will.
It's not an understanding, respect for, understand that Hayek, Hayek Shmayek, who's that?
People wouldn't know.
I'm going to run across these names in everyday, ordinary, even education.
So I think the reason that Gerson writes what he writes and the reason any of them are just rendered, what's the word, not incoherent, but man, they just become unhinged.
Maybe the best way to describe it.
Become unhinged at the very arrival of Trump.
They're unhinged that Trump hasn't blown up.
They're unhinged that people have not abandoned Trump.
They're unhinged that Trump goes out and says all of these, what they think are just classically offensive, politically incorrect, crude things, like what he said about Megan Kelly and blood.
And at first, how in the world can anybody still support, oh my God, this is, I'm unhinged not understanding this.
Am I right?
And yet, Trump hasn't lost anybody and still may be gaining people.
What in the world?
It doesn't compute.
It doesn't make sense.
Everything that we have counseled people not to do, he's doing everything we told people not to do if they want to win, everything we've told people the way they have to behave, the things they have to talk about.
He's doing the exact opposite and skunking us.
So I think they say, this is what they think.
I'm jury still out with me on that, but I do find it all fascinating.
I think they think they are worried, they're scared that Trump's success and his broad-based coalition, which consists of a lot of conservative Republicans.
I think they are worried that this all illustrates how unimportant they might really be in the grand scheme.
Trump's methods, his speeches, I mean, his approach, his appeal is affront to them, their institutions, the things that they believe.
In other words, here's a guy, Trump, who's not conservative in these people's minds.
You go to the Gersons, take your pick, any of them, inside the Beltway media types.
Trump's not conservative, you idiots.
Don't you understand?
Trump's destroying the conservative movement.
That's what they're afraid of, you see.
Trump's not conservative.
You people are being fooled.
How can you people not see it?
You people are being fooled by a liar, a cheat, a Barnum and Burke, Bailey Circus Act.
My God, don't you understand?
They're worried that what you're going to end up realizing is that the Republican Party doesn't need all of these brilliant think tanks and all this policy expertise because what's it gotten anybody?
You got a bunch of people out there calling themselves libertarians and conservatives.
And yet, to the people who are conservative inside the Beltway, they're not conservatives.
They're bitter clingers or what have you.
But they are worried that you are going to figure out that all their brilliance, all their columns, all of their position papers, seminars, all of that stuff hasn't gotten you anything, that you're realizing that hasn't gotten you anything.
The things you believe in, they still don't support.
still don't try to implement, and ultimately, you're going to figure that out.
I think this is what worries them.
Wild guess on my part, could be wrong.
But if you think, if you thought that you held the keys to the kingdom, and if you thought the serfs in the kingdom looked at you with wild-eyed admiration and respect for brilliance and culture,
levels of success that you could never dream of attaining yourself, if you have that attitude, and all of a sudden you realize the serfs don't see you that way, and maybe even begin to think, my God, why do we need these people anyway?
Well, I don't need to send them any more money.
I don't need to.
And that's how they see.
They feel abandoned.
They feel like you are not believing them.
feel like you have spoiled children.
You are not appreciative of the genius in your midst.
And so, well, if hell descends upon you, you deserve it.
And we'll just go third party or whatever.
I don't know.
Take a brief time out as the EIB network rolls on.
El Rushball behind the golden EIB microphone sit tight.
We'll be right back.
Back to the phone.
Josh still got the Sarah Palin speech, but I want to get the phones into here, so we'll keep going with Kevin in St. Louis.
Great to have you, sir.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, thanks for taking my call.
You bet.
You know, I think the best way to explain to people why Trump is so popular is to kind of, you know, mirror what you did when you first started.
You know, you started, you know, telling people who you were, and people started hearing you, and your, you know, popularity just grew.
You know, you sort of set the foundation for what you believed in and kind of built on that.
Well, you're not the first person to tell me that they think that they remember when I started, it seemed like a lot like what Trump is doing now.
I've had some people tell me that.
Here's the thing, though.
This is, I mean, I don't know the answer to this.
