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March 18, 2016 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:47
March 18, 2016, Friday, Hour #2
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Meeting and surpassing.
All audience expectations every day.
It's your guiding light, Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone.
There are only two of those on Friday Lintonic.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Open line Friday, which means that you can talk about whatever you want to talk about.
It doesn't have to be something I care about.
That's the deal.
I will I will either fake caring so that people don't think I'm bored, or I will act bored.
But probably not because I'm a polite host, the politest hosts in the country.
So you have questions, comments, arguments, problems.
Are you at your wit's end?
This is the place to come.
You don't need these professional counselors out there dealing with this campaign.
You can call right here.
If you want to be on the program.
Going back to this John Padoret's commentary and his attempt, this is actually from yesterday, but his was a piece in commentary magazine, and it's a very lengthy piece.
And I'm just synthesizing it down to its bare essence as he attempts to explain the Trump phenomenon.
I mean, many people that are not for Trump are puzzled beyond their ability to express it.
Why people support Trump?
Some people are getting mad.
Some people are taking the rejection of themselves and their ideas personally.
Some people, it just doesn't make any sense no matter how they look at it.
So they're doing everything they can to try to explain it to themselves in a way that makes sense.
And when we talk about some of the analysis, I'm not accusing Pedoritz of this, but some of the people that are on the establishment side engaging in this exercise start out from a position of some contempt toward the average Trump voter for being so blind, for being so stupid.
What do they why why don't they see these flaws in Trump?
Why don't they see that he's donated to Democrats?
Why don't they see that his hair is a mess?
Why don't they see that the guy is a bully?
Why don't they see?
And of course they all do.
They see everything everybody else sees.
So the real question is why does it not matter to him?
Or what does it mean to them?
And I think at the root of this, the more this goes on, at the root of this a much deeper disconnect than even I suspected between the professional political class in Washington and the people of the country.
And I'll define the terms.
Professional political class includes elected officials, includes anybody that deals with them in Washington, such as lobbyists, certain think tanks, certain media.
They are all part of the mix.
And I really believe that the lack of understanding of what daily life is like for millions of Americans has eluded them.
While they think they get it.
While they think they understand your plight, while they think they understand your anger and your frustrations.
I don't think they do.
I don't think they quite yet understand it.
And you can look at the mockery of the Tea Party by many of these people as an example.
That's just one example.
I could I could cite countless others.
But I really think that this divide, this disconnect, is uh is huge and it's made bigger by the lack of awareness on the part of the powerful, if you will.
They think they get it, they think they understand it, and they're close in some cases, but they they really don't.
You can boil it down to not too many different things.
I mean, a lot of it has to do with money.
It's always about money.
It's always been about the trust and faith in American capitalism in America itself.
The old play by the rules, hard work, industriousness, preparedness, trying to live as law-abiding life as you possibly can.
There's supposed to be a payoff for that.
There are supposed to be rewards.
The system is supposed to contain them.
Among them, you're supposed to be able to get a better job.
As you do a great job someplace else, you're to get noticed.
Your opportunities are to expand, and if you have the desire to explore them and to exploit them, exploit them, you're able to.
The primary mechanism of climbing the ladder in the middle class is the college education.
And that has become so expensive that it's first an albatross before it even becomes something helpful.
And I just think that there are millions of people who haven't had significant increases in their income.
And yet these are the people who are told that all these problems in America are their fault.
We have a nation which, for the past seven years specifically, but even longer than that, as you know, has been focused on adjudicating the discrimination against all of these minorities that has gone on since the days of our founding.
And it's a specific group of people, middle class Americans who are being told they were the culprits.
They were the discriminators.
They were the bigots, they were the racists.
And therefore, things in their view are being taken from them.
Government is being used to pick winners.
And it isn't based on anything other than things people have no control over.
Their ethnicity, their sexual orientation, their race.
And so they've abandoned the entire belief in the level playing field fairness aspect of things, and do feel the deck is stacked against them.
And they think a specific group of people has been in charge of and responsible for stacking that deck.
Now you can argue whether they're right or wrong, but the fact is they are acting on that belief.
And it's not just things that have happened the last two or three, five, even seven years.
It's been going on for much, much longer than that.
These are not liberal people who begrudge the wealthy either.
It's not made up of liberals that are ticked offs.
This is not the kind of anger that you see at Occupy Wall Street or an Al Sharpton rally or any of that.
These are these are people who have believed in capitalism.
These are people who have believed in the promises that have been made.
These are the people that have voted for it, voted for people who said they understood and would go to Washington and facilitate making this process through life in America with fewer and fewer obstacles for people, and it hasn't happened.
