Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and you know we're still
Speaker 2: coming down from our end of the year celebration. I'm
Speaker 2: headed off to Cees where we'll be doing reporting before
Speaker 2: it could happen here and better offline, we're going to
Speaker 2: be coming back for the new year soon. The Oprah
Speaker 2: episodes will be in the can. Very excited to introduce
Speaker 2: you all to that, But for this week, we're going
Speaker 2: to be going back to a rerun, so please enjoy
Speaker 2: the story of Rush Limbaugh broadcasting from his studio in
Speaker 2: I don't know, some fucking place with one liver tight
Speaker 2: behind his back to make it fair for all of
Speaker 2: the narcotics in his system. Robert Evans presenting, you don't
Speaker 2: you don't like me? You don't you don't like my
Speaker 2: pseudo Rush intro suffing, I'm not on.
Speaker 1: Board, not not a fan of the introduction. This is
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards.
Speaker 2: Uh, this is Behind the Bastards, a podcast that will
Speaker 2: never be as big as The Rush Limbaugh Show because
Speaker 2: Sophie won't let me use cultic mind control techniques on
Speaker 2: our audience.
Speaker 1: That is inaccurate.
Speaker 2: Feel free. Okay, well we're back. The man you just
Speaker 2: heard is Paul F. Tompkins, our guest for this exploration
Speaker 2: of the life and times of Rush Limbaugh. Hi, everyone,
Speaker 2: Hey Paul, how are you feeling? How are you? How
Speaker 2: are you doing? An hour and a half into talking
Speaker 2: about l rushbo.
Speaker 3: Feeling great, feeling great, feeling. I feel energized that he
Speaker 3: is dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I too feel happy that he's dead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fun. It hasn't worn off.
Speaker 2: Yet, it has it never will. It will always be
Speaker 2: good that he's dead. There's a few people who are
Speaker 2: like that, where it's like every now and then, I'm
Speaker 2: just like, think back to the fact that Ryan hard
Speaker 2: Heydrich is dead. It's like good, good for him, you know, good,
Speaker 2: good for him. So, once upon a time, Paul, the
Speaker 2: United States used to have a thing called the Fairness Doctrine. Now,
Speaker 2: in short, the fairness doctrine required anyone with a broadcast
Speaker 2: license to present controversial issues in a balanced way, providing
Speaker 2: roughly equivalent time to present both sides of an issue. Now,
Speaker 2: this was obviously a flawed rule. Some issues, for example,
Speaker 2: like climate change, don't have two sides.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: There may be different sides, but like what the right
Speaker 2: response is, but there's not two sides to the reality
Speaker 2: of climate change, and while the but while the you know,
Speaker 2: the fairness doctors, So the fairness doctrine not a not
Speaker 2: a perfect not a silver bullet, uh sort of of
Speaker 2: of thing. Im a jig. But while it was in place,
Speaker 2: right wing media in the form that we have today
Speaker 2: did not and could not exist now since the dawn
Speaker 2: of the fake news era, which we're in now, a
Speaker 2: lot of folks have talked about the time of guys
Speaker 2: like Walter Cronkite, Right, when when you had newsmen who
Speaker 2: basically every American trust, who could shift massive national issues
Speaker 2: just based on their considered opinion. Right Cronkite calls of
Speaker 2: Vietnam a quagmire, suddenly national opinion on its switches. And
Speaker 2: a big part of why these guys were trusted is
Speaker 2: they were required to lend equal weight to both sides.
Speaker 2: They couldn't just be partisan shills. Now, this generally meant
Speaker 2: that they would give kind of the conservative opinion and
Speaker 2: the liberal opinion as opposed to the far left of
Speaker 2: the far right. But it did mean that you didn't
Speaker 2: have something as unbalanced as Fox News right.
Speaker 3: Right, It's like the voter guide you get, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: It gives you the measured and says some people say this,
Speaker 3: some people say.
Speaker 2: This, yeah. And as flawed as the fairness doctrine was,
Speaker 2: it was part of why most Americans lived in a
Speaker 2: semi unified media ecosystem back in up prior to nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty seven. Now, obviously this did not last. In nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty seven, the FCC is the result of a court case.
Speaker 2: The FCC rejected the fairness doctrine. Conservatives cheered this on
Speaker 2: because fair media was seen by arch conservatives guys Roger
Speaker 2: Stone as a big reason why Americans had broadly supported
Speaker 2: the impeachment of Richard Nixon at the end of the
Speaker 2: Watergate investigation. Watergate is one of these situations where when
Speaker 2: the investigation starts, the vast majority of conservatives are against it. Right,
Speaker 2: don't think Nixon did anything wrong. The evidence comes out
Speaker 2: and opinion shifts and it becomes very popular to get
Speaker 2: Nixon out of office. This is the last time that happens, Right,
Speaker 2: This is the last time that like people's minds get
Speaker 2: changed by the facts on a political issue in America.
Speaker 2: And it's the last time this happens. Because the right
Speaker 2: goes after the fairness doctrine after about a decade or
Speaker 2: so of fighting, they're able to get it killed. And
Speaker 2: the end of the fairness Doctrine was the necessary precursor
Speaker 2: to the creation of a wholly separate, walled garden of
Speaker 2: right wing content, which was seen by dudes like Roger
Speaker 2: Ales as a necessary step to protecting right wing voters
Speaker 2: from ever learning about other opinions, which would, they believed,
Speaker 2: protect the next criminal right wing president from impeachment. Now,
Speaker 2: after Limbaugh's death, the New York Times let Ben Shapiro,
Speaker 2: noted novelist write a column about his professional idol. Benny
Speaker 2: Shapps called the fairness doctrine quote, a standard that in
Speaker 2: practice allowed for the domination of broadcast media by liberals
Speaker 2: with sporadic commentary by conservatives. That's my Benny schaeff.
Speaker 1: I said, how good that was of an immigration.
Speaker 3: It's really quite good. It's really good.
Speaker 2: So Rush Limbaugh was aware from the beginning that his
Speaker 2: whole career hinged on the fairness Doctrine's death. With his
Speaker 2: and like he starts being a national voice in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, two years after the end of the Fairness Doctrine,
Speaker 2: that's not a coincidence. Now, with his unparalleled national platform
Speaker 2: and his status as a chief thought leader of the
Speaker 2: American right, Limball went about turning the fairness Doctrine into
Speaker 2: his main boogeyman. I found a Vanity Fair article from
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine that lays this out quite well. Quote.
Speaker 2: The single most important issue in Russia's radio career is
Speaker 2: now among the hot button issues and concern fit of politics.
Speaker 2: The Fairness Doctrine, a formalized, fair and balanced rule for
Speaker 2: covering the controversial issues on the nation's airwaves, which the
Speaker 2: Reagan FCC killed in nineteen eighty seven. The most liberal
Speaker 2: wing of the Democratic Party, which puts substantial blame on
Speaker 2: talk radio for a generation of conservative dominance in Washington,
Speaker 2: wants to revive the doctrine, which would pretty handily destroy
Speaker 2: conservative talk. According to the official Seapack pulling of its members,
Speaker 2: restoring the fairest Fairness Doctrine is the third most significant
Speaker 2: Democratic Congress policy initiative opposed by the right wing raking,
Speaker 2: only behind expanding government and public health care. So yeah,
Speaker 2: there is with Russia's orchestration a rabidness to the cause.
Speaker 2: Opposing the fairness Doctrine is up there with opposing abortion
Speaker 2: and he's you know, he's a it's really him that's
Speaker 2: responsible for making this such a popular issue. It starts
Speaker 2: off as a thing that kind of high up extreme
Speaker 2: right wingers, guys who had been Nixon's right hand men
Speaker 2: push because they want to protect the next guy, like
Speaker 2: and it gets popular though because of Rush Limbaugh, because
Speaker 2: he sells it to the American conservative mainstream.
Speaker 3: It's funny, like sorry, but the idea that like with
Speaker 3: the Nixon era after Watergate, Nixon, when Nixon resigns, that
Speaker 3: is maybe the last time that there were real consequences, yeah,
Speaker 3: for any for the for the highest office. Where after that,
Speaker 3: you know, Clint's impeachment, Trump's impeachment, whatever, it doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 3: It really is just like an asterisk in history, you know,
Speaker 3: essentially of saying like just so you know, people, some
Speaker 3: people thought this was bad and they and they said
Speaker 3: so officially, but there's no real consequence for any of this.
Speaker 3: So really what they're doing is saying, we cannot Nixon
Speaker 3: should not have had a consequence. We got to make
Speaker 3: sure that there's never a consequence ever again. And unfortunately
Speaker 3: that men for everybody, for like from I don't know
Speaker 3: what if if because if it didn't happen, if it
Speaker 3: didn't happen after Bush, which there was not even an
Speaker 3: impeachment for Bush, like for the Iraq war that we
Speaker 3: all know now was bogus. If there was never going
Speaker 3: to be a consequence for that, then it worked and
Speaker 3: they're there and and from now on, like, when is
Speaker 3: it ever going to happen again? When if it didn't happen,
Speaker 3: then when is it ever going to happen again? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I don't think it can because this propaganda ecosystem turns
Speaker 2: out people who would fight to the death rather than
Speaker 2: have somebody who on paper is supposed to agree with
Speaker 2: them face consequences for blatantly criminal activity, right.
Speaker 3: And then and then it also it conditions whether whether
Speaker 3: you believe, whether you believe in, whether you're you're on
Speaker 3: Russia's side or not, whether you're on that side of
Speaker 3: things or not. It conditions everybody to feel like it's
Speaker 3: okay that there's no consequences because what are you gonna do? Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just the way things are.
Speaker 2: You can draw a fucking line between kind of the
Speaker 2: things that Rush starts because it has an impact on
Speaker 2: liberals and the left too. Yeah, you've got this it's
Speaker 2: it's and it's because obviously with the fairness doctrine, nobody
Speaker 2: ever heard anything from the far left right. The far left,
Speaker 2: in fact, was criminally prosecuted a lot of times for
Speaker 2: their opinions in this period. But the positive thing about
Speaker 2: the fairness doctrine is that it was a large part
Speaker 2: of why there was a broadly agreed upon understanding of
Speaker 2: the basic of basic reality in the United States. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that we don't have anymore. And when you lose that,
Speaker 2: I kind of think when you lose that, the only
Speaker 2: like things inevitably escalate to deadly violence. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 2: that's bad, right, not that again, under the fairness doctrine,
Speaker 2: Americans were led into Vietnam, or led into Grenada, We're
Speaker 2: led into Panama, We're let into all these horrible, horrible things.
Speaker 2: Obviously we like it. It did not mean that Americans
Speaker 2: had an accurate understanding of the world, but when they
Speaker 2: had an inaccurate understanding of the world, it was still
Speaker 2: broadly similar. Right, And that is better than where we
Speaker 2: are now. I guess I think it is at least
Speaker 2: less toxic. I guess you could argue the United States
Speaker 2: had more power, the government had more power to pursue
Speaker 2: violent activity overseas and stuff. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's a complicated issue. But whatever, whatever you can say
Speaker 2: about rush Linball, he was not a dumb man. He
Speaker 2: was a huge bigot, though, and that nineteen ninety New
Speaker 2: York Times write up makes it clear that, among other things,
Speaker 2: he was quick to realize that rampant misogyny was an
Speaker 2: incredible marketing tactic. This was, as we discussed in our
Speaker 2: last episode, always cloaked in a thick haze of irony. Quote,
Speaker 2: this is rush We know that women in groups, same office,
Speaker 2: same dormitory, Saint Barracks eventually have synchronized minstrel cycles. We
Speaker 2: also know that there's this thing called PMS, and we
Speaker 2: know it turns a woman into a hell. And we
Speaker 2: know that PMS has been used as a defense against
Speaker 2: a charge of murder. Here's my proposal. We have fifty
Speaker 2: two battalions. We can prepare the nation so that we'll have,
Speaker 2: on any given week of the year, a combat runny
Speaker 2: battalion of Amazons to go into battle. Imagine that your
Speaker 2: Manuel Antonio Noriega, you were in the Papal Nuncio in
Speaker 2: Panama City. You feel safe. All of a sudden, you
Speaker 2: hear this blood curdling scream outside. I am outraged, and
Speaker 2: there is Sergeant Major molly Yard leading a battalion of
Speaker 2: Amazons with pms over the hill. That would be enough
Speaker 2: to scare the pants off of anybody.
Speaker 1: Disgusting, not a.
Speaker 2: Rush Rush Limba everybody.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like, it's just not even that funny.
Speaker 3: That's one of the things that sucks about Rush Limbaugh
Speaker 3: is that he for somebody who did a lot of
Speaker 3: bits and you know, was supposedly doing satire, he just
Speaker 3: wasn't that funny.
