WEBVTT - Part Two: The Rush Limbaugh Episodes with Paul F. Tompkins 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:06.960 M broadcasting from his studio in I don't know, some 0:00:07.040 --> 0:00:10.040 fucking place with one liver tight behind his back to 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:12.920 make it fair for all of the narcotics in his system. 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:18.640 Robert Evans, you don't know, you don't like me, You 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.160 don't you don't like my my pseudo Russian intro stuffing. 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.560 Not on board, not not a fan of that introduction. Um, 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:29.120 this is behind the bastards. This is behind the Bastards. 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:31.560 A podcast that will never be as big as The 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:36.360 Russia Limbaugh Show because Sophie won't let me use cultic 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:40.560 mind control techniques on our audience. Um, that is inaccurate. 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:46.279 Feel free. Okay, well we're back. The man you just 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:50.920 heard is Paul F. Tompkins, our guest for this exploration 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:56.160 of the life and times of Rush Limbaugh. Everyone, Hey, Paul, 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:57.920 how are you feeling? How are you? How are you doing? 0:00:57.960 --> 0:00:59.960 An hour and a half into talking about l Rush 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:05.280 Bow Feeling great? Feeling great, feeling. I feel energized that 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.880 he is dead. Yeah, I I too feel happy that 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.880 he's dead. It's fun. It hasn't worn off yet, it 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.160 has it never will. It will always be good that 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:18.040 he's dead. There's a few people who are like that 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:19.959 where it's like every now and then, I'm just like, 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.600 think back to the fact that Ryan hard Hydrick is dead, 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.679 and it's like good, good for him, you know, good 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:30.560 for him. So, once upon a time, Paul, the United 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.680 States used to have a thing called the fairness Doctrine. Now, 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:38.520 in short, the fairness doctrine required anyone with a broadcast 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.960 license to present controversial issues in a balanced way, providing 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:45.639 roughly equivalent time to present both sides of an issue. 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:48.680 And then this was obviously a flawed rule. Some issues, 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.720 for example, like climate change don't have two sides, right, 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:54.120 there may be different sides, but like what the right responses, 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:57.120 but there's not two sides to the reality of climate change. Um, 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.920 and while the but while the you know, the fairness starts. 0:01:59.920 --> 0:02:02.000 So the Fahren's doctrine not a not a perfect not 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:04.880 a silver bullet, uh sort of of of thing of 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.600 a jig. But while it was in place, right wing 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.440 media in the form that we have today did not 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.520 and could not exist now since the dawn of the 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.280 fake news era which we're in now, a lot of 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:21.280 folks have talked about the time of guys like Walter Cronkite, right, 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.480 When when you had newsmen who basically every American trusted, 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.000 who could shift massive national issues just based on their 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:32.680 considered opinion. Right Cronkite calls Vietnam a quagmire, Suddenly national 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:35.920 opinion on its switches. Um. And a big part of 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:38.640 why these guys were trusted is they were required to 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.280 lend equal weight to both sides. They couldn't just be 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:43.880 partisan shills. Now, this generally meant that they would give 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.880 kind of the conservative opinion and the liberal opinion as 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:49.800 opposed to the far left of the far right. But 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.000 it did mean that you you you didn't have something 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.360 as unbalanced as Fox News right right. It's like the 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:56.920 voter guide you get, yeah, exactly. It gives you the 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.360 measured and says some people say this, say this yeah. 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.160 And as flawed as the fairness doctrine was, it was 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:07.040 part of why most Americans lived in a semi unified 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:11.919 media ecosystem back in up prior to nineteen eighties seven. Now, 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.320 obviously this did not last. In nineteen eight seven, the FCC, 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:17.800 as the result of a court case, the FCC rejected 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.920 the fairness doctrine. Conservatives cheered this on because fair media 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.639 was seen by arch conservatives guys like Roger Stone as 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:29.280 a big reason why Americans had broadly supported the impeachment 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.079 of Richard Nixon at the end of the Watergate investigation. 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.840 Watergate is one of these situations where when the investigation starts, 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:38.960 the vast majority of conservatives are against it. Right, don't 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.920 think Nixon did anything wrong. The evidence comes out in 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.720 opinion shifts, and it becomes very popular to get Nixon 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:49.280 out of office. Um, this is the last time that happens. Right, 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.280 This is the last time that like people's minds get 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.680 changed by the facts on a political issue in America. Um. 