Well, I don't expect it to mollify very many of you, but I'm going to tell you anyway.
The TV ratings are in.
The last night of the Republican Convention featuring Donald Trump had many more viewers than last night with Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea.
But then Sarah Palin had a bigger night than both of them when she spoke at the Republican Convention.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's open line Friday.
Yip, yip, yip, yip.
Yahoo, Open Line Friday.
It's the last hour of the busy broadcast week here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Televote number if you want to be on the program 800-282-2882 and the email address LRushbo at eibnet.com Hey, here's the Jake Tapper soundbite that I told you about.
This is last night on CNN's America's Choice 2016 program.
No, no, I'm not making it up.
The numbers are in.
Now, these are overnights, and they'll be added to as the hinterlands weigh in.
But Donald Trump and the RNC had higher ratings on their last night of the convention than last night Hillary and Chelsea had in total viewers.
I mean, you're looking for reasons to feel upbeat and positive.
There you go.
Now, I realize some of you could say, yeah, well, that's the last thing.
The fewer people see Trump, the better off we are.
I know some of you are out there.
Well, snerdly, no, you know they are.
In fact, Jake Tapper's going to talk about him right here.
That's what the soundbite's all about.
Jake Tapper, and he's talking about what surprises him.
He's speaking with the political correspondent, Danabash, about conservative reaction to Hillary's speech.
One reaction that I'm noticing online is conservatives who really liked it.
Jonah Goldberg, he wrote, why this convention is better.
It's about loving America.
The Republican Convention was about loving Trump.
And then I got a private message from a conservative who shall remain nameless who said, I agree with 0% of Hillary's policies, but I strongly believe that she is more right about what America is as a country, or at least ought to be.
These are people who I have never heard say anything nice about Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton, and they are just identifying more with the America presented by the Democrats.
And I just, I'm stunned.
Just to add to that, Rich Galen, who worked for Newt Gingrich, tweeted that he said he was sitting in his kitchen crying watching the speeches here.
And he said, what happened to my GOP?
Okay.
So what do you make of that, folks?
You want me to run through this again here?
I'm not going to play the bite.
I'll just tell you what he said.
So Jake Tapper at CNN, he says that he was scouring conservative sites for conservative reaction to Hillary's speech.
And he found Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online, who wrote why this convention is better.
It's about loving America.
The Republican Convention was about loving Trump.
Is that right?
Was your take on the Republican convention that it was an ode to Donald Trump?
Was the structure of the convention, was the purpose of the convention, was the design of the convention, was the execution of the convention to get people to love Donald Trump?
Was the Republican Convention designed so as to not even talk about America, that America was not even a factor, that it was all about loving a personality?
Well, that's what Tapper says that Goldberg wrote, that the Republican Convention was about loving Trump.
The Democrats was about loving America.
The Democrats, the whole NRO has had to dust up with Trump, but the Democrat Convention doesn't, the Democrats don't love America.
What the hell is this?
The whole reason deterrent of the Democrat Party is that America is flawed, that America is unfair, that America is unjust, that America is immoral, that America is unkind, that America was a mistake as founded.
That's the entire premise of the Democrat Party.
Okay, so they do one night where they wave the flag and they go through the motions about patriotism.
And we're supposed to cast aside everything we know about them and think that they have in one night become the biggest patriots in the country.
Daniel Greenfield writing at Front Page Magazine.
That's David.
Why am I having metal blocks on names today?
He does the Restoration Weekend here every November.
Horowitz.
Yeah, Daniel Greenfield, right?
Here's the headline to the piece.
Welcome to the Communist Party, USA.
How Hillary's scary speech revealed her mistake in wearing a white pantsuit to her coronation.
Let me give you some pull quotes.
Now, this is a conservative, just like Jonah Goldberg is, but his take is it wasn't a convention.
It was a series of character witnesses for a woman with no character.
It was an extensive apology for the left's radical agenda cloaked in fake patriotism and celebrity adulation.
Okay, but so, but we do have, we have conservatives out there.
I think it's because they just can't stand Trump.
I mean, there's a whole lot of reasons for this.