Speaker 2: He wasn't. It's just that he was saying the bigoted,
Speaker 2: terrible things that a lot of bad people wanted to say. Yea,
Speaker 2: and the fact that it was so horrible and the
Speaker 2: fact that it scratched their id made them laugh and
Speaker 2: made them think he was a genius because somebody was
Speaker 2: finally telling them it was okay to be as shitty
Speaker 2: as they'd kind of wanted to be from the.
Speaker 3: Beginning, because you put the tiniest effort into constructing these bits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's the same thing with all of
Speaker 2: these You've got this kind of strain of comedians who
Speaker 2: thinks that it's important that they be allowed to say
Speaker 2: the inWORD. Not a single one of them has ever
Speaker 2: told a good joke involving the inward, right, Exactly, it's
Speaker 2: not funny. You're just going for shock value, right, that's
Speaker 2: all you're trying to do, and that can be There's
Speaker 2: not that. No good humor comes from shock value. But again,
Speaker 2: I haven't heard a single good joke from a white
Speaker 2: comedian involving the inward. Not that it would be appropriate then,
Speaker 2: but I haven't heard one, you know. Like So, from
Speaker 2: the beginning, the villains of the Rush Limbaugh expanded universe were,
Speaker 2: as The New York Times explained, quote, black activists, gay activists,
Speaker 2: abortion rights activists, homeless activists, animal rights activists, militant vegetarians, environmentalists,
Speaker 2: artists with erotic tendencies, and above all, the now Game
Speaker 2: gang that's the National Organization of Women right. His hatred, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Rushia said that his hatred for these people caused him
Speaker 2: an uncontrollable urge to tweak.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: The simple fact of the matter, Limbaugh is apt to
Speaker 2: inform dolphin savers and tree lovers is that we are
Speaker 2: human beings, and we are the most powerful smartest species
Speaker 2: and we can damn well do whatever we want. And
Speaker 2: you can draw a line from this kind of the
Speaker 2: way he's phrasing things. Here's like it's stupid to care
Speaker 2: about the environment and animals because we're more powerful than them.
Speaker 2: To the like the shit that Identity Europa and Patriot Front,
Speaker 2: these like explicitly fascist organizations exist now will put up
Speaker 2: these signs, like these posters of the United States that
Speaker 2: say not stolen conquered right where it's like fuck the
Speaker 2: indigenous people, we beat them and so we deserve all
Speaker 2: this right. That's just an extension of what Russia is saying,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, and he the fact that he he
Speaker 2: made that mainstream is why they have a chance of
Speaker 2: making that mainstream, you know.
Speaker 3: And the idea that it's so that that they that
Speaker 3: he phrased it as this uh matter of personal choice
Speaker 3: rather than like just common sense practical thinking, you know,
Speaker 3: like do you really want to do you really want
Speaker 3: to put your trash in two separate trash bands? You know,
Speaker 3: And it's like, well, it's not so much that it's
Speaker 3: a hassle. It's that we're gonna make earth unlivable for ourselves,
Speaker 3: not that we're like, you know, fuck you the dodo
Speaker 3: you should have you should have had claws or something.
Speaker 3: It's that we're fucking ourselves, Like that's the why why
Speaker 3: has that been? Why is that so hard to understand?
Speaker 3: It's so hard to comply with and so hard to
Speaker 3: uh uh keep as part of the narrative when because
Speaker 3: the the logical extension is, what do you care? You'll
Speaker 3: be dead by the time, by the time this shit,
Speaker 3: by the time this shit affects people in a meaningful
Speaker 3: way to you a meaningful way, you'll be dead. So
Speaker 3: what do you care? And these are people that are
Speaker 3: all allegedly all about the family, and it's like, well,
Speaker 3: I mean, do you plan on having grandchildren, great grandchildren,
Speaker 3: great great grandchildren? Like do you care about what? I
Speaker 3: don't know. I don't. I'm not being funny now, and
Speaker 3: I'm just being whiny.
Speaker 2: But what you're getting at, Paul, and what the core
Speaker 2: of this is is that Rush doesn't believe in positive things.
Speaker 2: And I don't mean positive in a good sense. I
Speaker 2: mean he doesn't believe in things that should be done.
Speaker 2: He believes in tweaking people. That is what he turns
Speaker 2: American conservatism into. He turns it from we're conservatives, these
Speaker 2: are the things we believe about how the government and
Speaker 2: how society should be run, and to conservatism is owning
Speaker 2: the Libs. That's where we are now, and that's what
Speaker 2: this is is it's my politics are a sort of
Speaker 2: rhetorical violence against the people I disagree with. Because improving
Speaker 2: the world, changing or making positive alterations to the world
Speaker 2: is difficult and complicated and involves a lot of debate
Speaker 2: and trial and error. That's hard. All I want to
Speaker 2: do is own the Libs. That's what Rush Limbaugh created,
Speaker 2: brought into the world and turned into the entire That's
Speaker 2: the only thing that's left in conservatism. Right, You've got
Speaker 2: these odd You've got a couple of dudes left on
Speaker 2: the right who actually believe in something like Mitt Romney
Speaker 2: and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Not that what they believe in is great or that
Speaker 2: I believe in it too, but they both have a
Speaker 2: clearly have a principles that aren't just owning the Libs.
Speaker 2: But they're on the fringe now because owning the Libs
Speaker 2: is all the right has, ye.
Speaker 3: And it's just it's not it's not it's not standing
Speaker 3: for something it's it's I it's like not what I
Speaker 3: my politics are. I don't want somebody telling me what
Speaker 3: to do. Yeah, I believe in a vague idea of
Speaker 3: a John Wayne movie. And you know, things were better
Speaker 3: in this bygone era before these people started to suggest
Speaker 3: that maybe we can improve things. And that's where it ends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's it's very frustrated, Paul, because that
Speaker 2: the core of that idea that like, I want to
Speaker 2: be left alone. That's more or less my politics. That's
Speaker 2: what led me to anarchism is like, don't fucking tell
Speaker 2: me what to do, and I don't want to tell
Speaker 2: you what to do, right, And that is what as
Speaker 2: a kid I was taught conservatism was. But it's not
Speaker 2: what conservatism has ever been. And I think a big
Speaker 2: part of why why the Republican establishment embraces Rush is
Speaker 2: that by the early nineties, in particular, by the mid nineties, definitely,
Speaker 2: it has become clear that nothing that the right does
Speaker 2: works for the actual people that vote them into office.
Speaker 2: True down economics does not function, you know, it doesn't.
Speaker 2: It's well documented objectively does not work the way they
Speaker 2: say it does. They're fighting against environmental regulations damages the
Speaker 2: world and makes it uninhabitable. Fighting against corporate regulations gets
Speaker 2: a lot of their voters killed by dangerous working conditions
Speaker 2: and stuff. All of the wars they get us into
Speaker 2: are disasters and expensive and do not achieve the foreign
Speaker 2: policy or even the basic national security goals they set.
Speaker 2: Conservatism as Americans do, it at least does not work.
Speaker 2: And when you know that, you can't go back to
Speaker 2: the drawing table. You can't admit failure, you can't acknowledge
Speaker 2: the mistake. What you can do is own the Libs,
Speaker 2: you know. And that's why that's all it is now,
Speaker 2: is owning the Libs. It's good. It's a good, healthy society, Paul.
Speaker 3: It's only gonna get better too, So we gotta get better.
Speaker 2: So Russia's justification for the outrageous caricature of a right
Speaker 2: winger that he played on his show had always been
Speaker 2: that these liberals and leftists advocate for black lives and
Speaker 2: women's liberation and basic environmental safeguards were absurd, and as
Speaker 2: Rush put it, I demonstrate absurdity by being absurd, that's
Speaker 2: his own words. Once now, this turned out to be
Speaker 2: an objectively good business because none of his listeners seemed
Speaker 2: to find Rush himself absurd. The character he played became
Speaker 2: the man he was, and the once a political wannabe
Speaker 2: DJ turned into a mouthpiece for the very worst of
Speaker 2: our society's impulses. One thing that made the Rush Limbaugh
Speaker 2: Show groundbreaking was that, for the first time in an
Speaker 2: explicitly political talk show, the focus was not on guests
Speaker 2: or actual reporting or anything but the personality Limbaugh had created.
Speaker 2: Rush was his own guest, and this was a deliberate
Speaker 2: choice he made, and a very intelligent one to make
Speaker 2: the show more profitable. If the focus of your show
Speaker 2: is on the news and on what guests have to say,
Speaker 2: you can kind of slot any person with a decent
Speaker 2: voice in to replace the host. Right That limits how
Speaker 2: much money you're going to make, and it limits of
Speaker 2: the length of your career. Rush himself explained in an interview,
Speaker 2: I wanted to be the reason people listened. That's how
Speaker 2: you pad your pocket, that's how you establish yourself, and
Speaker 2: that's very smart. He did, in fact, establish himself. In
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two, Rush's radio success finally got the TV
Speaker 2: people listening. They decided to try him out as on
Speaker 2: screen talent. He teamed up with Roger Ayles, the man
Speaker 2: who would later invent Fox News, and together they produced
Speaker 2: one of the most outrageous and vile news programs ever made.
Speaker 2: It would sadly also turn out to be one of
Speaker 2: the most influential. And now, Paul, it is time for
Speaker 2: you and I to take a journey into this particular
Speaker 2: piece of far right history. So this episode from nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety two of the Rush Limbas Show opens with a
Speaker 2: title card which features an image of a microphone with
Speaker 2: the name Rush emblazoned on it and the words warning,
Speaker 2: the views expressed on this program are not necessarily the
Speaker 2: views of the staff, advertisers, or your local station, but
Speaker 2: they ought to be. It's a lot of fun. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's good shit, man, it's good shit. So the episode
Speaker 2: itself has a weirdly quiet intro, no music, just Rush
Speaker 2: with a pointer standing in what looks like an office
Speaker 2: with wall to wall bookshelves and TVs interspersed within the
Speaker 2: books on the bookshelves. He introduces himself and he starts
Speaker 2: talking about a recent conversation he had with President George H. W.
Speaker 2: Bush on his radio program.
Speaker 4: So there continues to be more controversy surrounding my performance
Speaker 4: with the President yesterday when he came by my radio program.
Speaker 4: The press is telling you things that aren't true.
Speaker 2: But we have the tapes and.
Speaker 4: We have the truth me and we'll show you and
Speaker 4: tell you both tonight.
Speaker 2: So that's telling. That's that's that's extremely important what he
Speaker 2: does here. You have to remember Fox News was not
Speaker 2: a thing yet at this time, fake news was not
Speaker 2: a buzzword. Limbaugh is groundbreaking in that he was not
Speaker 2: only critiquing mainstream news as being fake and lying, but
Speaker 2: he's also telling his listeners I am the truth. This
Speaker 2: paragraph from a write up by Rolling Stone gets to
Speaker 2: the core of why I find what he's doing here
Speaker 2: so terrifying. Quote. He wasn't selling political ideas and he
Speaker 2: never has. He was selling political attitude, the swaggering certitude,
Speaker 2: the mocking dismissiveness, the freedom to offend, the right to
Speaker 2: assert your privilege without guilt or embarrassment. And partly because
Speaker 2: he was modeling that liberation with such wicked glee, Limbaugh
Speaker 2: was making himself indispensable. Within six weeks of tuning in regularly,
Speaker 2: he would tell new listeners they be on the cutting
Speaker 2: edge of social evolution. Best of all he promised, I
Speaker 2: will do all your reading and I will tell you
Speaker 2: what to think of it. I will do all your reading,
Speaker 2: and I will tell you what to think of it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Wow, I know right. It's so abusive, it's so and
Speaker 3: it's so bald. Yeah, it's right out there. It's like
Speaker 3: he's not there's no, it's.
Speaker 5: Not like.
Speaker 3: A sort of obfuscating language. He is.
Speaker 6: He's saying very clearly, Yeah, what the deal is?
Speaker 3: This is unbelievable, And this.
Speaker 2: Is the this is the logical extent of this. I'm
Speaker 2: so smart, you know, I gotta tie half my brain
Speaker 2: behind my back just to make it fair. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm this big genius. I'm so smart. You don't need
Speaker 2: to reader think. I'll do it for you and then
Speaker 2: you too will be smart.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And this is a huge that he spins a lot
Speaker 2: of effort in reinforcing his intelligence. After this section of
Speaker 2: the show, he goes on to introduce the other topics
Speaker 2: of that episode, which include femin Nazi, glorious steinem in
Speaker 2: review of the movie The Hand that Rocks the Cradle.
Speaker 2: Then we cut into Yeah. Then we cut to the
Speaker 2: actual intro, which is terrible nineteen nineties talk show music
Speaker 2: played over a series of mocked up news articles with
Speaker 2: titles like EIB linked to higher IQ. Limba gets patent,
Speaker 2: Limbaugh says no to presidential bid. Limbaugh checks brain on
Speaker 2: donor's card. Limbaugh to carry a torch at the Mental Olympics. Again,
Speaker 2: he puts a lot of effort into I mean, it's absurd, right,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it clearly works. It worked on my parents,
Speaker 2: you know, all of the people who raised me to
Speaker 2: some extent, they're all convinced.