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.240 And it's the last time this happens. Because the right 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.000 goes after the fairness doctor, and after about a decade 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:04.040 or so of fighting, they're able to get it killed. Um. 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.560 And the end of the fairness doctrine was the necessary 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:10.040 precursor to the creation of a holy, separate, walled garden 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.280 of right wing content, which was seen by dudes like 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.920 Roger Ales as a necessary step to protecting right wing 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.760 voters from ever learning about other opinions, which would, they 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:25.799 believed protect the next criminal, white right wing president from impeachment. Now, 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.000 after Limbaugh's death, the new York Times let Ben Shapiro, 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:33.039 noted novelist, write a column about his professional idol. Benny 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.080 Shapps called the fairness doctrine quote, a standard that in 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:40.360 practice allowed for the domination of broadcast media by liberals, 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:48.480 with sporadic commentary by conservatives. Us of an imitation, It's 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:54.400 it's so rush. Limball was aware from the beginning that 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.599 his whole career hinged on the fairness doctrines. Death with 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.200 his and like he starts being national voice in nineteen 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.360 eighty nine, two years after the end of the fairness doctrine. 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:07.360 That's not a coincidence. Now, with his unparalleled national platform 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:09.520 and his status as a chief thought leader of the 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.159 American right, Limbaugh went about turning the fairness doctrine into 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.520 his main boogeyman. I found a Vanity Fair article from 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.240 two thousand nine that lays this out quite well. Quote. 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.359 The single most important issue in Russia's radio career is 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.359 now among the hot button issues and conservative politics. The 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.880 fairness doctrine a formalized, fair and balanced rule for covering 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.920 the controversial issues on the nation's airwaves, which the Reagan 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.359 FCC killed in nineteen seven. The most liberal wing of 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.320 the Democratic Party, which puts substantial blame on talk radio 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.640 for a generation of conservative dominance in Washington, wants to 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.119 revive the doctrine, which would pretty handily destroy conservative talk. 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.400 According to the official Seapack polling of its members, restoring 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:52.320 the Fairest Fairness Doctrine is the third most significant Democratic 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.960 Congress policy initiative opposed by the right wing raking, only 0:05:56.000 --> 0:06:01.200 behind expanding government in public healthcare. So yeah, there is 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.680 with Russia's orchestration, a rapidness to the cause. Opposing the 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:08.400 Fairness Doctrine is up there with opposing abortion. And he's 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.320 you know, he's it's really him that's responsible for making 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:15.120 this such a popular issue. It starts off as a 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.279 thing that kind of high up extreme right wingers, guys 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:22.160 who had been Nixon's right hand men push because they 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.200 want to protect the next guy like Nixon. And it 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:29.000 gets popular though because of Rush Limbaugh, because he sells 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.800 it to the American conservative mainstream. It's funny, like the 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:37.400 sorry but the idea that like with the Nixon era 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:43.040 after Watergate, Nixon, when Nixon resigns, that is maybe the 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:48.599 last time that there were real consequences for any for 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:52.200 the for the highest office. Where after that, you know, 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:56.880 Clintons impeachment, Trump's impeachment, whatever, it doesn't mean anything. It's 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:01.240 it really is just like an asterisk in history, you know, 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.159 essentially of saying like, just so you know, people, some 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.200 people thought this was bad, and uh they and they 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.720 said so officially, but there's no real consequence for any 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:15.040 of this. So really what they're doing is saying, we 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:19.280 cannot Nixon should not have had a consequence. We got 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.280 to make sure that there's never a consequence ever again. 