Well, yeah, I know we respond to appeals to patriotism, but the point of learned opinion and commentary writers are supposed to not fall for these tricks and make it look legit.
The Democrats, that was a show last night.
That's not who they are.
And you're not going to, you may see them waving flags for the next week or so to carry forth here.
They may think they've stumbled on a theme that Trump is dark and dystopian.
They're the dystopians for crying out loud.
Anyway, another pull quote from Daniel Greenberg.
The audience was told incessantly that Hillary Clinton loves small children.
One time would have been enough.
Twice would have been enough.
By the millionth repetition, it seems more like Hillary's the witch trying to lure children into her gingerbread house.
Look, I've got what has she done for children?
She kept talking.
Her daughter talked about what has she done for children.
With all the Democrats and all of their self-praise, their never-ending list of accomplishments, we ought to have this utopia by now.
And we don't, by their own admission, we don't.
Another pool quote from Daniel Greenfield.
The radical agenda of the left was clumsily cloaked in references to the founding fathers.
The same group of people whose names the left want to see ground into the dirt.
Hillary's call for collectivism, the insistence that none of us can do anything as individuals, was dressed up in E pluribus unum and the founding fathers.
And that is exactly right.
And I made that point earlier today.
Hillary Clinton praising the founding fathers.
This party, 364 days out of every 365, is trashing the founding fathers.
There were racists.
They were rich white people, slave owners.
And it's in the textbooks now that they use to teach our kids.
Another pool quote.
This speech was a speech that could have been given in Moscow during the Cold War.
Instead, it was delivered to an enthusiastic audience of Democrats who love the idea of taking away someone else's money beneath all the distractions, the celebrities and family stories, is the fundamental idea that Hillary has more of a right to your money than you do because she is humbly more enlightened than you are.
And there's a name for that ideology.
It comes with a hammer and sickle with the color red, with gulags and firing squads, with little red books and big black prisons, and the death of the human soul.
Hillary made a mistake wearing a white pantsuit.
She should have worn red.
That's Daniel Greenberg at Front Page Magazine.
That's his review.
But over here, Jake Tapper says that he read Jonah Goldberg say the Democrat Convention is better.
It's about loving America.
The Republican convention was about loving Trump.
Then Goldberg says that he got a private message from a conservative who wanted to remain anonymous who told him, quote, I agree with 0% of Hillary's policies, but I strongly believe that she is more right about what America is as a country, or at least ought to be, than Trump.
Jake Tapper then said, these are people who I have never heard say anything nice about Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton, and they're just identifying more with America presented by the Democrats.
And I'm just stunned in one night.
I think I know exactly what's going on.
This kind of reaction in one night of a phony night.
And I know they would say, phony or not, Rush, they pulled it off.
They came across, they're the ones waving the flag, and they're the ones singing USA, USA.
Never mind the fact that earlier in the week, and this was tweeted by Shannon Bream of Fox News.
I mentioned this in the first round.
I want to repeat it again.
Whenever somebody started chanting USA, USA, various people in the Democrat Convention told them to shut up, that that's a Trump slogan.
We can't say that.
That's Trump slogan.
So they would say, well, Rush, they may be phonies, but they made it look like they love America more than Trump did.
That's their story, and they're going to stick with it.
And finally, it was Dana Bash who said that she saw a tweet from Rich Galen, who used to work for Newt.
And he tweeted that he was sitting in his kitchen crying, watching the speeches at the Democrat convention, asking, what happened to my GOP?
So, now let's go to Kimberly Strassel at the Wall Street Journal.
Hillary's one candidate race.
Her theory is that Hillary is really running against herself.
And she seeks to explain.
Let me give you a couple of pull quotes here.
This November is about whether Americans can look at 40 years of Clinton chicanery and nearly a decade of broken Obama promises and still pull the lever for her.
There's a subheadline.
The subline, the main headline is Hillary's one candidate race.
The subhead is, she'll try to disqualify Trump because she loses if the election is a referendum on her.
Now, that subhead, she'll try to disqualify Trump because she loses if the election's about a referendum on her, or if the election is a referendum on her.