Speaker 3: He's fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's fun.
Speaker 3: But but he also says things that I like to hear.
Speaker 3: But he's fun. He's just fun.
Speaker 2: He's fun.
Speaker 3: I think also, you cannot underestimate the the effect of
Speaker 3: the pointer. If you have, If you have, if you're
Speaker 3: on television and you have you're you're walking out over
Speaker 3: television with a pointer and you're pointing at something, it
Speaker 3: looks very official.
Speaker 2: Totally absolutely, That's why I have a point. Well I
Speaker 2: have a gun, but it works the same way.
Speaker 3: So Robert, what are all your weapons in front of you?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm always I'm always surrounded by weapons.
Speaker 3: What's going to happen during this discussion?
Speaker 1: You know, have anything on you? Right now? I'm right here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not.
Speaker 3: Fucking h here's my knife.
Speaker 2: There a nice little hunchback there that makes it good
Speaker 2: for kind of close end work. Yeah, all right, now
Speaker 2: we're all armed. We can properly get back to the show.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize this was a this was a knife
Speaker 3: on the table show. I apologiz.
Speaker 2: This is this is I mean, there are like three
Speaker 2: knives on the table, right, this is a significant number
Speaker 2: of beau on the table.
Speaker 3: All right, I apologize.
Speaker 2: So the show proper starts after this point, after these
Speaker 2: fake news articles kind of go through and Russia's first
Speaker 2: subject on this episode is the then new TV series
Speaker 2: Murphy Brown. Murphy Brown was obviously the titular character of
Speaker 2: the show. She was a recovering alcoholic investigative journalist and
Speaker 2: a primetime news anchor into single Murphy Brown was a
Speaker 2: very feminist in progressive series for its day. Limba opens
Speaker 2: his episode by expressing anger at the show's success, and then,
Speaker 2: in what I would consider a fairly abusive manner, he
Speaker 2: tells his audience why they shouldn't watch it.
Speaker 1: Clip.
Speaker 4: Oh, people on my radio show, didn't You probably watched
Speaker 4: it too, but you didn't have to. You know why
Speaker 4: you didn't have to because I told you you didn't
Speaker 4: have to. I had the script. I told you everything
Speaker 4: that was going to happen on this show. I told
Speaker 4: you it wasn't funny. I told you it was defensive.
Speaker 4: I told you this show was a little heavy handed.
Speaker 4: I said that they're focusing on the wrong thing in
Speaker 4: this show, and they really did. You've heard a lot
Speaker 4: of people say a lot of things about this show,
Speaker 4: but I'll tell you the most important thing is that
Speaker 4: they got very defensive about what a family is. They
Speaker 4: trot out all these various examples of what a family is,
Speaker 4: and that's not what the Vice president or any of
Speaker 4: the family values people.
Speaker 2: That's profoundly I think this is this You shouldn't have
Speaker 2: watched this show because I told you not to, and
Speaker 2: I told you not to because it's not good for
Speaker 2: you to imbibe this. And I think it's important to
Speaker 2: break down exactly what he's doing here. First off, he
Speaker 2: is trying to physically separate his audience from mainstream American society.
Speaker 2: Murphy Brown was a hugely popular show in this day.
Speaker 2: He is literally telling them, you don't need to watch
Speaker 2: this thing other people are watching because I am telling
Speaker 2: you not to, and he justifies this by saying that
Speaker 2: Murphy Brown is an assault on family values, which he
Speaker 2: goes on to call functional values, because family is like
Speaker 2: the ones portrayed on Murphy Brown were, in Limbaugh's eyes,
Speaker 2: non functional. This is significant because Murphy Brown was a
Speaker 2: single mother. She was one of the first single mother's
Speaker 2: portrayed on American TV as not just existing but as
Speaker 2: being a successful person and a competent parent. Was furious,
Speaker 2: I can't let we can't let people watch this because
Speaker 2: it will give them the wrong idea, and not just
Speaker 2: about single mothers.
Speaker 3: I also think it's worth noting that on the show itself,
Speaker 3: the idea of her being a single mother was a
Speaker 3: plot point that was a story arc that they discussed
Speaker 3: a lot on the show. It was a It was
Speaker 3: not a blithe decision by the character. It was they
Speaker 3: really talked about it because because it was a show
Speaker 3: that did a lot of satire, talked about issues. The
Speaker 3: discussion of whether or not she was going to have
Speaker 3: the baby and what it meant to be a single
Speaker 3: working mother was discussed at great length on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's why he wants, That's why it is
Speaker 2: important to him to keep his audience away from it. Now,
Speaker 2: that was not the only kind of groundbreaking thing about
Speaker 2: Murphy Brown. The show was incredibly significant in its portrayal
Speaker 2: of gay people in several episodes, most notably in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety two, when eineightteen ninety four, homosexuals were shown as
Speaker 2: not just normal, functional members of society, but as existing
Speaker 2: in significant numbers throughout American society. There's an episode where
Speaker 2: like one of the characters buys a bar and it becomes,
Speaker 2: through kind of like comedic hijinks or whatever, becomes a
Speaker 2: gay bar, and he's like slowly realizes what it is.
Speaker 2: But the point the episode was making is that gay
Speaker 2: people are all around us. They're part of our community.
Speaker 2: They are a significant, meaningful part of our society. This
Speaker 2: was rare in mainstream television for the time, and it
Speaker 2: made Rush Limbaugh furious. We have another clip here of that.
Speaker 4: Just adults teaching kids doesn't matter what the composition is
Speaker 4: of the family, and nobody has been critical that. When
Speaker 4: Quail said that they glorified single mother is what he
Speaker 4: was trying to point out, my friends was and I
Speaker 4: think this show proved it last night. This is another
Speaker 4: thing this show's got an agenda. And they say all
Speaker 4: day long they don't have an agenda, but last night's.
Speaker 3: Show proved it.
Speaker 4: It's okay that they have an agenda. Just say so,
Speaker 4: like this show, we are perfectly upfront and honest about
Speaker 4: what I am and what I believe on this show,
Speaker 4: and we'll let that float out in the marketplace and
Speaker 4: let you accept it as it is.
Speaker 3: There's no attempt here to fool you.
Speaker 4: There's no attempt here to deny what I am.
Speaker 2: But that's what they're all about. Now, this is also
Speaker 2: really significant. So what Russia's doing here is he's framing
Speaker 2: his objection to Murphy Brown as reasonable and not based
Speaker 2: in hate. He's saying, I'm not against single mothers, or
Speaker 2: I'm not against gay people or whatever. I am against
Speaker 2: the fact that this show conceals its political agenda. And
Speaker 2: I can see why people like most of my family
Speaker 2: would have found this reasonable. But what's happening here is
Speaker 2: very sinister because Murphy Brown was not trying to be
Speaker 2: left wing. It was trying to make a point that
Speaker 2: single parents and that gay people are regular human beings
Speaker 2: who contribute to society. It was trying to point out
Speaker 2: that single parents are valid and functional people. These should
Speaker 2: not be political points, and recognizing the humanity of huge
Speaker 2: chunks of the population should not count as an agenda,
Speaker 2: but it was critical for Rush Limbaugh to turn it
Speaker 2: into one, because if you can take the basic humanity
Speaker 2: of marginalized people and make it a political talking point,
Speaker 2: then you make it into something people can oppose on
Speaker 2: principle and thus frame their bigotry as not hate but
Speaker 2: simply a political stance that they have every right to.
Speaker 2: Rush was not the first person to talk about the
Speaker 2: gay agen or to oppose single motherhood, not even close.
Speaker 2: But before him, the most prominent voices attacking these groups
Speaker 2: of people were on the religious right, which had first
Speaker 2: arisen as an organized political force in the late seventies.
Speaker 2: They were obviously influential, but they were also obviously religious extremists,
Speaker 2: and a lot of non religious conservatives and libertarian types
Speaker 2: did not want to identify with fundamentalists. Rush, who had
Speaker 2: a documented history of mocking religious conservatives, provided the more
Speaker 2: libertarian right with a secular justification for bigotry against gay
Speaker 2: people and single mothers and women in general, and that's
Speaker 2: one of his great innovations.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, Yeah, he pioneered this idea that if you are
Speaker 3: saying this is okay, this thing is okay, what you
Speaker 3: are doing is saying that's it, that's somehow that's an
Speaker 3: attack on me and what I believexactly. So the idea
Speaker 3: of dan Quayle saying it glorifies single mothers. No one
Speaker 3: that that show. No one was ever saying we should
Speaker 3: do this instead right, we should be doing we should
Speaker 3: be doing this instead of what you think is right.
Speaker 3: This is what we should be doing, rather than just
Speaker 3: saying can't isn't this okay? Like these these people exist.
Speaker 3: Isn't that all right?
Speaker 2: These people exist, it's all right, and they shouldn't be
Speaker 2: hated or punished or or ostracized. Being this for.
Speaker 3: Me, he's not even talking about a slippery he's just
Speaker 3: saying that if you are saying this is okay, that
Speaker 3: means you are saying the way we live is not okay. Yes,
Speaker 3: and that's just not there at all. It's just not
Speaker 3: there at all.
Speaker 2: But if he's if he's able to make it be
Speaker 2: that way to his listeners, yeah, he can. Number one,
Speaker 2: make sure they will always oppose these things that he
Speaker 2: just finds gross. And number two, it further separates them
Speaker 2: from mainstream society. This is the beginning of the splintering
Speaker 2: of the mainstream American right from the United States, from
Speaker 2: most of the people in this country. And it was
Speaker 2: the beginning of making sure that there there was no
Speaker 2: You cannot reconcile the right with the modern world, with
Speaker 2: the rest of civilization, because you doing a different thing
Speaker 2: than them is an attack on them, Like we're being
Speaker 2: attacked because you're different, and so we get to fight you.
Speaker 2: That's Russia's great innovation.
Speaker 3: And also that the way you think is the real America.
Speaker 3: And yeah, not what these people think exactly.
Speaker 1: That's haunting. But you know what isn't haunting, Robert.
Speaker 2: The products and services that support this podcast, hopefully, hopefully
Speaker 2: unless it's Raytheon, which is very haunted products. But that's
Speaker 2: a story for another day. And we're back. So Paul,
Speaker 2: I would love to go with this through this entire
Speaker 2: episode with you. In fact, I would love to do
Speaker 2: a reoccurring series where we just go through, point by
Speaker 2: point every episode of Rush Limbaugh's TV show and talk
Speaker 2: about it. I think it would be amazing.
Speaker 3: It is wild to see those clips. Yeah, yeah, what's
Speaker 3: the what's the opposite of Pristian.
Speaker 2: It would be very I think fun and also intellectually valuable.
Speaker 2: We just we have so much ground to cover. This
Speaker 2: has to be the end of that episode of the show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we get to a rewatch of the We can't
Speaker 3: do a rewatch podcast with the Rush Limbau Show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least not not today. I think we've gotten
Speaker 2: the point across and characterize what he's doing on the
Speaker 2: show and why it was significant. Now, the Rush Limbaugh
Speaker 2: TV Show was what you'd call a modest success. The
Speaker 2: thirty minute syndicated series ran from nineteen ninety two to
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six, which is not a long run, but
Speaker 2: isn't a super short run either, you know, it was.
Speaker 2: It was not a huge hit, but it was successful.
Speaker 2: That said, its actual impact on history was much greater
Speaker 2: than its four seasons might suggest. As I said earlier,
Speaker 2: Roger Ayles was the executive producer of Limbaugh's TV debut.
Speaker 2: Limbaugh and Ales had met in nineteen ninety and Rush
Speaker 2: would later say that their meeting was quote like finding
Speaker 2: a soulmate. And I'm going to quote here from a
Speaker 2: write up that I found on Quartz. The persona Ales
Speaker 2: helped Limbaugh create on that show, something between a commentator,
Speaker 2: political stratus, news anchor, and entertainer is exactly the kind
Speaker 2: of act you can see today on Fox News. It
Speaker 2: is not hard to draw a straight line from Limbaugh's
Speaker 2: TV show to talking heads like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.
Speaker 2: Like today's Fox News personalities, Limbaugh fancied himself as a
Speaker 2: man of the people who railed against elitist liberal politicians
Speaker 2: and voters. But as he did that, he was flying
Speaker 2: his private jet around the country to whine and dine
Speaker 2: with powerful figures. The myth he created of himself with
Speaker 2: the help of Ales is the same myth that we
Speaker 2: see pushed again and again on Fox News by its
Speaker 2: biggest names. In retrospect, Ales may have been using Limbaugh's
Speaker 2: TV act as a test run for Fox News to
Speaker 2: see if the brand of conservative opinion that was working
Speaker 2: on the radio could be translated to and expanded on TV.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety six, the same year the Limbaugh Show ended,
Speaker 2: Ayles co founded Fox News at the behest of the
Speaker 2: media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Much of what ensued the liberal bashing,
Speaker 2: fear mongering alternative reality in which Fox's Personalities Lived was
Speaker 2: reminiscent of Ales's weird little Limbaugh talk shit experiment. So
Speaker 2: this is really a test case for what becomes Fox News,
Speaker 2: you know, And the year Limbaugh Show ends nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: six is the year Fox News launches.