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:27.200 And unfortunately that meant for everybody for like for I 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:31.280 don't know what if because if it didn't happen, if 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.880 it didn't happen after Bush, which there was not even 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:37.280 an impeachment for Bush, like for the Iraq war that 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:41.960 that we all know now was bogus. If there was 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.560 never gonna be a consequence for that, then it worked 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.680 and there there and and from now on, Like when 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:51.880 is it ever going to happen again? When if it 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.000 didn't happen, then when is it ever going to happen again? Yeah? 0:07:55.080 --> 0:08:01.080 I don't think it can because this propaganda eca system 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.920 turns out people who would fight to the death rather 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.119 than have somebody who on paper, is supposed to agree 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:11.960 with them face consequences for blatantly criminal activity, right, and 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.840 then and then it also it conditions whether whether you believe, 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.600 whether you believe in whether you're you're on Russia's side 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:20.760 or not, whether you're on that side of things or not. 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:25.280 It conditions everybody to feel like it's okay that there's 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:28.720 no consequences, because what are you gonna do? Yeah, it's 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.280 just the way things are. You can draw a fucking 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.560 line between kind of the things that Rush starts because 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:36.199 it has an impact on on liberals and the left too. 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.959 You've got this. It's it's Beau and and it's it's 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:43.000 because obviously with the fairness doctrine, nobody ever heard anything 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:44.920 from the far left right the far left, and in 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:47.880 fact was criminally prosecuted a lot of times for their 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:52.120 opinions in this period. Um. But the positive thing about 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:54.120 the fairness doctrine is that it was a large part 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:58.679 of why there was a broadly agreed upon understanding of 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.800 the basic a basic reality in the United States, right 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.719 that we don't have anymore. And when you lose that, 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.200 I kind of think when you lose that, the only 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:13.640 like things inevitably escalate to deadly violence. Yeah. Um, and 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.760 that's bad, right, not that again, under the fairness doctrine, 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.560 Americans were led into Vietnam, were let into Grenado, were 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.199 led into Panama. We're letting to all these horrible, horrible things. 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.600 Obviously we like it. It did not. It did not 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.160 mean that Americans had an accurate understanding of the world. 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:34.200 But when they had an inaccurate understanding of the world, 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:38.079 it was still broadly similar. Right, And that is better 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.440 than where we are now. I guess I think it 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:43.720 is at least less toxic that. I guess you could 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.640 argue the United States had more power, the government had 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:50.280 more power to pursue violent activity overseas and stuff. I 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:52.120 don't know, I don't know. It's it's a complicated issue. 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:55.760 But whatever, whatever you can say about Russ Limball, he 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.240 was not a dumb man. Uh. He was a huge 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.760 bigot though, and that and that came any New York 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.320 Times right up. Makes it clear that, among other things, 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:06.360 he was quick to realize that rampant misogyny was an 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:10.200 incredible marketing tactic. This was, as we discussed in our 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:13.440 last episode, always cloaked in a thick haze of irony. 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.600 Quote this is Rush. We know that women in groups, 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.559 same office, same dormitory, same barracks eventually have synchronized minstrel cycles. 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:22.720 We also know that there's this thing called PMS, and 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:24.719 we know what turns a woman into a Hellian. We 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.160 know that PMS has been used as a defense against 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:29.720 a charge of murder. Here's my proposal. We have fifty 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:31.880 two battalions. We can prepare the nations that will have 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:33.760 on any given week of the year, a combat ready 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:36.920 battalion of Amazons to go into battle. Imagine that your manual, 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.319 Antonio Noriega, you were in the Papal Nuncial in Panama City. 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:42.520 You feel safe. All of a sudden you hear this 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:46.160 blood curdling scream outside. I am outraged, and there is 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.040 Sergeant Major mole Yard leading a battalion of Amazons with 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.360 PMS over the hill. That would be enough to scare 0:10:51.360 --> 0:11:00.320 the pants off of anybody, everybody. I mean, it's like, 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:04.920 it's just not even that funny, That's what it's not. 