It tells you why all the faux hysteria and made-up media outrage over Trump's comment about Putin and the emails expect a lot more of this.
Speaking of which, here we have, to show you again this divided country.
We're really two different countries here.
Just to illustrate it again, not that you need it, but I want to.
So on the one hand, here we have Hillary Clinton, who has committed crimes as detailed by the director of the FBI.
He spelled them out.
She trafficked and classified documents.
She had an illegal server, said everything about it that was illegal, we were told.
Just can't indict, though, because we couldn't find that she knew what she was doing and the intent to do it.
Intent, the intent was there by just putting up that server, by setting it up.
But anyway, then we got Trump, who is using satire and parody with his comment.
Hey, hey, if message the Russians, if you Russians, if you find Hillary's the 30,000 emails, maybe you could let our media know.
It's an obviously satirical joke to make a point, but however, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill told Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Washington, that she believes Donald Trump may have violated U.S. law and should be investigated for what he said.
Claire McCaskill told Andrea Mitchell, it's very clear to me that Donald Trump is unfit and frankly is dangerous.
I believe there's a chance he violated the law with what he said, inviting a cyber attack of Russia, cyber attack, a dictator who has violated all of our principles of liberty and freedom in Russia.
The notion he would invite a foreign nation to conduct an attack against our country, just beyond the pale.
And I believe it violates the Logan Act, and I think he should be investigated for that.
Words.
Words.
Trump did not suggest a hack.
He didn't invite a hack.
He just said, hey, if you, because the server's gone, folks, there's nothing to find.
Somebody either has them or they're gone.
And probably somebody has them.
Some hacker probably already has them, which Trump knows.
So he said, hey, maybe the Russians could find these things.
Hey, if you Russians find these emails, because we've exhausted everything in our country, we've exhausted all attempts to find them.
Maybe you Russians can find them.
There was so many things Trump was saying in that little loaded comment.
He was ridiculing law enforcement.
He's ridiculing the investigative powers of the press.
He was ridiculing a lot of things.
Hey, maybe you Russians can find those emails and tell our media about it.
And now here's Democrat Claire McCass.
She wants to prosecute Hillary.
She doesn't want to.
No, no, no, no, no.
Hillary didn't mean to do anything.
Hillary had no intent, but Trump, we're going to put him in jail for what he said.
Oops.
Saw the clock.
Got to take a break.
Be right back.
Folks, by the way, you aren't the only ones out there who are depressed and worried and a little pessimistic.
From thehill.com, Democrat anxiety hangs over Clinton.
You wouldn't think if you watched CNN, NBC, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, New York Times, you wouldn't think any of this.
You would think, my God, we've already got utopia.
Utopia happened last night.
It's over.
We won.
And the donuts is so great.
Hillary didn't blow it.
Oh, my God.
She didn't, she didn't go into a coughing spasm.
She didn't collapse.
She didn't.
Oh, who was.
They're celebrating prematurely.
Because here at thehill.com, Alexander Bolton, Democrat anxiety hangs over Clinton.
The Democrats are worried about Hillary Clinton's inability to separate herself from Donald Trump in the polls, even after what they believe was a largely successful convention that represented a real step toward party unity.
I'm going to make you a prediction.
This patriotism, this USA, this flag flying stuff, I won't be surprised if it backfires to a certain extent on a certain percentage of that voting base.
If they keep it up, if it was a one-night one-off fine, if they keep this up, because I'm telling you, that party, they have conditioned, the Democrat Party has conditioned its base to suspect and distrust and not like this country.
And if the Democrats all of a sudden try to start telling everybody how much they love America and how patriotic they are, they run the risk of losing a lot of Bernie people.
They think they've got unity, but if they keep this up, and they may not have unified with them anyway.
But I'm telling you, this is more serious than you think.
And I'm basing this on my understanding of these people and what I know to be their genuine dislike of this country.
And in some cases, their genuine hatred for this country.
That's what their agenda is all about.
There's no way Black Lives Matter is ever going to start waving the American flag around.