So, Mr. Pedoritz.
Let me just read his second to last paragraph, known as the penultimate paragraph.
And this is why I think the meaning of Trump is being misused and misunderstood.
Trump says he wants to make America great again, but I don't think that's what his acolytes hear.
I think Trump's supporters hear that he's going to turn his vicious temper and his unbalanced rage on these large-scale forces that are hindering them.
Trump's supporters want somebody punished.
Could be China, could be Muslims, could be Mexicans, could be bankers, could be the GOP establishment, whatever.
Trump is their punisher.
Only he won't be.
The qualities that have given Trump appeal to part of the GOP primary electorate would be destructive with a national electorate seven times the size.
If Trump is the GOP nominee, the gender gap, 12% for Romney in 2012, will open into a gender canyon, grand canyon for Trump.
Now listen to this.
I think his acolytes here, Trump supporters, that he's going to turn his vicious temper and unbalanced rage on the large-scale forces they feel are hindering them.
They want someone punished.
Speaking for myself, I have supported that theory in describing Democrats.
I have always sought to explain to people, why do lower class, middle class, why?
Why do they want the rich to get a tax increase?
How the hell does it help them?
At the end of the day, a rich guy pays more taxes.
How does your life change?
And the answer's been it hasn't.
They just want the rich guy punished.
This has always been an argument made about angry liberal voters.
And I believe it was true.
I believe that angry liberal voters are constantly running around enraged and angry and feeling left out and ignored.
And the reason they vote for the Democrat Party is the Democrat Party is going to get even with people.
It's certainly one of the motivations for all of the minority support the Democrat Party gets.
How has life improved for any constituency group in the Democrat Party?
It hasn't.
That's why voters that vote Democrat are constantly enraged, angry all the time, miserable, unhappy, and even when their party is winning things.
They're not happy.
All the people who thought Obama's presidency was going to result in additional economic benefit to them, there's zero.
There's rampant unemployment.
There's rampant part-time work.
They bought it hook line and sinker.
The difference is when it happens, they find a way to blame Bush or the Republicans.
Because that's what Obama does.
But my point is, the way Mr. Pradoritz here is describing Trump supporters as the way most of us have always looked at traditional angry Democrats.
So you Trump supporters are the only ones who can answer this.
Do you really know Trump's not going to change anything?
Do you really know he can't?
Do you really know he can't make America great again?
And do you really not care that he can't?
You just want Trump to get even with somebody for you because you can't.
How does that manifest itself?
I have an entirely different theory.
Well, not entirely, but I have a different theory about this, as I have expressed over and over and over again.
I think the grievances that people have, particularly on the Republican side, are real, and they are numerous.
And they are rooted in false promises, failed promises, phony agendas, being misled time and time again.
And I think there's a sizable group of Americans who do believe that they are being blamed and therefore made to pay for.
Look at the illegal immigrant argument, for example.
There's no justification for this under the sun.
We have people breaking the law coming into this country by the millions.
And now unaccompanied children as well.
There's nothing good that can come of this for them.
And yet they're told that if they oppose it, what are they?
They're racists and they're bigots, and they're not.
They are also told that they'd better get behind this because the party that they choose, the party they support, the Republican Party, doesn't have a future unless they get behind this particular policy.
Illegal immigration, amnesty, whatever you want to call it.
But it doesn't make sense to them.
It doesn't make any common sense whatsoever.
How in the world is bringing in seven million poor people, 12 million poor people who cannot speak English, and are not pushed to learn and are not pushed to a culture rate and become a how in the world is that benefit.
And then you look turn back and you see that they end up being blamed for opposing this.
And what are they called?
They're called racists, they're called bigots, they're called all kinds of names, and they end up being blamed for this.
But the real key is how they see it.
They see the government that they elected picking somebody other than them to benefit from government.
They pay their taxes, these people don't.
They play by the rules, these illegal laborers.
This is one example.
There are other countless other examples besides illegal immigration, but it's one that's easy to understand.
So the government says, you know, we have been racist in our past.
The Democrats say this.
We have been uh we've been unfair.
We we have been mean to various minority groups, and it's time that we paid them back.
It's time that we paid for our discrimination.
And how are we doing it?
We're paying for the discrimination by penalizing the American middle class.
The American middle class is being told look, the country is engaged in behavior in the past that was not our best.
It did not represent our values.
How many times do they have to hear that from Obama?
And he's talking about them, and they know it.
And their own party, the Republican Party, doesn't seem to see what's going on.
The people they vote for join in this chorus of criticism and blame.
It's almost like Washington has decided that America has committed great evils in its past.
And it's time to pay for that.