Speaker 3: What's strange to me is well, I guess because the
Speaker 3: show was over. I guess the show, you know, the
Speaker 3: viewership went down. I wonder why he didn't just stick
Speaker 3: Limbaugh on Fox News in those in those.
Speaker 2: Early days, he wanted to actually, okay, yeah, so like
Speaker 2: Ales actually tried to get rushed to join the network
Speaker 2: I think in two thousand and six, but Limbaugh kind
Speaker 2: of preferred radio. I don't think he actually liked being
Speaker 2: on TV very much, not to the extent that he enjoyed,
Speaker 2: you know, doing his radio show. So I think that
Speaker 2: was mainly the reason. But also by the time Fox
Speaker 2: News really got going, Ales had a half dozen Rush
Speaker 2: Limbaughs you know, right, yeah, which we'll talk about a
Speaker 2: bit later. So throughout the mid and into the late
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties, the Rush Limbaughs show was a bona fide
Speaker 2: cultural thing phenomenon. Rush created the first fully monetized right
Speaker 2: wing cult of personality within like the American media. At
Speaker 2: least as you heard in the clips we played, Rush
Speaker 2: discouraged his listeners from thinking for themselves. He was the genius,
Speaker 2: and if you just agreed with him and thought the
Speaker 2: way he thought, then you were, by definition also smart.
Speaker 2: As a result, from the very early point, he gave
Speaker 2: his fans the nickname ditto heads. The New York Times
Speaker 2: explains the etymology of this term as it evolved on
Speaker 2: his show. Ditto a time saving greeting used by callers
Speaker 2: to avoid tedious repetition of the obvious. For example, you're wonderful, Rush,
Speaker 2: and I agree with everything you've said. Dittohead then means
Speaker 2: a Limbaugh fan. So you're like, literally, he's saying, my
Speaker 2: fans are people who say and believe all of the
Speaker 2: exact same things that I do and profoundly accomplice.
Speaker 3: They're absolutely going to praise me, and so in order
Speaker 3: to save some time, let's just condense all the fawning
Speaker 3: praise that you will, no doubt give me into one word,
Speaker 3: so we know that what you're saying is, Rush, I
Speaker 3: love you. You are everything to me, and I need you
Speaker 3: to know that before we get into whatever fucking issue
Speaker 3: were going to get into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you are the only thing that matters to me,
Speaker 2: or at least your beliefs are, because I am so
Speaker 2: empty as a person as a result of how capitalism
Speaker 2: has hallowed me out and hollowed my class out, that
Speaker 2: I have nothing but the hatred of liberals that you embody.
Speaker 3: Until that first guy came along that had to implement megadiddos.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and then there's megadiddos. And I can't even
Speaker 2: get too much into some of the terms used on
Speaker 2: the Rush Limba show because it makes me want to
Speaker 2: punch things until my hands are broken, and I already
Speaker 2: had that happen last year because of one of his fans. Anyway,
Speaker 2: the core of the Rush Limbas show was not, as
Speaker 2: he would always claim, advancing conservative ideology, but was instead
Speaker 2: attacking liberals and the left, who he referred to as
Speaker 2: kami libs or pink kami libs and I don't know again,
Speaker 2: at this fucking gun class I was at last weekend,
Speaker 2: the instructor was like, the far left wants to take
Speaker 2: your guns away, and obviously I couldn't be like, actually,
Speaker 2: the far left is pretty heavily strapped. It's liberal, but
Speaker 2: like that's part of part that this idea that Joe
Speaker 2: Biden is somehow a leftist, right, that he's a communist,
Speaker 2: that you hear an Auch and you hear all over
Speaker 2: the right. Now, that was Limba saying anyone who is
Speaker 2: not a conservative is a far left, so it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter that actually the Democratic Party is a profoundly conservative
Speaker 2: political party and today's Democrats are basically the same as
Speaker 2: Republicans were when I was growing up in the nineties.
Speaker 3: There's also never any follow up on these these the
Speaker 3: fearmongering claims whenever there's an election, like what happened to
Speaker 3: the Obamas leeper cells, like he never are they still
Speaker 3: in play? Is he still waiting to give them the word?
Speaker 3: Like they never go back and say, oh, it turns
Speaker 3: out that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: It's this, I mean, that's kind of the thing about
Speaker 2: Republican talking points. Like the other thing they kept panic
Speaker 2: like like terrified during the Obama years, He's going to
Speaker 2: take your guns. He's going to take your guns. He's
Speaker 2: going to take your guns. Barack Obama did not one
Speaker 2: single thing to restrict gun ownership in the United States,
Speaker 2: whereas actually Trump actually did ban certain fire the bump
Speaker 2: stock like, Trump put through more restrictions on gun rights
Speaker 2: than not that I'm saying anything. Bump stocks are dumb,
Speaker 2: but Trump objectively restricted gun ownership more than Obama. But
Speaker 2: you never know it to listen to the right wing media.
Speaker 2: It's it's preposterous.
Speaker 3: You people would know. No, no one's going to take
Speaker 3: your guns.
Speaker 2: No one's going to take your guns. There's too many
Speaker 2: of them. It's not that you know, we'll talk anyway.
Speaker 3: It's separate. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 2: As I said earlier, the core of Rushlimbaugh's actual ideology
Speaker 2: was owning the Libs. His conservatism was built entirely around
Speaker 2: attacking the other, and over his years on air, Rush
Speaker 2: built up an audience of millions and eventually tens of millions,
Speaker 2: who began to see political victory as being not about
Speaker 2: achievements that improve life, but about tearing down and harming
Speaker 2: the enemy. This is why you get to a point
Speaker 2: where now mainstream Republicans are selling mugs with like that
Speaker 2: are like the tears of my enemies are in the Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm going to quote from the Rolling Stone here,
Speaker 2: quote Any Republican candidate is better than any Democratic candidate
Speaker 2: Limbaugh told his audience early on, which might sound kind
Speaker 2: of innocuous on the surface, except that for Limbaugh, the
Speaker 2: superiority of our side and the inferiority of them was
Speaker 2: increasingly over the years a deadly serious matter. It became
Speaker 2: tribal warfare, which you know, is kind of where we
Speaker 2: are now. On January twenty third, nineteen ninety five, Time
Speaker 2: magazine featured Rush Limbaugh on its cover. We see him
Speaker 2: wearing a suit and smoking a cigar. Smoke curls up
Speaker 2: out of his mouth behind the bold words is Rush
Speaker 2: Limbaugh good for America? Now? It was obvious to anyone
Speaker 2: who was paying attention that he was not. But for
Speaker 2: the most part, the liberal media that Rush attacked and
Speaker 2: demonized embraced him as kind of like the loyal opposition,
Speaker 2: as an erudent foil to debate with, to argue against,
Speaker 2: but nonetheless someone who deserved respect and honor due to
Speaker 2: his success. Like you can see this in the episode
Speaker 2: of Family Guy that Rush was on, right where it's
Speaker 2: like he has these fun bickering arguments with the token
Speaker 2: liberal on the show, but in the end they really
Speaker 2: both like each other, you know, as opposed to what
Speaker 2: Rush actually represented, which is the politics of violent elimination
Speaker 2: of the opponent. And that's what's most amazing to me
Speaker 2: is no matter what he said about the mainstream media,
Speaker 2: about the liberal media, whatever, they fetted him, they praised him,
Speaker 2: They made him like he was never treated as a pariah.
Speaker 2: Barbara Walters said in an interview, people just can't get
Speaker 2: enough of him. The Los Angeles Yeah, The Los Angeles
Speaker 2: Times described him as a self styled commander in chief,
Speaker 2: fighting his private culture war agains the many liberal do
Speaker 2: gooder notions that interfere with his right to eat and
Speaker 2: wear and spend whatever he damn well wants, and say
Speaker 2: whatever he damn well pleases. C Span highlighted him in
Speaker 2: a fawning interview that helped turn him into a household name.
Speaker 2: Within a year of that interview, he was carried by
Speaker 2: five hundred and thirty stations and listened to by an
Speaker 2: estimated twenty five million Americans. He started writing books with
Speaker 2: titles like The Way Things Ought to Be, each of
Speaker 2: which dutifully went on to become a New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 2: For a man who built his career attacking the liberal media,
Speaker 2: Rush never received anything but encouragement and financial support from
Speaker 2: his so called enemies. The fundamental hypocrisies that undergirded his
Speaker 2: career were seldom called out. Rush Limbaugh had not even
Speaker 2: registered to vote until he was thirty five years old,
Speaker 2: two years before his show became a nation nationwide success.
Speaker 2: The repeated double standards in his work and his life
Speaker 2: never hurt his poll with his audience. For example, rush
Speaker 2: Limbaugh repeatedly attacked Bill Clinton as a draft dodger, which
Speaker 2: he was, but so was rush Limbaugh took the route
Speaker 2: that most well the young Americans during Vietnam took and
Speaker 2: found a doctor who would diagnose him with a bullshit
Speaker 2: injuries that he couldn't be called up for service. When
Speaker 2: he was eventually called on this by some journalists who
Speaker 2: were doing their jobs, he responded, I had student deferments
Speaker 2: in college, and upon taking a physical was discovered to
Speaker 2: have a physical by the virtue of what the military says,
Speaker 2: I didn't even know it existed, a physical deferment. And
Speaker 2: then the lottery system came along when they chose your
Speaker 2: a lot by birth date, and mine was high, and
Speaker 2: I did not want to go, just as Governor Clinton didn't,
Speaker 2: which on its own is a reasonable statement, except you
Speaker 2: spent years attacking Clinton for being a draft dodge. Yeah,
Speaker 2: huge draft.
Speaker 1: Do funny and hypocritical.
Speaker 3: To me, my favorite draft dodge explanation of all time
Speaker 3: is still Dick Cheney. I had other priorities.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, that's just that's incredible.
Speaker 2: And it's true. Both Cheney and George W. Bush did,
Speaker 2: like Rush, like Clinton, everything they could to not actually
Speaker 2: go and fight in Vietnam. One of the things that
Speaker 2: will always be the most curiating thing, one of the
Speaker 2: most inferiating things to happen in American politics to me,
Speaker 2: is the way in which John Kerry, who is a
Speaker 2: whatever else you can say about him, fought courageously went
Speaker 2: to wint despite the considerable privilege he was born into,
Speaker 2: did an incredibly dangerous job, was wounded multiple times, and
Speaker 2: risked his life repeatedly for the lives of his men. Right,
Speaker 2: Vietnam was a terrible war we never should have been in.
Speaker 2: It was fundamentally a moral on a national scale, but
Speaker 2: on a human level. John Kerrey did the right thing,
Speaker 2: which is not use his privilege to get out of
Speaker 2: fighting in a war that other people of his class
Speaker 2: got us into. And he was portrayed during that campaign
Speaker 2: as like a liar and a craven coward. Well, George Bush,
Speaker 2: who did everything he could to not fight in Vietnam,
Speaker 2: was seen as this brave warrior hero. It's it's still
Speaker 2: very frustrating. I don't even like John Kerry, but my god,
Speaker 2: the man did the thing all of you say is
Speaker 2: what you're say supposed to do as a man. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's infuriating. It's infuriating. The Dittoheads continued to listen to
Speaker 2: their idol slam Clinton for being a draft dodger, even
Speaker 2: while they celebrated a man who, by his own admission,
Speaker 2: had done the exact same thing. Rush would eventually rack
Speaker 2: up three to four and I should have stayed here.
Speaker 2: It's not bad to be a draft dodger. The Vietnam
Speaker 2: War was again, horribly a moral. It's perfectly. It's what
Speaker 2: is immoral is dodging the draft and then going on
Speaker 2: to encourage to do nothing but encourage more wars that
Speaker 2: involve American servicemen. Right, that's immoral. It is not a
Speaker 2: moral to dodge the draft and say, hey, this was
Speaker 2: a bad war. We shouldn't get involved in stupid, pointless
Speaker 2: wars that just kill people. For the profits of a
Speaker 2: tiny number Like that's bad. I'm not going to do it,
Speaker 2: and I'm not going to support it. That's fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's doubly a moral when you're well past the
Speaker 3: age where it would affect you where it's you're now,
Speaker 3: there's another there's a later generation of people that will
Speaker 3: be affected by this very uh, you know, a hypocritical
Speaker 3: line of attack.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the moral inconsistency that's infuriating. John Kerry actually,
Speaker 2: and John Kerry did not support the Vietnam War and
Speaker 2: became after he got out a very very outspoken voice
Speaker 2: against it. But it's the if if Limbaugh had served
Speaker 2: in Vietnam and then gone on to be a warhawk,
Speaker 2: then at least he would be ideologically consistent. You know,
Speaker 2: at least I could say Rush Limbaugh believes in something.