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:07.760 That's one of the things that sucks about Rush Limbaugh 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:11.080 is that he for somebody who did a lot of 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:15.080 bits and you know, I was supposedly doing satire. He 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:19.080 just wasn't that funny. He wasn't. It's just that he 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.440 was saying the bigoted, terrible things that a lot of 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:26.160 bad people wanted to say, and the fact that it 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:29.280 was so horrible, and the fact that it scratched their 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:31.760 I made them laugh and made them think he was 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.360 a genius because somebody was finally telling them it was 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:36.560 okay to be as shitty as they kind of wanted 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:38.960 to be from the beginning, because you put the tiniest 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:43.079 effort into constructing these bits. Yeah, and it's it's it's 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:44.440 the same thing with all of these You've got this 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:46.880 kind of strain of comedians who thinks that it's important 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:48.520 that they be allowed to say the N word. Not 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:50.240 a single one of them has ever told a good 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:54.880 joke involving the N word. Right, it's not funny. You're 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:57.600 just going for shock value, right, that's all you're trying 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.640 to do. And that can be There's not that. No 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.000 good humor comes from shock value. But again, I haven't 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:06.680 heard a single good joke from a white comedian involving 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.400 the in word. Um, not that it would be appropriate then, 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:13.959 but I haven't heard one. You know, like so from 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.640 the beginning, the villains of the Rush limbaugh expanded universe were, 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.800 as The New York Times explained, quote black activists, gay activists, 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:27.880 abortion rights activists, homeless activists, animal rights activists, militant vegetarians, environmentalists, 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:31.640 artists with erotic tendencies, and above all, the now Game 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:37.120 gang that's the National Organization of women. His hatred Russia 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:39.720 said that his hatred for these people caused him an 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:44.199 uncontrollable urge to tweak. Quote. The simple fact of the 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.800 matter Limbaugh is apt to inform dolphins, savers and tree 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:49.120 lovers is that we are human beings, and we are 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:51.760 the most powerful, smartest species, and we can damn well 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.600 do whatever we want. And you can draw a line 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:56.480 from this kind of the way he's phrasing things. Here's 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.280 like it's stupid to care about the environment and animals 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.280 because we're more powerful than them. Um to the like 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.640 the ship that Identity Europa and Patriot Front, these like 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:09.800 explicitly fascist organizations exist. Now we'll put up these signs, 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:12.400 like these posters of the United States that say not 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:16.520 stolen conquered right where it's like, fuck the indigenous people, 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:18.800 we beat them and so we deserve all this right. 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:21.559 That's just an extension of what Russia is saying, you know, 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.680 and he the fact that he made that mainstream is 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.560 why they have a chance of making that mainstream, you know. 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:34.760 And the idea that it's so that they that they 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:40.160 that he phrased it as this uh matter of personal choice, um, 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:44.640 rather than like just common sense practical thinking, you know, 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:48.079 like do you really want to do you really want 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.160 to put your trash in two separate trash cands? You know, 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:53.520 And it's like, well, it's not so much that it's 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.240 a hassle. It's that we're gonna make earth unlivable for ourselves, 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:00.640 not that we're like, you know, fuck you the dodo 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.080 you should have you should have had claws or something. 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:09.559 It's that we're fucking ourselves. Like that's why why has 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:13.520 that been? Why is that so hard to understand? It's 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.800 so hard to comply with and so hard to uh 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:21.520 uh keep as part of the narrative when because the 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.400 logical extension is, what do you care You'll be dead 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.480 by the time by the time this ship, by the 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:32.160 time this ship affects people in in a meaningful way 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:35.320 to to you, a meaningful way, you'll be dead, So 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.720 what do you care? And and these are people that 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.800 are all allegedly all about the family, and it's like, well, 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.359 I mean, do you plan on having grandchildren, great grandchildren, 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.440 great great grandchildren? Like do you care about what? I 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:49.960 don't know? I don't, I don't. I'm not being funny 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.840 now and I'm just being just being whiny. But what 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.520 you're getting at, Paul, and what the core of this 0:14:55.640 --> 0:15:01.160 is is that Rush doesn't believe in positive things. And 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:02.880 I don't mean positive in a good sense. I mean 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.280 he doesn't believe in things that should be done. He 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:11.080 believes in tweaking people. That is what he turns American 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.440 Conservatism into. He turns it from were conservatives. These are 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.160 the things we believe about how the government and how 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:20.760 society should be run. And too conservatism is owning the Libs. 