And Hands Up, Don't Shoot, is not all of a sudden going to become red, white, and blue and America through and through.
It just isn't going to happen.
If Democrats try to pull that off, they better hope that every one of their charges understands the game and understands the joke and is able to fall in line with it.
Some of them are not going to be able to.
I frankly don't expect them to continue.
They've been maybe trying to get a maximum.
They were waving the flags at that rally they just had here with Kane and Hillary.
But if they try to go very much longer with this, I'm just telling you, they run the risk of this backfiring.
And here's a quote from the Hill.com story.
Democrat National Committee official requested anonymity, just like people contacting Jake Tamper.
I'm nervous.
The country's in a bad mood.
Such an unpredictable year.
And Hillary, so far they can't find a bump.
Now, it's early, but they can't find much of a bump.
And they thought, oh, you can imagine they thought it was going to be huge.
Her negatives are way up.
What's this?
What are we going to say?
Oh, we got a new batch, eh?
So new cookies just came in.
And I turned around here and I mysteriously found one sitting right in front of me.
Cool.
Okay, where was I?
Oh, I got an email question, Open Line Friday question.
Rush, I remember you saying, don't ever call liberals anything other than liberals.
That's who they are, and they invent all these other terms to deflect people and fool people, like progressive.
But you've always said, call them liberals, okay, right?
But now you're calling them progressives and why are you doing this?
It's a good question.
And the reason is I'm appealing to some of them.
They want to be called progressives, and I want them to hear what I'm saying when I'm trying to change their minds or persuade them.
So I address them in a term that they want to be called.
It's part of my outreach.
Nothing more.
I have not changed my mind that liberals are liberals.
It's just if somebody wants to be called Mr. Somebody instead of Fred, then I'll call them that.
That's what they want.
If I'm actually trying to have a productive, persuadable dialogue.
Is this a guy from yesterday?
Good.
This is Curtis.
Curtis is from Boca Raton.
We had him yesterday.
It was the last caller, and we didn't have enough time for him.
And he's a young African-American.
He went and saw straight out of Compton, and he's not comfortable with what he's seeing here regarding all the rhetoric about cop killing and so forth in, I think, rap music.
I think that's what it was he wanted to talk about.
And we didn't have time, so I asked him if we could call him back, and he said, yes, so here he is.
Curtis, thank you for letting us call you back.
In your own words, what was it you wanted to say yesterday?
Thank you for taking my call, Russ.
I really appreciate it.
It's honored to speak with you.
I got one main point, Rush.
As a culture, and I'm black.
I didn't grow up with African American, if you will.
I'm just a black guy.
As a culture of people, I think we need to examine one of the main credos of gangster rap music and its influence on the black community.
Like I said, I saw Straight Out of Compton the other night.
One of the scenes really touched me, and I'll be really quick.
The rappers had signed a deal with a manager.
They're sitting on the stoop out on the street and eating lunch just innocently.
Two cops came up, overtly racist, overtly abusive.
It was obvious.
They made him get face down on the ground.
Long story short, they got up after their manager's help, went back inside.
Ice Cube, who everybody knows is a main famous rapper, stared the guy down, stared the cops down.
The cops are just cursing them and degrading them.
Went inside and he penned one of their famous songs, NWA's famous songs, F the Police.
And in the scene, it was, you know, at that point of the movie, I didn't watch even the rest of it, but at that point of the movie, I was like, okay, he handled it as a man.
He took the high road.
He had an outlet, a creative, artistic outflow.
That's great.
But one of the things in this music or in this culture that is killing black people and inner city people is the fact or this credo of street cred.
Now, any rapper will tell you, any rapper worth their salt will tell you, I live what I do.
I'm real with this.
That's what I'm not just front.
When they have been questioned about it, and I remember all this, the group, NWA, I remember back in the early days of this show when we were examining the cop killing lyrics and so forth.
We had debates on this program about to what degree, if any, do lyrics like that in pop music influence cultural behavior.
And there were some people, come on, you can't say that because there's too much of it.
It would be constant anarchy if that stuff was that influential.
And it's not just that stuff.