Speaker 2: It's like John McCain. At least he fucking believed in something.
Speaker 2: You know, it was terrible and fundamentally toxic as well,
Speaker 2: but it was not He's not like Limbaugh. You know,
Speaker 2: he is a person who has beliefs. I don't know that.
Speaker 2: It's not like that line from the Big Lebowski, right, like,
Speaker 2: say what you will about the tenets of national socialism. Dude,
Speaker 2: at least it's an ethos, you know. So, Rush Limbaugh
Speaker 2: was not a man who I think believed in mush much.
Speaker 2: Other than the fame and wealth of rush Limbaugh. He
Speaker 2: would eventually rack up three divorces and four why he
Speaker 2: never had any children. Despite this, tens of millions of
Speaker 2: conservatives listened to him opining on family values and traditional
Speaker 2: morality on a daily basis. Rush called it functional values,
Speaker 2: and one key aspect of his functional value system was
Speaker 2: rejecting illegal drugs. At one point on his TV show
Speaker 2: at the height of the drug war, Rush told his audience,
Speaker 2: if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they
Speaker 2: ought to be accused, and they ought to be convicted,
Speaker 2: and they ought to be sent up the river. He
Speaker 2: repeatedly called addicts junkies up the river. Yeah, you go
Speaker 2: to prison if you do illegal drugs. Scene. He repeatedly
Speaker 2: called addicts junkies and suggested that drug dealers deserved death
Speaker 2: for their crimes. While he enthusiastically supported the drug war
Speaker 2: and the use of the Carcerral state to lock up
Speaker 2: mostly black men for selling drugs, rush Limbaugh was actively
Speaker 2: trafficking huge amounts of opiate painkillers. Rush used his housekeeper
Speaker 2: as a hookup, handing her cigar boxes filled with cash
Speaker 2: in exchange for thousands of pills of OxyContin, hydrocodone, and
Speaker 2: the like. In two thousand and three, she went public
Speaker 2: and knocked on him to the police. When the story broke,
Speaker 2: he was charged for his crimes, and Florida Sheriff's deputies
Speaker 2: opened an investigation into a drug trafficking ring. We don't
Speaker 2: know exactly what rushes, if he was just a customer
Speaker 2: or if he had some other role in it, but
Speaker 2: he was buying huge amounts of painkillers. I'm talking about
Speaker 2: a guy who was spending probably hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 2: dollars on his addiction.
Speaker 3: And did it come from Did he have some injury
Speaker 3: that got him hooked on it.
Speaker 2: Or yeah, he got it prescribed to him initially for
Speaker 2: an injury and he got addicted like most people do. Hey,
Speaker 2: this is this is not just with prescription painculls. Most
Speaker 2: people who have a problematic addiction to a drug get
Speaker 2: addicted because of something negative that happens in their life. Right, yes,
Speaker 2: trauma or an injury or an emotional depression whatever. That's
Speaker 2: most people who have a problematic addiction. Limbaugh said, anyone
Speaker 2: who does that should go to prison. Then he did that,
Speaker 2: you know, but he gets caught and he oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: he gets pught. And when he gets caught, it is
Speaker 2: a big story. In two thousand and three, his housekeeper
Speaker 2: went public, wore a wire recorded him doing a drug
Speaker 2: dealer deal, knocked on him to the police, and when
Speaker 2: the story broke, he was charged for his crimes and
Speaker 2: Florida Sheriff's deputies opened an investigation into that drug traffic
Speaker 2: trafficking ring. His third wife left him. He checked himself
Speaker 2: into rehab while his multimillion dollar a team of lawyers
Speaker 2: went to work defending him in court. A legal battle
Speaker 2: would go on for three years, during which time he
Speaker 2: began doctor shopping to maintain his addiction. He was charged
Speaker 2: again with fraud for concealing information to obtain prescriptions from
Speaker 2: four different doctors who prescribed him roughly two thousand pain
Speaker 2: pills during one six month period. The case would eventually
Speaker 2: wrap up in two thousand and six when Limbaugh agreed
Speaker 2: to a plea deal that allowed him to avoid prosecution
Speaker 2: if he sought treatment and avoided other criminal activity. It's
Speaker 2: very frustrating. Uh huh, oh, yeah, I actually didn't. I
Speaker 2: didn't really, I wasn't really cognizant of all the legal
Speaker 2: side of this. I just remember the hypocrisy of him
Speaker 2: being you know, uh, just gobbling up yeah, shaming and
Speaker 2: while he's gobbling down these pills.
Speaker 3: But I had no idea. I guess I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't bother exploring that side.
Speaker 1: Of it, right, And like he doesn't even it's not
Speaker 1: even a slap on the risk. It's like a little
Speaker 1: light tap on the wrist. It's not even a slap
Speaker 1: on the wrists. So fucking upsetting.
Speaker 2: And again, the immorality here is that he always advocated
Speaker 2: criminal consequences for people who did exactly what he did,
Speaker 2: and then he didn't go on to suffer them. And
Speaker 2: that's what's It's not that, like, there's nothing morally wrong
Speaker 2: with being addicted to painkillers. If it were legal, I
Speaker 2: would absolutely be a painkiller addict. Seems it's it's the
Speaker 2: But I'm also consistent about the fact that I don't
Speaker 2: think doing or possession any subset should be exactly with
Speaker 2: the exception of like, you know, some explosives, there's a
Speaker 2: line to be drawn. I don't think people should have
Speaker 2: certain aramis a lot. But Harold, speaking of Heroin, you
Speaker 2: know who supports our podcast, Sophie, I don't know the
Speaker 2: fine people at the Sina Loa cartel, So like right now, yes,
Speaker 2: this is a cartel supported podcast, and I just want
Speaker 2: to say, let's go to ads before I get us
Speaker 2: in some trouble. Ah, we're back good times. So while
Speaker 2: Rush was using his wealth and power to avoid the
Speaker 2: legal consequences that he enthusiastically supported existing for the crimes
Speaker 2: he committed, he continued to act as the voice of
Speaker 2: America's conservative conscience. Mostly this meant being super racist. At
Speaker 2: one point, on his TV show, he played video clips
Speaker 2: of black men and boys standing in front of the TV,
Speaker 2: and like, while he was playing these clips of black
Speaker 2: men and boys, he would stand in front of the
Speaker 2: TV and make gorilla noises and grunts, the apparent oak
Speaker 2: being that black people were like monkeys, Like that's kind
Speaker 2: of I don't know what else he could be saying.
Speaker 6: Pretty satirical, very satire satirical, Like, yeah, I think he
Speaker 6: got that from a New Yorker cartoon.
Speaker 2: It would be like if Jonathan Swift actually murdered Irish
Speaker 2: children and ate them and then was like, this is
Speaker 2: a satire. Get it, you get it. The joke is
Speaker 2: that their food rush repeatedly blamed corruption and violence in
Speaker 2: African like the African nation national governments, as the fault
Speaker 2: of black people getting rid of white colonial leaders, as
Speaker 2: we see in this quote from two thousand and seven quote. Right,
Speaker 2: so you go into Darfur, and you go into South Africa,
Speaker 2: you get rid of the white government there, you put
Speaker 2: sanctions on them. You stand behind Nelson Mandela, who was
Speaker 2: bankrolled by communists for a time, had the support of
Speaker 2: certain communist leaders. You go to Ethiopia, you do the
Speaker 2: same thing.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: He's saying that because the black people got rid of
Speaker 2: their colonial oppressors, that's why Africa's in bad shape. Not
Speaker 2: the decades of trauma those governments pushed. Not the fact
Speaker 2: that when those governments gave up colonial control, they put
Speaker 2: people like Idiot Mean, who had been a British military
Speaker 2: sergeant in charge of the government and turned out that
Speaker 2: he was a fucking monster. Not because these governments, like
Speaker 2: colonial governments, continued to suck wealth out of these countries
Speaker 2: and support kleptocratic dictatorships that allowed them to suck more
Speaker 2: wealth out. That made the country dysfunctional, and that led
Speaker 2: to consistent, like decades and decades of violence. Not that
Speaker 2: they supported ethnic groups one over the other like they
Speaker 2: did in Rwanda which led to their one and genocide,
Speaker 2: none of that. It's because they got rid of the
Speaker 2: white people, even the white people didn't actually leave. You know,
Speaker 2: it's super fucked up.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that he'd actually gone to the lengths
Speaker 3: of trying to smear Nelson Mandela.
Speaker 2: Yeah, communists, Jesus great. Uh, that's good stuff. I mean
Speaker 2: in Nelson Mandela also was at one point some guy
Speaker 2: somebody who supported like terrorism and stuff, which also is
Speaker 2: totally justified. If your government is the apartheid government of
Speaker 2: s South Africa. Terrorism is not necessarily the wrong thing
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 3: No, I would say, it's not off the table.
Speaker 2: It's not off the table. Yeah, sometimes terrorists are right, Yes,
Speaker 2: that is like you could argue that the founding fathers
Speaker 2: of this nation, who despite their own bigotry and slave
Speaker 2: like the government they were rebelling against also allowed slavery,
Speaker 2: they were right to do terrorism to get rid of
Speaker 2: having a king, because kings are bad, you know, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: terrorism is justified sometimes so. Rush was repeatedly critical of
Speaker 2: professional sports for the presence of black athletes, as we
Speaker 2: see in this two thousand and seven quote. Look, let
Speaker 2: me put it to you this way. The NFL all
Speaker 2: too often looks like a game between the bloods and
Speaker 2: the crips without any weapons there. I said it.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: The inherent criminality of black people was a belief that
Speaker 2: Rush held deeply, and he expressed it constantly. In nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three, he said the NAACP should have riot rehearsals.
Speaker 2: They should get a liquor store and practice robberies. You're
Speaker 2: saying this after the LA riots, you know, this is
Speaker 2: like just this is what then? This is not people
Speaker 2: reacting to horrible violence the only way that they can, right,
Speaker 2: This is not a riot being the language of the unheard.
Speaker 2: This is what the NAACP wants because.
Speaker 1: They're all prim much to criticize athletes. I bet he
Speaker 1: couldn't even do like a jog.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's pretty great.
Speaker 3: The yeah, the talking point of like they just these
Speaker 3: you know, these people they just love to riot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just loved her. Not these people are being
Speaker 2: oppressed and murdered and finally, violence was the only thing
Speaker 2: they could think to do because they were given no
Speaker 2: other options, and they've reached the end of their human tether,
Speaker 2: like the people I idolize who founded this nation.
Speaker 3: But yeah, look, slavery is over. What more do you want?
Speaker 3: I mean?
Speaker 2: And when I say that, I don't mean to say
Speaker 2: like that. Obviously, anyone rioting in Los Angeles in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three was a thousand times more justified than George Washington.
Speaker 2: And that said, I still think getting rid of a king,
Speaker 2: all other things being equal, getting rid of a king
Speaker 2: is a violid reason to do violence. Kings are bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Rush repeatedly argued that white people shouldn't be blamed
Speaker 2: for slavery, saying it's preposterous that Caucasians are blamed for
Speaker 2: slavery when they've done more to end it than any
Speaker 2: other race. Any race of people should not have guilty.
Speaker 2: If any race of people should not have guilt about slavery,
Speaker 2: it's Caucasians. God, Rush, bitch, It's amazing how many Caucasians
Speaker 2: fought to keep fought and died to keep slavery going.
Speaker 3: Rush, is this just like at this point when you
Speaker 3: say things like that, right, he is what do you
Speaker 3: think the percentage is of uh? For in Russia's mind,
Speaker 3: I actually believe this or what is the most to
Speaker 3: what is the most outrageous thing that I could say?
Speaker 2: I think he comes to believe it because these beliefs
Speaker 2: become a well, I think what it is.
Speaker 3: It starts.
Speaker 2: He's not a political person, he doesn't care about politics.
Speaker 2: He starts with a joke because he starts doing this
Speaker 2: persona because it gets him listeners. But he's also a narcissist,
Speaker 2: and these beliefs aren't political stances to him. They're aspects
Speaker 2: of his personality. And his narcissism dictates that he comes
Speaker 2: to believe it because believing it and defending these things
Speaker 2: is the same as defending himself. And again, he's a
Speaker 2: fucking narcissist. I think that's how it works.
Speaker 3: I like the Trump thing where he starts out telling
Speaker 3: a lie, but then he repeats the lie enough times
Speaker 3: that it becomes true to him because he is saying.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly the case. So another repeated rush Limbaugh
Speaker 2: Bitt was attacking the daughters of Democratic presidents for being ugly.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty eight, he called Jimmy Carter's daughter Amy
Speaker 2: the most unattractive presidential daughter in the history of the country.
Speaker 2: In the early nineteen nineties, he declared Chelsea Clinton to
Speaker 2: be the White House dog, which is like just very vile.