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:24.120 That's where we are now. And that's what this is 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:29.160 is is my politics are a sort of rhetorical violence 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.640 against the people I disagree with. Because improving the world, 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:36.040 changing making positive alterations to the world is difficult and 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:39.440 complicated and involves a lot of debate and trial and error. 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.040 That's hard. All I want to do is own the Libs. 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:47.720 That's what Rush Limbaugh created, brought into the world and 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.640 turned into the entire that that's the only thing that's 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.920 left in conservatism. Right, You've got these odd You've got 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:57.200 a couple of dudes left on the right who actually 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.080 believe in something like Mitt Romney and Arnold Schwartz an 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.200 egger right. Not that what they believe in is great 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:04.880 or that I I believe in it too, but they 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:09.360 both have a clearly have a principles that aren't just 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.480 owning the Libs. But they're on the fringe now because 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:16.680 owning the Libs, as all the right has. Um, it's 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:19.800 just it's not it's not it's not standing for something. 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:27.240 It's it's I. It's like, not what I my politics are. 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.240 I don't want somebody telling me what to do. I 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.640 believe in a vague idea of a John Wayne movie. 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:38.680 And you know, things were better in this bygone era 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.520 before these people started to suggest that maybe we can 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.160 improve things and that's where it ends. Yeah, and it's 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:50.640 it's it's very frustrating, Paul, because that the core of 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:52.680 that idea that like I want to be left alone. 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.280 That's more or less my politics. That's what led me 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:57.560 to anarchism is like, don't fucking tell me what to do, 0:16:57.600 --> 0:16:59.000 and I don't want to tell you what to do. 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.160 And that is what as a kid I was taught 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.080 conservatism was. But it's not what conservatism has ever been. 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.320 And I think a big part of why why the 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:12.000 Republican establishment embraces Rush is that by the early nineties, 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.439 in particular, by the mid nineties, definitely, it has become 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.560 clear that nothing that the right does works for the 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:22.800 actual people that that vote them into office. Down economics 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.800 does not function. You know it doesn't. It's well documented objectively, 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:29.880 does not work the way they say it does. They're 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:34.920 fighting against environmental regulations damages the world and makes it uninhabitable. 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:37.920 Fighting against corporate regulations gets a lot of their voters 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.760 killed by dangerous working conditions and stuff. All of the 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.080 wars they get us into our disasters and expensive, and 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.359 do not achieve the foreign policy or even the basic 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:51.520 national security goals they sat Conservatism as Americans do it 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.520 at least does not work. And when you know that, 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:57.000 you can't go back to the drawing table. You can't 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:59.920 admit failure, you can't acknowledge the mistake. What you can 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.520 do was own the Libs, you know, and that's why 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.040 that's all it is now, is owning the libs. Um, 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:11.680 it's good. It's a good, healthy, healthy society, Paul. It's 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.320 only going to get better too, so we gotta get better. 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:20.120 So Russia's justification for the outrageous caricature of a right 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.160 winger that he played on his show had always been 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:25.320 that these liberals and leftists advocating for black lives and 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:29.000 women's liberation and basic environmental safeguards were absurd, And, as 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:33.720 Rush put it, I demonstrate absurdity by being absurd. That's 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:37.520 his own words. Now this turned out to be an 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.600 objectively good business because none of his listeners seemed to 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.280 find Rush himself absurd. The character he played became the 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.200 man he was, and the once a political wanna be 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.000 DJ turned into a mouthpiece for the very worst of 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.159 our society's impulses. One thing that made the Russia Lmbough 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.680 Show groundbreaking was that, for the first time in an 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:59.360 explicitly political talk show, the focus was not on guests 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:03.560 or actual reporting or anything but the personality Limbaugh had created. 