It's time to correct that.
And who's going to pay for it?
The middle class.
We're going to take what normally would be a standard, ordinary, everyday benefit of being an American, and we're going to take it away from you.
We're going to transfer it to these illegals because we have to show the world what our values are.
We have to show the world that we're open, that we're accepting that we're not racist and all that.
It's looked at as its bare essence.
Unfairness.
And while this happens, the economy continues to head south.
Opportunity continues to evaporate.
Everything they thought would happen is happening.
And there's no acknowledgement of it or no recognition for it.
All there is continued assertions by the elected political class that we need even more of this.
Anyway, a brief.
I don't think people supporting Trump...
I think they actually want this stuff stopped, folks.
I don't think it's just about going out punishing people.
But anyway.
Take a break.
We'll get back to your phone calls when we get back.
Look, there's one other fundamental aspect of this that I should mention, and it isn't self-interest.
It isn't rooted in self-interest.
I'm talking about the people I've just described.
In addition to seeing their own economic future wiped out by any number of Obama policies, by expanding federal debt, by Obamacare, by this.
I mean, it there's no question, folks, that these people, we all do.
There's something else happening.
That the people in Washington, I don't care, Republican, Democrat, Consultant, K Street lobbyists, they don't even, this doesn't even register with them.
The people I'm talking about, and the people at John Pedorts tried to uh analyze here, they see America as founded, under assault, and changing, transforming right before their very eyes, to the point where the Constitution has become an impediment to people who are supposed to be defending it.
They are scared to death.
That the greatest country in the history of humanity is about to fall.
Slowly but surely, and it's going to reach a point where capturing it, recapturing it, and reconstituting it's going to be a major, major undertaking.
And that is not self-interest.
That's not selfish.
It's not about personal income or any of that.
And that's just as real.
And the people in Washington will laugh at you if you tell them that.
Hobbit Line Friday.
El Rushbow having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
So A friend of mine has a saying, it's time they held their nose for a change.
How many years have you had to hold your nose?
They've told hold you know, look, you've got to accept our nominee.
You have to accept our position on the budget.
You have to accept this.
We'll deal with this later when we win the House.
And we'll deal with this later when we win the Senate.
You must hold your nose and accept the nominee.
You must hold your nose and support this candidate.
And I'm telling you, I it's not just Trump people, cruise people the same way.
They want their country back.
Now that even that phrase, and the left will take that phrase and try to run with it and say that you're promoting riots or what have you.
But there clearly is a battle going on for the heart and soul of this country.
What kind of country it's going to be.
The Democrat Party has gone all in, radical left, has gone all in on the idea that America was founded in morally, unjustly, unfairly.
That it was a rigged game from the beginning for a select few.
And the select few have had descendants and the descendants over the course of the history of the country has made sure the game is remained rigged for them.
And they are out there doing what I mean.
Pedoritz, I think, perfectly described your average radical occupy Wall Street protester, your average radical leftist Obama voter, your average radical leftist feminist.
Black lives matter, that's exactly who he described.
But he thought he was describing Trump supporters.
This I think is also emblematic and representative of this great disconnect.
But I'm telling you, the one thing that illustrates it in more days you tell, like I said, these people in Washington that the country's in crisis, we've got $19 trillion in debt, the Democrat Party is trying to transform, they'll laugh at you.
Crisis.
Come on, you're over-dramatized.
We don't have a crisis, and they really don't.
They're doing fine, folks.
They do fine no matter who wins the White House.
Don't you see?
Economically, professionally, they do fine.
No matter who wins.
They might do marginally better when their party wins, but they're doing fine.
Have you checked the unemployment rate in D.C.?
Have you seen what have become the five wealthiest counties in the country?
Three or four of them surround Washington, D.C. And there's nothing to recommend living there in the wintertime, I'll guarantee them to you.
So why is it happening?
3% unemployment per capita income dwarfs whatever it is nationally.
You tell those people there's a crisis in a country, they don't see it.
They think if you think there is, that you're a little kooky.
Fruit cake, nutcase, what have you.
Here's uh here's Tony in Leesburg, Florida, as we head back to the phones on open line Friday.
Hi, great to have you here.
Hi, Rush.
Well, a pleasure.
Thanks for taking my call.
You bet, sir.
So I'm calling as somebody Who voted for Ted Cruz in the primary, but I'm I'm calling to say to Ted Cruz or the Cruz supporters or the whole anti-Trump movement to stop bashing Trump that it's not it's not helping their case and and I think I can explain why people are gravitating toward Trump so much.
Well, have at it.
I didn't think there was anything left to be said about that.