Speaker 2: I don't even think it's like the Trump boys and
Speaker 2: Evanka made themselves political figures, perfectly fine to insult and
Speaker 2: attack them. You're never gonna hear me saying anything bat
Speaker 2: about like Tiffany or barn because they're they're children, you know, like,
Speaker 2: don't fucking talk about them if they don't make themselves
Speaker 2: into a major part of things.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Now, Chelsea Clinton's done has it put herself in the
Speaker 2: public eye, and it's perfectly fair to criticize her for
Speaker 2: the thing she does in the public eye.
Speaker 3: But at that time when he was saying that shit,
Speaker 3: she was but she was a child.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And what you're what he said about her
Speaker 2: is a kind You can't be a good person and
Speaker 2: say that about a child to an audience millions.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In twenty twelve, when Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke went
Speaker 2: before Congress to argue that contraceptive should be covered by
Speaker 2: the Affordable Care Act, Limbaugh called her a slut and
Speaker 2: a prostitute. It's it's hard. You can't overstate how vile
Speaker 2: he was. When the Marty from Back to the Future.
Speaker 3: Uh, Michael J. Fox.
Speaker 2: Michael J. Fox, Yeah, made some political statements that Limbaugh
Speaker 2: disagreed with limbab mimic having Parkinson's disease, to mock him
Speaker 2: on his show, like such a bad person to say that, to.
Speaker 3: Imply that Michael J. Fox was playing it up for
Speaker 3: the cameras. Yeah, when he went testified before Congress. I
Speaker 3: remember this. I remember this so well because Michael J.
Speaker 3: Fox deliberately did not take his medication and said that
Speaker 3: and said, I want you to see this is what happens.
Speaker 3: And Rush Limbaugh accused him of like playing it up
Speaker 3: like it's not that bad, and he's he's jiggling all
Speaker 3: around like that's like burned into my brain forever.
Speaker 2: It's horrific. I mean, it's like and to say that
Speaker 2: it would be it like, I think what he did
Speaker 2: was perfectly reasonable. I'm not going to take my medicine
Speaker 2: because you need to know what it is like for
Speaker 2: people who don't have access to the medicine. I'm rich.
Speaker 2: I have access to all the medicine I need here's
Speaker 2: what it's like. If you don't, I want to make
Speaker 2: this less abstract to you. Yeah, I had a friend.
Speaker 2: One of the big things in terms of like me
Speaker 2: changing my political attitudes, it started with like me changing
Speaker 2: my attitudes on drugs, this conservative that like marijuana should
Speaker 2: be illegal, that it was a moral. I had a
Speaker 2: friend who's much older than I met on World of
Speaker 2: Warcraft who had multiple sclerosis, and we were video chatting,
Speaker 2: and she showed me how badly her hands shook before
Speaker 2: she started smoking. Right, she showed me herself shaking, and
Speaker 2: then she took a hit, which was difficult for her,
Speaker 2: and I watched in real time how it affected her.
Speaker 2: And I never again supported keeping that shit illegal, because
Speaker 2: you can't when you see it, right, you can't. It's medicine,
Speaker 2: not that most people use it use it medicinally, which
Speaker 2: doesn't isn't wrong, like it's not wrong to use it recreationally,
Speaker 2: But just the idea that what she was doing was
Speaker 2: a crime made it clear to me how a moral
Speaker 2: our drug laws were in a way that maybe if
Speaker 2: I had like it would have taken longer otherwise, I
Speaker 2: think clearly. So. Yeah, Anyway, Limba did occasionally face consequences
Speaker 2: for his bald faced bigotry. In two thousand and three,
Speaker 2: ESPN hired him as an on air commentator. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And he was fired after like seven weeks because he
Speaker 2: said Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb didn't deserve any of
Speaker 2: the praise he received. So he said Donovan, Yeah, he
Speaker 2: said Donovan McNabb didn't deserve the praise that he received
Speaker 2: because quote, I think the media has been very desirous
Speaker 2: that a black quarterback do well. They're interested in black
Speaker 2: coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think that there's
Speaker 2: a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a
Speaker 2: lot of credit for the performance of his team that
Speaker 2: he really didn't deserve. People just like this guy because
Speaker 2: he's black, not because he's a good quarterback. The media
Speaker 2: is invested in black men being good quarterbacks.
Speaker 1: You know, I like that you went into your Shapiro
Speaker 1: voice for that quote.
Speaker 2: It's what the fuck man? You couldn't do what he's doing?
Speaker 2: How dare you like? So this combat drew enough widespread
Speaker 2: condemnation that Limbaugh was forced to resign from ESPN, but
Speaker 2: obviously this had little to no impact on his bottom line.
Speaker 2: Maybe it annoyed him personally, but it didn't hurt him financially.
Speaker 2: By the early aughts, Rush was worth hundreds of millions
Speaker 2: of dollars. He had a private jet, He had a
Speaker 2: palatial mansion in Florida. He smoked cigars that cost more
Speaker 2: than some people's cars. This is disgusting, but I think
Speaker 2: any fair accounting of Limbaugh's career has to acknowledge how
Speaker 2: impressive it was too. The early two thousand saw the
Speaker 2: explosion of Fox News. This is the period where it
Speaker 2: became the most watched news network in the country. A
Speaker 2: slew of Limbaugh imitators rose up, men like Bill O'Reilly,
Speaker 2: Glenn Beck, and Tucker Carlson, to name a few. While
Speaker 2: these folks were all hugely successful and influential, none of
Speaker 2: them ever eclipsed Rush. This is because, in addition to
Speaker 2: wielding influence, Rush held actual, demonstrable political power. And I'm
Speaker 2: going to quote the Rolling Stone again here. His sky
Speaker 2: high ratings and the rabid fandom of his dittoheads, who
Speaker 2: just happened to fit the profile of people who voted
Speaker 2: frequently in Republican primaries, made it inevitable that the GOP
Speaker 2: would come courting in nineteen ninety two, after he'd boosted
Speaker 2: Pat Bmuchannon's pitchfork populist Make America First again challenged to
Speaker 2: George Bush. The President became so hell bent on gaining
Speaker 2: Limbaugh's favor for the general election that he not only
Speaker 2: invited the host to the White House but toted his
Speaker 2: bags personally into the Lincoln Bedroom. Limbaugh had only praised
Speaker 2: for Bush from that day forward, at least until he
Speaker 2: lost to Bill Clinton in November. That set a pattern.
Speaker 2: Limbaugh might instinctively gravitate to the radicals, but he was
Speaker 2: ultimately a team player, the national precinct captain of the
Speaker 2: Republican Party, as Mother Jones described him two years later,
Speaker 2: Limbaugh basically co captain the Republican Revolution with House Leader
Speaker 2: Knute Gingrich. When their efforts produced a landslide that brought
Speaker 2: seventy three anti government zelots to Congress. The host was
Speaker 2: made an honorary House freshman and feded at a GOP
Speaker 2: orientation in December, where the new members wore Rush was
Speaker 2: right buttons and listened to his marching orders. This is
Speaker 2: not the time to get moderate, he said. This is
Speaker 2: not the time to start trying to be liked. Ronald
Speaker 2: Reagan himself declared Limbaugh the number one voice for conservatism
Speaker 2: in our country. And Rush was always very clear suck
Speaker 2: and Rush was always very clear about where he wanted
Speaker 2: to see the part head. Smaller government, stronger, more powerful corporations.
Speaker 2: He said all he said outright, I consider myself a
Speaker 2: defender of corporate America. Yeah, it would not be wrong
Speaker 2: to view Rush Limbaugh as something of a cult leader.
Speaker 2: One of the strongest pieces of evidence supporting this conclusion is,
Speaker 2: in my mind, Limbaugh's embrace of the irrational politics. For
Speaker 2: Rush Limbaugh was never about concrete results or observable reality.
Speaker 2: It was a fight between good his side and evil
Speaker 2: anyone who disagreed with him. And since those were the stakes,
Speaker 2: it didn't matter if he light or spread conspiracy theories,
Speaker 2: because the essence of what he was saying, that the
Speaker 2: Democrats were monsters, was true. Nowhere is this clearer than
Speaker 2: in his hatred of the Clintons. It started when George H. W.
Speaker 2: Bush lost to Bill robbing Rush of a president who
Speaker 2: would directly, you know, take him into the White House.
Speaker 2: Right from an early stage, Rush realized that lying about
Speaker 2: the crimes committed by Bill and Hillary was a more
Speaker 2: productive route than criticizing them on policy, and so in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four he announced Vince Foster was murdered in
Speaker 2: an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton and the body was
Speaker 2: taken to Fort Marcy Park, rolling Stone rights conspiracy theories
Speaker 2: once the province of fringe right wingers, started to become
Speaker 2: the mainstream Republican fair they are today during Clinton's two terms,
Speaker 2: and Limbaugh was the great popularizer of the genre. Long
Speaker 2: before Fox hosts began amplifying the fringier theories about American politics,
Speaker 2: Limbaugh was busy mainstreaming wingnut world. The conspiracy cranks, the
Speaker 2: John Birchers, the Christian Zionists, the science deniers, the info warriors,
Speaker 2: their wildest fantasies, fears, and paranoias all came out to
Speaker 2: play in the national prime time on The Rush Limbaugh Show,
Speaker 2: repackaged by the host into a palatable fare for the
Speaker 2: Republican masses. And this is this is significant because Russia
Speaker 2: is demonizing of the Clintons, who there's plenty of very
Speaker 2: value valid things to critique them on, but at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, pretty normal neo liberal politicians. It's
Speaker 2: even spread on the left. This idea that Hillary Clinton
Speaker 2: is somehow more of a warmonger than other liberals, right,
Speaker 2: is somehow like exceptionally bad. When she's not. She's very
Speaker 2: much in line with everyone else in the party and
Speaker 2: everyone else who has held those positions and is not
Speaker 2: as bad as some of them. Right, She's more hated
Speaker 2: by certain people.
Speaker 3: Even on the left.
Speaker 2: You'll find people are who are more directly aggressive towards
Speaker 2: her than they are a fucking kissinger. And it's not
Speaker 2: that she's not bad.
Speaker 3: She is, so is Bill.
Speaker 2: They're greedy, Bill's a rapist. They have supported, you know,
Speaker 2: initia of the Iraq War, a number of violent actions
Speaker 2: overseas that were disasters, but there they did that as
Speaker 2: part of as all like within a large group of people. Right,
Speaker 2: there's nothing about them that is exceptionally bad for the
Speaker 2: the the crew that they run with, but this absolute
Speaker 2: demonizing of them that has a real impact by the
Speaker 2: on the twenty sixteen election. That's a big part of
Speaker 2: what we get Trump is something that Rush Limbaugh pioneers,
Speaker 2: the Clintons are not like my parents hated Trump, hated
Speaker 2: Trump when he was running and voted for him because
Speaker 2: their hatred of Hillary Clinton was it's beyond rational. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's and again a lot of super valid criticisms of
Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton. I don't think she should have ever been president. Also,
Speaker 2: hard to say she would have been worse than Trump.
Speaker 2: And if you are saying like she would have, for example,
Speaker 2: been more killed more people overseas than Trump, you're not
Speaker 2: actually paying attention to the death toll as a result
Speaker 2: of American air strikes and missile strikes and drone strikes
Speaker 2: as it changed from the Obama administration where Clinton was
Speaker 2: Secretary of State to the Trump administration, because there was
Speaker 2: a massive escalation in death under that, in addition to
Speaker 2: a repealing of the rule about any sort of reporting
Speaker 2: about civilian casualties from US air strikes. Trump was worse
Speaker 2: on this sort of stuff, but you'd never know it anyway.
Speaker 2: I don't want to get into a rant on this,
Speaker 2: but like you can't it. It's almost impossible to analyze
Speaker 2: the Clintons, their impact, their crimes, and their and their
Speaker 2: and their their behaviors, their policies with any sort of
Speaker 2: rationality because this they've been turned into goblins. Right. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's very frustrating. Yeah, and it makes it it makes
Speaker 2: it so that if you try to say, like, well, actually,
Speaker 2: this thing you're criticizing them on isn't a reasonable thing
Speaker 2: to or at least the way you're criticizing them isn't reasonable.
Speaker 2: Suddenly you're defending them, and it's like, no, that's not
Speaker 2: what I'm it's very I hate it, I hate everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Sorry, It gets that that sort of specific personality
Speaker 3: demonization gets in the way of actually accomplishing uh uh uh,
Speaker 3: you know discussions of policy and where and where we
Speaker 3: are as a country and how we do things. Because yes,
Speaker 3: absolutely they were completely typical of the people that occupy
Speaker 3: the White House any given a year, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. Yeah, and and to and like you know Hillary, uh,
Speaker 3: even if she had killed as many people overseas as
Speaker 3: Trump did, probably fewer people domestically in terms of policy
Speaker 3: if you're talking about the if you're gonna talk get
Speaker 3: into the pandemic and stuff like that, if she had
Speaker 3: been elected and and you know, anyway, yeah, I totally
Speaker 3: agree that it's like it's a very weird uh thing
Speaker 3: that uh uh, that's that that absolutely sprung out of
Speaker 3: the Rush Limbaugh.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 3: Personal demon personal demonization.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That that that then gets into you know, like the
Speaker 3: fucking Alex Jones ship where he's a demon. There's fly,
Speaker 3: there's a fly on her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It's this, it's this turning people from like, Okay,
Speaker 2: let's analyze what this person's actually done, how it's worked,
Speaker 2: when it's been successful, when it's been unsuccessful, when it's
Speaker 2: been moral, when it's been a moral and to no,
Speaker 2: she's just a criminal. She's just a warmonger. And we
Speaker 2: don't have to analyze what she actually did or anything.