And I can give you the theory.
I just have.
I mean, here we have, let's go through it very briefly, just very quickly to get to the question I have about Trump.
So I think it makes total sense why Trump has support.
I'm not confused by it at all.
And I'm not angry.
I think we have two political parties, but we don't.
The Republican Party, for whatever reason, refuses to be an opposition party.
The Republican Party refuses to stand up and even make the pretense of trying to stop Barack Obama.
Out in the real world, Barack Obama and the Democrat Party are seen as destroying this country.
And not just domestically, they're destroying the military.
They're destroying foreign policy.
They are nuking up Iran.
They are behaving in ways that befriending our enemies and alienating our friends and allies.
And people are at their wit's end.
They have voted in large numbers, expecting there to be some opposition, pushback to this.
That's the standard normal procedure of politics.
Politics is at least two competing organizations.
And when the winning organization always faces opposition by the losing organization because it wants to get back in power, well, the people that vote for Republicans are not seeing any opposition.
They're not seeing any pushback.
In fact, it's even worse than that.
They're seeing the Republican Party agree with the Democrats on something as key as open borders.
If there's one thing that people in this country think is responsible for the direct hit on the economy and their future and their kids' future, it is illegal immigration and the willing importation of unskilled, uneducated, totally dependent people who are going to be automatic voters for the Democrat Party, which means this never ends.
So they're expecting the Republican Party to stand up and say no.
They're expecting the Republican Party to stand up and try to stop it.
They're not seeing it.
They're at their wit's end.
They have voted.
They've donated.
They've given money when they could afford it.
They have campaigned.
They've gotten out the vote.
They have shown up as Tea Party.
They've gone to town meetings.
They have gone neighborhood door to door.
They've manned the phone banks.
They've done all of that.
They got nothing to show for it.
Except maybe they lose their job.
Maybe they're cut back to 30 hours.
Maybe their neighborhood Walmart's closing down.
Everything's caving in on them.
They're the ones playing by the rules.
They're not cultural perverts.
They're not people breaking the law.
They're doing everything they can to play by the rules, and they don't think anybody is standing up for them or representing them.
They feel powerless.
They feel like they're being targeted.
They think like they're being blamed for whatever's gone wrong in this country that Obama and the Democrats don't like.
And they're not to blame.
They represent what's great about this country, and they're being winnowed out.
Well, it only stands to reason if somebody comes along and lets them know that he agrees with that and these days are over and we're going to make this country great again and you're going to help me do it.
We're together going to make this country, I guarantee you, that is a magnet that no Republican, conservative, expert, think tank, whatever can stop.
It's not hard to understand this at all.
Except the Republican Party, I don't think, understands what is animating and motivating their base supporters.
They're not worried about the Republican Party future.
They're not worried about the image of the Republican Party.
They're not worried about the media liking them.
They're not worried about money being done.
They're worried about their country.
They oppose stridently the modern-day Democrat Party.
They oppose the policies of Barack Hussein.
Oh, it isn't personal.
They just don't like what's happening.
They don't like the out-of-control spending.
They don't like $4.5 trillion printed and given to Wall Street.
And here's Wall Street squandering it now.
They don't like any of this.
Somebody comes along and says, I don't either.
You know what?
We're going to work together and we're going to make this country great again.
We got stupid people.
Trump's not criticizing Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives.
He's criticizing stupid people.
He's going to be smarter.
He's going to make great deals.
He's going to make the country great again.
People want to believe that.
This is not hard to understand at all.
If you ask me.
Now, my question is, and it really is not that important.
Does Trump know he's doing this?
Or did he just, is it just who he is and he just happened to arrive on the scene at the moment?
Or is this some sort of grand strategy that he's working out?
Or did he just fall into this?
I mean, right person, right time, or is it strategic?
Anyway, I got to take a break here.
I'm sorry.
Be right back.
Don't go.
It's the fastest three hours in media, hosted by me, your guiding light, El Rushball, behind the golden EIB microphone.
Hang in there, be tough, my friends.
Still working on a battery life problem here.
And we'll be back.
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