I mean, you have all kinds of reprobate behavior in every movie you look at these days.
Well, the difference, Rush, excuse me, the difference that I see, and I've heard that argument, but I never saw Denzel going out and saying after a violent movie, that's how I roll.
I never saw Lawrence Fishburne or Don Cheetos get up and say, yeah, that's right, I keep it real.
We have this thing, and it perpetuates the poison that's in the minds of our young people.
And they're just like the poisoned minds of foregone generations who thought they walked up to somebody and say, hey, boy, hey, you black Negro.
And now it's the opposite.
Black kids can get away with walking up to people.
And I witnessed it as a kid.
I'm black and white.
I witnessed people walking up on the basketball court to white people saying, what a white boy.
Or you hear in the movies today, you know, people talking about what kind of white stuff is this?
It's a double standard.
It's the same evil, bitter, racist hate that's infecting our youth today.
And if we don't confront it culturally from within and from without, it's no worse, sorry, it's no better than racism coming from white lips or white people.
You know, you're poison rush.
Profoundly correct about this.
But let me ask you about it from the standpoint or the context of what I believe is a genuinely divided country.
I think there are two countries now.
And on the side that you were just talking about, if you have a genuine sit-down with them, you learn that with them it's a chicken or egg thing.
They will not deny that they have that attitude about the cops, but they will tell you that they didn't start it.
The cops' behavior of them is what started everything, particularly the cops' behavior toward innocent neighborhood blacks, and that that music is simply the result of the culture.
And the music is the art that expresses how they have been forced to live and what their life experiences are.
And so when you talk about solutions, you eventually get to, okay, well, where does the ultimate blame lie?
Because whoever is really responsible has to acknowledge it and either apologize, pledge not to do it anymore.
And with neither side admitting that they had anything to do with starting it, how does it get solved?
Well, I think it gets solved the same way the slavery got solved, the same way racism from white people got solved.
We confronted it.
We said, this isn't right how you're treating people.
This isn't right how you're raising your kids and teaching them and perpetuating this stuff.
We have to look at ourselves and say, look, there's a real choice.
Yeah, slavery was disgusting.
Yeah, some police are bad apples and they do abuse kids.
That's disgusting.
We need to stomp it and stomp it out.
But there's a real choice that's at hand, Rush.
Everybody has to make it.
One can just succumb to all this hate and lead one's life.
You know, the Palestinians do the same thing.
The Israelis do the same thing when they're imbued with hatred and taught to hate Arabs for no reason, Arabs taught to hate Jews for no reason.
We have to stop and make a choice.
We can succumb to all this hate and lead one's lives like a script of bitterness with low aspirations, no excuse, or too many excuses, or we can overcome, we can fight, we can claw, we can dig, we can prevent all this perpetuating hate.
That's the most intelligent answer to this I have ever heard in all the years that I've been talking about this.
Thank you, sir.
And as I listen to you say it, and I imagine it being implemented, that people actually try to do that, I'm thinking, you know, you naturally think, okay, what will some of the obstacles be?
And one of them is that for whatever else is going on, there are a lot of people who have gotten really rich.
I mean, really wealthy as a result of this art form, hip-hop, rap, whatever you call it.
And you're going to be asking some of them to basically throw away their vehicle to financial independence and wealth by asking them to get rid of that kind of lyric line in their art or in their music.
I don't know that it's necessary to get rid of it.
It is expressive, just like a mafia movie or an action movie.
But I would challenge them and those listening, anyone who perpetuates that stuff, I would challenge them this way, Rush.
If you really care about black people, about inner city people, about the ghetto, about the hood, if you really want solutions, then at least admit that though you might have slung rock in the past and been a dope dealer, been a bad boy in the past, that's fine.
But listen, kids, we can't continue this.
This is just entertainment.
Because the kids aren't hearing it, they emulate these guys because these guys portray the reality of it.
And you know what?
All the other charlatans who've gotten rich too, if they really care, let's get down to Chicago.
Let's hold arm in arms with the soldiers that are marching in the streets and helping, trying to help the community bridge the gap with gangs and all that stuff.