Speaker 2: We don't have to. We just have to condemn her.
Speaker 2: And it's not that she doesn't deserve condemnation for a
Speaker 2: lot of things, but like for one thing, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to fucking get onto a defending because
Speaker 2: I don't like Hillary Clinton. But she's also has it
Speaker 2: like it's very frustrating. Yeah, it's very it's all just
Speaker 2: very frustrating. And he's and he creates this culture and
Speaker 2: it spreads. Now it's not just the Clinton's now now
Speaker 2: it's it's everyone. Right, you don't have to analyze people
Speaker 2: that you disagree with. You come up with a three
Speaker 2: word thing about them, and you spread these like like
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton has committed crimes, he's a fucking rapist. You
Speaker 2: don't have to make up that he and his wife
Speaker 2: are having people murdered. It like, yeah, yeactly, Like he's
Speaker 2: a rapist. That's bad. But of course a lot of
Speaker 2: people calling him a rapist or rapists themselves, and they
Speaker 2: have to make it up that now, no, he's a murderer.
Speaker 2: You know. It's it's fucking bullshit. It's very frustrating. So
Speaker 2: Rush also led the charge on demonizing and denying global
Speaker 2: warming and climate change. In his book See I Told
Speaker 2: You So, He declared that quite a few scientists are
Speaker 2: now backtracking on there once dire predictions of melting ice
Speaker 2: caps and worldwide flooding cut to Texas being submerged in
Speaker 2: a layer of snow that destroys civil society. Ye, or
Speaker 2: the entire West Coast burning down last year. Anyway. He
Speaker 2: lampooned al Gore and scientists who warned about climate change
Speaker 2: as quote a few hardline doomsayers who are sticking to
Speaker 2: their thermostats. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 3: His conclusion was what you know and now it's it
Speaker 3: never affected him.
Speaker 2: And it never affected him now he's dead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, as far as he knows, he was right
Speaker 3: about this.
Speaker 2: He was right about this. Limball was unquestionably the single
Speaker 2: most influential American conservative from about nineteen eighty nine to
Speaker 2: at least two thousand and eight. Now, his star did
Speaker 2: start to fade by the end of George W. Bush's term,
Speaker 2: and there are a couple of reasons for this. For one,
Speaker 2: he'd been outed as an opiate addict, gone to rehab
Speaker 2: three times, and through it all, had repeatedly defended an
Speaker 2: administration that led the United States into two disastrous and
Speaker 2: expensive failed wars. By the time Barack Obama was elected,
Speaker 2: many of the more libertarian minded right wing were starting
Speaker 2: to reject the neo conservative ideology that Russia's been eight
Speaker 2: years hyping up. Now, the fact that Barack Obama was
Speaker 2: the man who finally broke eight years of GOP power
Speaker 2: wound up being the salvation of Limbaugh's influence. Yes, he'd
Speaker 2: encouraged the nation to burn through its treasure and influence,
Speaker 2: losing two wars, but now a black man was president,
Speaker 2: the floodgates of right wing racism opened wide. In the
Speaker 2: first four years of Obama's term, the number of hate
Speaker 2: groups in the United States rose by seven hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty five percent. This surge in public anti black races.
Speaker 2: I know, it's pretty shocking when you actually look at
Speaker 2: the number.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the idea, there's a black president, We're gonna need
Speaker 3: more hate groups. Guys, there's the hate groups, the extant
Speaker 3: hate groups that we're not going to get it done.
Speaker 3: We need more hate groups.
Speaker 2: There is a black president who in his actual policies
Speaker 2: is not wildly different from George H. W. Bush. But like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the fact that Barack Obama. Yeah, so this surge and
Speaker 2: anti in public anti black racism was heralded, incited, and
Speaker 2: led by Rush Limbaugh, the USA's most prominent bigot. There
Speaker 2: are a lot of different clips that I could select
Speaker 2: to make this point, Paul, but none is more appropriate
Speaker 2: than this song that aired on Russia's program while Obama
Speaker 2: was still on the campaign trail. Now, the context of
Speaker 2: this is that Limba was talking about the fact that
Speaker 2: Al Sharpton Barack Obama. Now, Sharpton had like a public
Speaker 2: series of arguments, right, I think Sharpton was backing Hillary
Speaker 2: at first. So this is this song that you're about
Speaker 2: to hear. The singer is supposed to be Al Sharpton
Speaker 2: singing about Barack Obama, and I'm just gonna let Sophie
Speaker 2: play the clip.
Speaker 5: Now, Barack the Magic need Grow lives in d C.
Speaker 3: The LA Times.
Speaker 5: They call him that because he's not authentic like me
Speaker 5: in the gap from the LA Paper said him make
Speaker 5: guilty Whitespiel good.
Speaker 3: They'll vo for him and not for me because he's
Speaker 3: not from the hood. See real black man like Snoop.
Speaker 2: Dogg or me, Oh Farak.
Speaker 3: Have talked to.
Speaker 5: Talk and walk the walk, not come in late and one.
Speaker 5: Oh Brock the Magic Niro lives in DC. The LA
Speaker 5: Times they called him because he's.
Speaker 2: Our I think that's enough of that. Yes, pretty bad.
Speaker 3: I mean, I just I guess I just wish that
Speaker 3: non comedy people would stay in their lane.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, you know what I meaning?
Speaker 3: Bro Yeah, that that like the the the meter was terrible.
Speaker 3: It it's bad.
Speaker 2: It's not it's not funny unless you're a bigot.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, exact, unless you're a bigot.
Speaker 2: So Limball had other Obama zingers, saying at one point,
Speaker 2: if he weren't black, he'd be a tour guide in Hawaii.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and eight, he compared Obama to a
Speaker 2: cartoon monkey. He repeatedly called Michelle moochell and why because
Speaker 2: she's a cow, you know, and by the and all
Speaker 2: the while he claimed that racism had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with his hatred of Obama. Doesn't matter to me what
Speaker 2: his races. He's liberal, that is what matters to me. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: Barack the magic Negro guy. Yeah, I just I just
Speaker 2: bring it up a ton, that's all. Yeah, I just
Speaker 2: I can't can't talk about it enough. But I'm not
Speaker 2: a big age.
Speaker 3: It's just convenient that he's black. It's not a problem
Speaker 3: that I have with him, but it's convenient for me
Speaker 3: for my satire.
Speaker 2: God, I hate this guy.
Speaker 3: So is he even doing satire at this point? Like?
Speaker 3: Has he pretend? Has he dropped that pretense? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean I can play you songs that like, there's
Speaker 2: a bunch of Nazis that will go through and like
Speaker 2: rewrite Disney songs to be about hating the Jews and stuff,
Speaker 2: or about race traders and whatnot, because it's the kind
Speaker 2: of thing that's easy to spread. Right, You make a
Speaker 2: racist song and people laugh and at first it's a joke,
Speaker 2: and then it becomes less of a joke. It's the
Speaker 2: whole story, right, Yeah, that's exactly what Limbad's doing. You know,
Speaker 2: it's not even all that much less racist. He just
Speaker 2: doesn't say the N word. When Canada Obama became president, Obama,
Speaker 2: Rush said, I hope he fails, explaining that rooting for
Speaker 2: liberalism to fail is rooting for America to succeed. Limba
Speaker 2: declared that stopping Obama was quote what I was born
Speaker 2: to do. One of his tactics to this end seemed
Speaker 2: to be stoking fears that because Obama was anti white,
Speaker 2: he was trying to gin up a race war. In
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, Rush declared, in Obama's America, the
Speaker 2: white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering.
Speaker 2: Clearly he would have preferred it when you know, I
Speaker 2: don't know when white kids were burning down black kids'
Speaker 2: schools in his hometown.
Speaker 3: Those were the days.
Speaker 2: Those were the days, my friend, he thought they'd never end. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's great. Limba was not the only person who stoked
Speaker 2: white resentment and anti black bigotry in this period. He
Speaker 2: was not close to the only person, but he was
Speaker 2: the man who had created the blueprint and the cultural
Speaker 2: space that all of those other right wing media figures
Speaker 2: acted in. Ben Shapiro was very open about the fact
Speaker 2: that Limba was his hero and idol. Alex Jones altered
Speaker 2: the way he spoke and altered the acoustics setup of
Speaker 2: his Info Wars studio in order to more closely Resembleush Limbaugh.
Speaker 2: In twenty ten, Limbaugh was picked to address Seapack, the
Speaker 2: Conservative Political Action Conference. He was the main event that
Speaker 2: year and gave what he called his first Address to
Speaker 2: the Nation. Limbaugh was so central to the Republican Party
Speaker 2: at this point that RNC Chairman Michael Steele was asked
Speaker 2: on CNN if Limbaugh was the effective party leader. When
Speaker 2: Steele claimed that Rush was just an entertainer. This pissed
Speaker 2: off Rush Limbaugh, who attacked Michael Steele on air and
Speaker 2: caused such an outpouring of right wing rage against the
Speaker 2: RNC chairman that Michael Steele was forced to make a
Speaker 2: public apology to Rush Limbaugh, kind of proving that he
Speaker 2: was effectively the leader of the Republican Party.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it puts me in mind of Howard
Speaker 3: Stern coming into the Philadelphia market and forcing John Debella,
Speaker 3: the host of The Morning Zoo, to apologize for being
Speaker 3: on the radio.
Speaker 2: Jesus, I didn't know that it happened.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: Ridiculous.
Speaker 2: So as leader of the Republican Party, Limbaugh spent the
Speaker 2: Obama years repeatedly hammering home the idea that there could
Speaker 2: not be peaceful coexistence between the right and left in
Speaker 2: the United States. Quote from Rush, we live in two universes.
Speaker 2: One universe is a lie. One universe is an entire lie.
Speaker 2: Everything run dominated, controlled by the left here and around
Speaker 2: the world is a lie. Every other universe where is
Speaker 2: where we are, and that's where reality reigns supreme and
Speaker 2: we deal with it again America, Yeah, the real America,
Speaker 2: and there can be no coexistence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this now, now we're in the age of you know,
Speaker 3: because Biden said, you know, he's looking for unity. Anytimes
Speaker 3: somebody's looking for unity, and uh, there is a there's
Speaker 3: a criticism of a famous monster like Rush Limbaugh. The
Speaker 3: response from the right is always, oh, where's the famous
Speaker 3: unity where? Well, I thought you wanted unity, And it's like, well,
Speaker 3: do you care about unity? You don't give a shit
Speaker 3: about it. You're already living in a world that says
Speaker 3: if you don't, if you don't come to believe the
Speaker 3: things that I believe, you are against America. And you are.
Speaker 3: You're the real racist, You're the real misogynist, you are
Speaker 3: the real hater of of all things that are decent.
Speaker 3: So it's I don't know how we I don't know
Speaker 3: how we unfuck ourselves from this, from this situation.
Speaker 2: Right yeah, I don't know that we can. But the
Speaker 2: way to do it is not to not to yield
Speaker 2: to these people, right yeah, it's it's it's not to
Speaker 2: just let them get what they want, because what they
Speaker 2: want is the annihilation of the other and honestly the
Speaker 2: annihilation of themselves, because it's a fucking death cult at
Speaker 2: this point, Like they can't be allowed to win. And
Speaker 2: like the people, and that's not to say that every
Speaker 2: aspect of what has what a traditional conservative ideology is wrong.
Speaker 2: They have some points. That's why it brings people in
Speaker 2: the idea that like you should always be wary about
Speaker 2: giving the government control of things, You fucking should, you know,
Speaker 2: Like absolutely, there's a space, there is a space for
Speaker 2: conservatism in society. That is not what Rush Limbaugh turned
Speaker 2: it into. Which is not to say that it because
Speaker 2: fucking Reagan was president before Limbaugh came onto the scene,
Speaker 2: and he was terrible and very toxic, Not like toxicity
Speaker 2: in the Republican Party goes back very far. But also
Speaker 2: it's not for nothing that the Republicans used to be
Speaker 2: the party of Abraham Lincoln. You know, it's not there.
Speaker 2: There is a way to have a conservatism that is
Speaker 2: influential in society that isn't a fucking death cult. And
Speaker 2: we have to at very least get back to that
Speaker 2: if we're going to continue to be a democracy that
Speaker 2: doesn't spiral inevitably into civil war. You know, I have
Speaker 2: I'm a pretty committed leftist, but I also do not
Speaker 2: seek a society that forces my beliefs on other people.