But if you if you've got something new, have at it.
Well, I just think it's as simple as saying that that Trump more than anybody is saying what people think and what they what they care about more and louder than anybody else.
And if if Trump or if if Ted Cruz or anybody else wants to win, they need to stop worrying about Trump and they need to start worrying about the issues that are important to people and start being as clear and as loud as Trump is about things.
Okay, well, let's look at some of the opposition of Trump uh and try to figure this out.
As you know, there was a a group yesterday of uh conservative leaders.
And the purpose of which was to maybe see if there's anybody they can support as a third party, because they just no matter what, they will not vote for Trump.
It would be a betrayal of everything they've ever believed in.
It would be a betrayal of conservative principles, it would be a betrayal of their belief in the country, it'd be a betrayal of everything they've devoted their life, so they can't and won't vote for Trump no matter what.
And they're gonna try to find somebody third party.
Now we all know what happens if there's a third party candidate on the right.
We know what happens.
Right.
The Democrat candidate wins.
Yet they are doing it because to them it's a matter of honor and it's a matter of principle.
Then you have the two stories here that are somewhat conflicting, but you've got Paul Ryan says, No, no, no, we'll get behind Trump if it comes to that a hundred percent.
And then the very next story is about how they're gonna try to take it away from Trump at a contested convention.
So what do you think is really going on here?
Is honor and principle triumphing over everything?
That's what we are being told is happening.
That the opposition of Trump is principled and it's based on based in honor.
Uh and that must trump everything, no pun intended.
Well, people don't don't trust that Trump is actually going to do the things he says.
I think that's why you have this resistance against him.
I as a as a crew supporter, I I've watched a lot of stuff on Trump, and I I don't feel great about it.
You know, I would hope that he does the things that he says he would.
But I think it's worlds apart how much better he would be than Hillary Clinton.
You think Trump would be better than Hillary is what you said.
By by by worlds apart, yeah.
Absolutely.
But you are a you're you're a Cruz supporter, but you think if Cruz wants to win, um people need to stop bashing Trump and talk about issues that reach people and affect people.
That's basically your point.
Yeah, if if uh if they want to actually get people to get on board with Cruz, then he needs to be as loud as Trump is so that they know what he stands for, and not just as an anti-Trump candidate, but as somebody who stands for something substantial.
You know, talk about the IRS, for instance, and how he wants to get rid of that.
Wait a minute.
No, no, no.
Oh, hold it a minute.
Trump or sorry, Cruz says that in every speech.
In every speech, Cruz says he's going to repeal every word of Obamacare on day one.
At noon on day one, he's going to abolish the IRS.
Every speech, every speech after every during uh post-election night, uh campaign appearances, he makes it clear issue after issue after issue what he's gonna do.
And yet you just said he needs to say those things.
So uh he's saying them.
Uh he's made it abundantly clear.
I mean, people that are paying attention know exactly what Ted Cruz stands for.
They know exactly what he's going to do.
He's not hiding it in any way, shape, manner, or form.
He's not hiding his conservatism.
He's not hiding his devotion to God.
He's not hiding his uh morality.
He's not he's he is he's shouting it from the rooftops.
He's making it abundantly clear to anybody who's listening who he is, what he believes in, what he stands for, what he wants to do, how he sees the country.
Okay.
We're where we are.
I mean, it's it's it's not, it's not that that if if I had to say anything, I uh Cruz has been throughout this campaign.
The drive-by media and the Republican establishment have been treating Ted Cruz like he's not even there.
Been focusing on Jeb.
Now we focus on obviously Trump, but I mean after that, then we focus on Kasich now.
Kasich, I just won one state.
It's amazing, isn't it?
After Tuesday night, after super duper Tuesday, whatever, the guy who won one state and shot a confetti gun at his head is getting all the coverage this week outside of Trump.
The guy's won one state, a hundred plus delegates.
All the attention's focused on him and what he means.
And that's very so.
Look at this debate.
Fox News wanted to have a debate.
I guess it was next week.
And Trump said, nope, I've had it with debates.
They can't ask us anything, they haven't already asked us.
We don't have any answers.
We haven't already given them.
It's a waste of time.
I'm not doing any more debates.
Now, if Kasich was really in this to win it, you know what he would have done?
Shown up for the debate.
It'd have been him and Cruz.
If Kasich is really about winning this thing, do the debate.
He's never going to get any more focused national attention than he would get debating Cruz.
But he bumped out as soon as Trump did.
Why?
Well, it's patently obvious.
It's one of two things.
Kasich does not want to be caught saying anything negative about Trump because he wants to be part of what Trump is going to end up doing if Trump's the nominee.