If these rich artists and rappers really care, which I believe some of them really do, then let's get back to the community in a real way instead of that inspires another question.
How many, and I guess we don't know, but how many of them really want a solution to it?
I can, you know, my understanding, fear, is that there are a lot of people, not rappers, but I'm talking about race business executives making a lot of money on the basis that this strife and conflict is never ending.
Because they keep the cycle of victim going.
Right.
So if some of these people don't want a solution, I'm sorry to keep throwing up obstacles to you, but the reason I am is because you're really, you've got brilliant answers here.
I'm imagining I'm not going to make this up you want to.
I'm not going to be able to white people, all people, Americans.
We need to stand up and say, listen, Jesse Jackson, listen, Al Sharpton.
Listen, race baiters, whoever you may be, of whatever political stripe you may be, I don't care if you're gaming the system and if you're perpetuating hate in our kids' hearts.
I don't care if you're a rapper, you're a politician, you're an action coalition, you're a street organizer, whatever you call yourself, if you're perpetuating this in our children's hearts, stop.
Because if you don't stop, it's just showing them that they can be bitter.
They can be bigots.
They can call people white boys.
They can be racist.
And because they're black, and enough of this stuff to rush with the, you know, I'm not, black people can't be racist.
That's baloney.
And they say they can't be racist because they have no power.
So how can little Johnny Whiteboy be a racist if he has no power?
It's a sham rush.
And I'm tired of it.
I'm sick of it.
It pains my heart for black people, for America.
It does mine, too.
Really struggling.
It pains most.
Nobody wants an America like, oh, well, I say, no, most people, it pains their hearts.
It certainly does mine.
Every one of those cop shootings, everyone, the whole Ferguson thing, the fact that it happened the way it went down, nobody wants this.
And it seems so senseless.
Anyway, can you hang on to the break?
I've got to take a break.
There's one other question I have for you.
Yes, sir.
Okay, good.
This is Curtis.
You see why, when we only had a couple minutes yesterday, my instinct said there's not enough time.
So he let us call him back today.
We'll continue here in just a second.
Back to Curtis in Boca Raton.
I wanted to ask you a personal question.
What do you do?
And you don't have to answer it if you don't want to.
I'm a manager at a financial services company.
And have you, you've thought about this, obviously, extensively.
Have you any aspirations to do anything to actually help implement some of this?
You have political aspirations.
Absolutely.
Between the J job and just making a living.
I just got married about eight weeks ago.
Absolutely, less.
Congratulations, by the way.
Thank you, sir.
Happy to hear that for you.
Well, we wish you the best here, and I really, it's fortuitous that you got through here yesterday.
It's fortuitous that you let us have your phone number to call you back when we didn't have time.
Because, Curtis, I'm telling you, honestly, you had some of the most insightful and intelligent answers to this that I have ever heard.
Primarily and spectacularly, your answer when I asked how do you deal with the fact that some of these people, they're reality and a chicken and egg thing.
Hey, look, who started it?
There is a definite somebody to blame.
And if they won't blame, your answer was we just have to face it head on like we face slavery.
And anyway, it was interesting because it highlights all the obstacles that are in the way.
And one of the obstacles is personal wealth.
There are a lot of people.
It's not a criticism.
It's an observation.
It's kind of important.
There are a lot of people who have gotten incredibly wealthy with these lyrics and that art form.
And there are other people getting incredibly wealthy, claiming to have some sort of solution to this strife, but in truth don't want any solutions because the strife and the conflict is how they have become known.
So it's, but it is ripping the country apart.
It's also, by the way, Curtis, it also has political sponsorship.
That's another, we didn't even get into that aspect of it.
But when you ask who benefits from all this, there are certain people in a certain political party who've made sure they benefit from it.
But I hope that people with ideas like yours ultimately prevail.
We'll be right back here, folks, and wrap it up.
CNN is denying they were having a party because Hillary's speech and the success they think of the Democratic Convention.
Wolf Glitzer and his glass of wine.
And no, no, no, just it was a really stressful two weeks and they were all just unwinding there in the CNN grill.