Speaker 2: But you can't.
Speaker 3: You can't.
Speaker 2: Give these people an inch because they'll take everything. That's
Speaker 2: how they are, you know, That's what part what Rush
Speaker 2: had a big impact in making them into. By twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: Rush Limbaugh had succeeded in leading a right word push
Speaker 2: that finally prepared the Republican Party to nominate an obvious fascist,
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. Limbaugh embraced Trump early on right wing radio
Speaker 2: host and never trump er Joe Walsh, who is another
Speaker 2: actually principled conservative, draws a direct line between Limbaugh and Trump. Quote,
Speaker 2: the average Trump supporter loves Trump because he fights man.
Speaker 2: He fights, not because of any policy or issue or
Speaker 2: political philosophy. That's why they loved Rush before him. It
Speaker 2: wasn't about conservatism. I still can't tell you after thirty
Speaker 2: years what the fuck he believes in. But he knew
Speaker 2: how to pray on audience's grievances and resentments, which is
Speaker 2: what conservative talk radio does. Rush was the son of
Speaker 2: a bitch. He'd lie about the dims and punch them
Speaker 2: and make fun of them. That gave him a cult
Speaker 2: like following from the beginning. Trump sort of inherited it,
Speaker 2: and I Joe Walsh again not a grade I degree
Speaker 2: agree with un much, but he's right on the money here.
Speaker 2: He's analyzing it properly.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, mm hmm. The thing I think the thing also
Speaker 3: about Trump is like like Rush doesn't really have any
Speaker 3: deeply held beliefs, right, like that, You couldn't say this guy,
Speaker 3: even convincing himself, really cares that much about anything beyond
Speaker 3: what's right in front of his fucking face that is
Speaker 3: about him.
Speaker 2: All he cares about is his own aggrandizement. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: it's narcissism. Trump and Limbaugh are very similar.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Rush bent the knee to Trump, declaring him everything
Speaker 2: but the Second Coming, and we will not labor long
Speaker 2: on Rush during Trump's years, Because once he had helped
Speaker 2: shepherd his massive audience into Trump's arms, his cultural influence faded.
Speaker 2: It was watered down by the sheer mass of right
Speaker 2: wing idolaw ideologues who flooded the Internet. It increasingly urged
Speaker 2: their followers to embrace around rationality, conspiracy, and fascism. In
Speaker 2: February of twenty twenty, Rush led the charge denying the
Speaker 2: reality of COVID nineteen. He called it the common cold
Speaker 2: and mocked even his old ally Matt Drudge for caring
Speaker 2: about the burgeoning plague. He urged his listeners against mask wearing,
Speaker 2: calling it a symbol of fear. Rush had long denied
Speaker 2: the dangers of smoking, particularly secondhand smoke, but this was
Speaker 2: a new level for him. When Trump lost reelection to Biden,
Speaker 2: Limbaugh immediately called the election a sham and joined the
Speaker 2: chorus of voices claiming fraud. By this point, though he
Speaker 2: was sick and the playing field was so flooded with
Speaker 2: men who sounded like him, triggered the libs like him,
Speaker 2: lied like him, that his voice hardly rose above the
Speaker 2: din Rush had succeeded in building a right wing so
Speaker 2: made in his own image that he no longer stood
Speaker 2: out in it. His last show was February second. He
Speaker 2: died less than two weeks later, killed by the lung
Speaker 2: cancer he denied had anything to do with smoking, because
Speaker 2: that was another thing Rush denied his entire career. Joe Walsh,
Speaker 2: a former Limbaugh lover, found like when he was much younger,
Speaker 2: he got into Talk Rady because of Limbaugh, eventually wound
Speaker 2: up and to be fair before Trump rejecting Limbaugh in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways, found the whole arc of Rush's
Speaker 2: career to be terribly sad. Quote. I didn't think that
Speaker 2: at the end of his life Brush would sell out
Speaker 2: to Trump the way he has. He had every opportunity
Speaker 2: this final year to come clean and be decent. I
Speaker 2: mean he was still on this February lying about a
Speaker 2: stolen election. He'll keep up this act till he dies,
Speaker 2: and it's sad. When a writer from Rolling Stone asked
Speaker 2: if maybe the reason he kept backing Trump was that
Speaker 2: Limbaugh truly believed in what Trump said, Walsh countered with
Speaker 2: a theory of his own quote, maybe knowing him, it's
Speaker 2: one last big extended fuck you. Maybe it's Limbaugh saying
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna bend to the Dims and anybody else,
Speaker 2: no matter what, never to the end, I'm never gonna
Speaker 2: do it. And at the end of this, I can't
Speaker 2: help but think that there's something terribly meaningful in the
Speaker 2: fact that Joe Walsh rejected Limbaugh in his later years,
Speaker 2: and at his end Walsh gained prominence a voice of
Speaker 2: the Rising Tea Party. He is very conservative, but his constant,
Speaker 2: principled resistance to President Trump proves that he is not
Speaker 2: a fascist. And it turns out what Limbaugh was really selling,
Speaker 2: what he was preparing the American right for all along,
Speaker 2: was fascism. If you want confirmation of this, you need
Speaker 2: look no further than how America's most prominent neo Nazis
Speaker 2: reacted to Limbaugh's death. Chris Cantwell was one of the
Speaker 2: speakers and organizers of the deadly Unite the Right rally
Speaker 2: in Charlottesville. He is a straight up Nazi. He assaulted
Speaker 2: left wing counter protesters at the event, and when this
Speaker 2: brought legal consequences on him, he filmed himself crying in fear,
Speaker 2: earning the nickname the Crying Nazi. Can't Well gained prominence
Speaker 2: among the alright as a podcaster with shows like Outlaw
Speaker 2: Conservative and Chris Cantwell openly sees Rush Limbaugh as the
Speaker 2: man who invented his style of content, who made his
Speaker 2: career possible. He's in jail right now because he made
Speaker 2: a bunch of illegal threats and stuff. But he was
Speaker 2: interviewed for another fascist podcast by a guy named Jared
Speaker 2: Howe on like right after Limbaugh's death, and in this
Speaker 2: clip about to play the Crying Nazi, Chris can't Well
Speaker 2: discusses his reaction to learning about Rush Limbaugh's death.
Speaker 7: And when I heard, you know, when I heard Catherine's voice, like,
Speaker 7: I choked up, and I said.
Speaker 2: Oh no, he knew, you know, And I, yeah, I knew.
Speaker 2: And what is Catherine Limbaugh?
Speaker 7: I had actually, uh, she wrote a letter to Rush.
Speaker 7: I because I kept hoping that, you know, I'd get
Speaker 7: out of here in time that I could like call
Speaker 7: into the show or drop an email. And I started realizing, like,
Speaker 7: all right, he did filling host in two weeks. Uh,
Speaker 7: if I'm going to contact this guy just I'm probably
Speaker 7: gonna to do it by mail. And I was actually
Speaker 7: gonna I forgot to do what I was gonna ask you,
Speaker 7: to get me and see if there was an actress
Speaker 7: that I could write to. And uh, it turns out
Speaker 7: to a little late to this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know when I when I heard.
Speaker 7: Her voice, I choked up. I said, oh no, Shelly Arvey,
Speaker 7: and he knew exactly was going to teletal much because
Speaker 7: you had to be dead and h oh yeah I
Speaker 7: heard it when it happened, and.
Speaker 2: I was like you, so that's I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: he's legitimately affected by this. He's mourning Rush Limbaugh, this Nazi,
Speaker 2: and he's not the only Nazi mourning Rush Limbaugh. The
Speaker 2: Daily Shoa is one of the most prominent Nazi podcasts
Speaker 2: on the Internet. The word Shoa is the Hebrew term
Speaker 2: it means I think it means calamity for the Holocaust.
Speaker 2: So it's literally this is the Daily Holocaust and it
Speaker 2: is maybe the most prominent Nazi podcast on the internet
Speaker 2: now TDS, as its hosts call it has been on
Speaker 2: the years for years at this point, since before Trump
Speaker 2: was in office, and the hosts of The Daily Shoa
Speaker 2: consider Limbaugh to be something of an idol. Now, these
Speaker 2: guys are hardcore Nazis, so they consider Russia moderate and
Speaker 2: they do demean him at times for that, but they
Speaker 2: also recognize that he paved the way for their financial
Speaker 2: success and cultural influence. And in this next audio clip
Speaker 2: you can here several members of the Daily Show can't
Speaker 2: emphasize that name enough. Learn live about Rush Limbaugh's death
Speaker 2: and the emotional impact it has on them is undeniable.
Speaker 2: News cucked on that. But that's what happened today.
Speaker 3: Well, Svinn, that's bad news for you, buddy, Rush Limbaugh
Speaker 3: is dead.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm serious. Wow, I mean, well, I guess I
Speaker 2: can't see what he's saying about tex I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna dance on his gravey.
Speaker 3: He said a lot of really dumb things.
Speaker 2: But I'm still so kind of sad about that. Like,
Speaker 2: I'm very sad about that. I wouldn't be here. If not,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be here, says host of The Daily Show.
Speaker 2: Without Rush Limbaugh, I can't think of a more damning
Speaker 2: thing to say in a man's passing but that he
Speaker 2: was truly honestly mourned by Nazis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the
Speaker 2: end of the day, that's what you can say about
Speaker 2: Rush and that is the end of our episodes on
Speaker 2: Rush Limbaugh. Wow you're doing, Paul, I'm good.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, he said some dumb things and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna dance on his grave.
Speaker 2: I'm absolutely gonna dance that.
Speaker 3: He sucked and I'm glad he's dead. He was a
Speaker 3: bad person and I and I have to say on
Speaker 3: social media when when the story broke people were talking
Speaker 3: about it, there were a lot of people that wanted
Speaker 3: to say, you know, you can you you know, you
Speaker 3: can say whatever you want. But Rush was hugely successful,
Speaker 3: more successful and you will ever be had more influence.
Speaker 3: He was a millionaire. Guys take the w do you
Speaker 3: know what I mean? Yeah, you can't. And this is
Speaker 3: the problem with these guys, with Trump, with people like this,
Speaker 3: is it's not enough for them to win. They need
Speaker 3: people to lick the boots. They need people to say
Speaker 3: you are the greatest. It is never enough for them.
Speaker 3: It is never enough for them to be hated, to
Speaker 3: be feared, to have all the marbles. They need you
Speaker 3: to say I love you too. Yes, they need it.
Speaker 3: And that is that is what the only solid us
Speaker 3: I can take in a life like this is that
Speaker 3: in the end, he didn't get the thing that he wanted,
Speaker 3: which was everybody saying You're the greatest and I love
Speaker 3: you and that.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was and piss and a bunch of Nazis crying.
Speaker 3: If you if you make if this is what you
Speaker 3: make of your life. This is how This is what's
Speaker 3: going to happen, is that you're gonna have people saying
Speaker 3: rest and piss. You're gonna have people saying this and
Speaker 3: it's and and sorry. You can have all the success
Speaker 3: you want. You're never going to get that love. It's
Speaker 3: not gonna happen.
Speaker 2: And people are actively making plans to ship on your
Speaker 2: grave because you materially harmed their lives, Yes.
Speaker 3: And the lives of peace and the lives of people
Speaker 3: that they loved. You have you have made life that
Speaker 3: much harder for generations.
Speaker 2: Of people that will come in of humans you have
Speaker 2: Rush Limbaugh had a material, significant negative impact on billions
Speaker 2: of people, many of whom are yet born. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 2: rest and piss brush. I wish this to cancer had
Speaker 2: worked faster, you know. Yeah, anyway, Paul, you got some
Speaker 2: pluggables to plug at the end of this episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna be appearing on the Daily Show in
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: BIGS Fan, By the way, I want to I want
Speaker 2: to shout out and give thanks to Daniel Harper of
Speaker 2: the wonderful podcast I Don't Speak German, which is the
Speaker 2: deepest dives you're going to find on Nazi content creators.
Speaker 2: I guess you go Nazi thought leaders in the United States.
Speaker 2: Very important work, Daniel Harper, I don't speak German. He
Speaker 2: provided those clips to me. Thank you, Daniel, Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 3: No, not at all. Uh. You can follow me at
Speaker 3: p F Tompkins on Twitter and Instagram, and I have
Speaker 3: a few podcasts that you can listen to, you know,
Speaker 3: just all the usual stuff you can find out about
Speaker 3: me on Paul Thompkins dot.
Speaker 2: Com Amazing Tompkins dot com. Well that's going to do
Speaker 2: it for us here at Behind the Bastards. So go
Speaker 2: out into the world, tie one half of your brain
Speaker 2: behind your back and then die because that would actually
Speaker 2: kill you. That would immediately lead to your dot an
Speaker 2: exposed brain. There's reason we have skulls people to keep
Speaker 2: your brain inside of it. Yeah, anyway, by guys podcasts.
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