Or it's even worse.
He actually might think he's got a chance to win a contested convention.
And my my guess would be it's a toss-up between those two, but don't discount the fact that the confetti guy thinks that he can go in there at a contestant convention to win this thing.
And folks, before you just throw that away as insanity, go take a look at what establishment Republicans, some leading consultants, and others are saying.
And you will be mind-boggled.
They're talking about this guy, governor of Ohio could deliver Ohio in a presidential race.
They're treating this guy who's won one state with more importance, more reverence, more respect than Ted Cruz has gotten throughout this entire campaign.
I mean, going back to last August through the fall and through the winter, whenever anything is going on in the Republican presidential campaign, it's almost like Cruz is not there.
Totally understandable, too.
Of all of these candidates running, the one guy they really don't want is Ted Cruz.
I'm talking about establishment Republicans and others.
They don't want to be part of Ted Cruz because they fear him.
They feared that would mean a total reworking of the Republican Party.
So they run around comparing him to Goldwater, and they run around comparing there's some Jesus freak or you know, whatever whatever the criticisms there are.
They believe they could work with Trump because they think Trump's malleable.
They've even had establishment types who have said so.
But when it comes to Cruz, so Cruz's task has been to get noticed.
Cruz's task has been to shout louder, Whatever he has to do to overcome that, because he knows as well.
You can't go out and cry unfairly.
Look at Kasich did that.
He's during the early debates when nobody would call on him.
Hey, I'm the guy here, and Carson, too.
And people laughed at it and thought it was childish.
Same thing would happen to Cruz if he went and complained about it, and he knows about it.
So he's got to come up with this basically what our first caller here was saying.
Anyway, I get to take a break here, folks.
Once again, a little bit long, next segment, just marginally shorter, and I'm just telling you that so you understand.
Back after this.
Here's another question I have.
So you have this group of conservatives that had the big powwow yesterday about finding a third party candidate because they're at a sense of honor and duty and loyalty to conservatism, and Trump is not conservative, and we never vote for Trump, no matter what we do, never ever gonna vote for Trump.
So they want to vote for somebody, so they're looking for maybe third party candidates.
Somebody they think, okay.
Then you got Paul Ryan, the rest of the Republican establishment trying to keep Trump from getting it.
Can I ask a simple question?
Why is the third party group not joining Cruz?
Well, something I don't understand.
Maybe I'm missing something.
Maybe, maybe I have I'm not fully up to speed on what they're doing, and maybe they have.
Maybe Cruz is in there.
I don't know.
But when I hear third party, what I hear is they don't like current options.
You've got Cruz is running second behind Trump.
The current thinking is that neither can get to 1237, but if one can, it's Trump.
So we've got to stop that.
You've got the Republican establishment gang talking about a contested convention so that they don't have to do Trump.
If it's not Cruz, who the hell are you gonna do?
You're gonna throw one of your establishment buddies in there?
Or you gonna try to engineer so Casey can be the nominee?
I mean, clearly that's what he's angling for.
I don't think there's much doubt about that.
Why not Cruz?
Well, I know I've already answered it.
I'm trying to by asking the question, I'm making its own point here.
So essentially the establishment is saying that neither of the top two vote getters via the democratic process in the Republican primary are suitable.
Do I have that right?
Neither of them are suitable.
And the third party group seems to be saying the same thing, unless I'm missing something.
Why would you go for a third party guy instead of getting behind the cruise effort?
Am I missing something?
Seriously, I haven't studied him.
You look at that Washington Post piece.
You know, you've the Washington Post piece that we talked about yesterday is this sheer panic Washington Post piece, which said to defend our democracy.
The GOP must aim for a brokered convention.
Well, I know they're not thinking of Ted Cruz either.
They hate Ted Cruz.
But did you notice what followed?
As a moral question, it is straightforward.
The mission of any responsible Republican should be to block a Trump nomination and election.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a second.
Do you understand what they're saying here?
Washington Post.
Let's reverse the order.
As a moral question, it is straightforward, they wrote.
The mission of any responsible Republican should be to block a Trump nomination and election.
The headline of that editorial to defend our democracy.
The GOP must aim for a brokered convention.
Excuse me, folks, but it's democracy that has gotten us.
Trump number one, Cruz number two.
So the Washington Post is actually saying that in order for the GOP to ensure a democratic America, it must block the democratic results of the Republican primary.
I'm telling you, these people are being driven insane by this campaign.
We'll be back in a second.
Did I read that right?
That that some uh some baby news busted, whatever that is, says that Ben Carson has just been named the dean of the Trump University Medical School.
I just read that.
We'll be back.
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