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.080 Rush was his own guest, and this was a deliberate 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.240 choice he made and a very intelligent one to make 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.480 the show more profitable. If the focus of your show 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.480 is on the news and on what guests have to say, 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.080 you can kind of slot any person with a decent 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.080 voice in to replace the host. Right that limits how 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:24.360 much money you're going to make, and it limits kind 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.520 of the length of your career. Rush himself explained in 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.760 an interview, I wanted to be the reason people listened. 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:34.400 That's how you pad your pocket. That's how you establish yourself, 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:38.600 and that's very smart. He did, in fact establish himself 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:42.840 in Rush's radio success finally got the TV people listening. 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.800 They decided to try him out as on screen talent. 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:48.440 He teamed up with Roger Ailes, the man who would 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.080 later invent Fox News, and together they produced one of 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:54.679 the most outrageous and vile news programs ever made. It 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.040 would sadly also turn out to be one of the 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:00.320 most influential. And now, Paul, it is time you and 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:02.760 I to take a journey into this particular piece of 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:08.040 our right history. So this episode from two of the 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.000 Russia Limbos show opens with a title card which features 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.159 an image of a microphone with the name Rush and 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.520 blazoned on it, and the words warning, the views expressed 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.880 on this program are not necessarily the views of the staff, advertisers, 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:26.200 or your local station, but they ought to be. Yeah, 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.600 it's good ship, man, it's good ship. So the episode 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.399 itself has a weirdly quiet intro, no music, just rushed, 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:34.639 with the pointers standing and what looks like an office 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:37.520 with wall to wall bookshelves and TVs interspersed within the 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:40.879 books on the bookshelves. He introduces himself and he starts 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:44.720 talking about a recent conversation he had with President George H. W. 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:48.800 Bush on his radio program. So there continues to be 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:54.120 more controversy surrounding my performance with the president yesterday when 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:56.880 he came by my radio program. The press is telling 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.040 you things that aren't true. But we have the tapes 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:02.280 and we have the truth me and we'll show you 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:06.520 and tell you both tonight. So that's telling. That's that's 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:09.119 that's extremely important what he does here. You have to 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:11.480 remember Fox news was not a thing yet at this time, 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.919 fake news was not a buzzword. Limbaugh is groundbreaking in 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.920 that he was not only critiquing mainstream news as being 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:22.480 fake and lying, but he's also telling his listeners I 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:26.119 am the truth. This paragraph from a write up by 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:28.679 Rolling Stone gets to the core of why I find 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:32.840 what he's doing here so terrifying. Quote. He wasn't selling 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:37.080 political ideas and he never has. He was selling political attitude, 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:41.600 the swaggering certitude, the mocking dismissiveness, the freedom to offend, 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.680 the right to assert your privilege without guilt or embarrassment. 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.480 And partly because he was modeling that liberation with such 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:51.600 wicked glee, Limbaugh was making himself indispensable. Within six weeks 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.200 of tuning in regularly, he would tell new listeners they'd 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:57.920 be on the cutting edge of social evolution. Best of all, 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:01.359 he promised, I will do all you're reading and I 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:04.960 will tell you what to think of it. I will 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:06.639 do all you're reading and I will tell you what 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:13.720 to think of it. Yeah. Wow, it's so and it's 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:17.680 so bald. Yeah, it's right out there. It's like he's 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:22.639 not there's no, it's not like um uh sort of 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:28.480 obfuscating language. He is to say very clearly what the 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:32.639 deal is, this is and this is the this is 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:35.439 the logical extent of this. I'm so smart, you know, 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:37.679 I gotta tie half my brain behind my back just 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:40.240 to make it fair. You know, I'm this big genius. 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:42.960 I'm so smart. You don't need to read or think. 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:45.440 I'll do it for you, and then you two will 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:49.600 be smart. And this is a huge thing. He spins 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:54.320 a lot of effort in reinforcing his intelligence. Um. After 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:56.320 this section of the show, he goes on to introduce 0:22:56.359 --> 0:22:59.960