Posted on 02/17/2024 4:03:38 AM PST by MtnClimber
Rush Limbaugh is gone, but life is possible, and victory is possible. America is worth fighting for, and we are worth fighting for as well.
A third year has passed since the death of Rush Limbaugh. The day of the sad news, millions of people were sensible of a loss. Something they depended on for reassurance, reinforcement, confidence, strength, amusement, and interest was now gone and never would come again.
Limbaugh was an optimist, and optimists are like bonfires. The shivering gathered about him for warmth -- those fearing an awful and incomprehensible transformation in their country, those to whom the triumph of Marxism looked to be inevitable. His listeners had this consolation -- that at the appointed hour the ebullient voice would issue from the radio, and for a time they would be in the company of a friend, who saw what they saw but had it all figured out and was himself unafraid.
Naturally, the leftist bullies hated him for ridiculing their piffle, but above all because he was dauntless. And he made others so, as did Donald Trump.
Intellectuals who fancy themselves conservatives, but of such refinement and probity as to join occasionally with the liberals also shunned him. They could scarcely play the role they coveted while acknowledging such a man as Rush Limbaugh to be a leader of the conservative movement, a man who spoke to and in the voice of the Republican base. It was the respect of educated liberals and not the hooting of the rabble that was to be garnered, thought those who would evolve into the “never-Trumpers.”
But doing justice to Limbaugh’s nominally conservative antagonists, their enmity also sprang from matters more interesting than snobbery. They thought themselves possessed of a certain moderation -- they sometimes called themselves “moderates,”
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I haven't turned on the radio since the day he died. I doubt I will ever turn it on again.
Well-said.
Saw a meme posted recently that referred to the cartoon “Tom and Jerry.” It compared the “adversarial” position of the GOP vis-a-vis the ‘Rat party to the relationship between the cat and the mouse on the show, pointing out that Tom can never really catch Jerry because that would mean the end of the show.
I was listening to WABC when this guy named Rush spoke here on the East Coast for the first time, and listened to the last broadcast he ever did. We all miss Rush, that’s all I can say.
Unless conservative Americans outbreed the invaders America is doomed. It seems unlikely. Prepare accordingly.
Rush was certainly a “one of a kind” in many respects. I listened to him daily when I could. It was difficult many days as I was listening in a busy , noisy shop & I wasn’t always close to the radio, nor could I always use earphones. I hated to miss any of his program, but it turned out that I guess I missed quite a bit some days. I have & will always keep both of his non-fiction books & I guess that may have been the start of most of my reading of non-fiction. Rush was a very special person that I will always cherish & remember & hope to see him in Heaven.
No.
It's not.
I just killed myself.
Again.
Rush Limbaugh, who unlike Buckley did not come from an elite background, became the popular voice for Conservatism, Inc. He was a talented communicator, having "made his bones" in sports and local radio before entering the national stage. The abolition of the Fairness Doctrine during the second Reagan Administration and the shrinkage of AM radio to the FM band provided an opportunity that Limbaugh grabbed. He attracted a legion of imitators, like Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Medved, and additional air hosts, both national and local, but he set the tone for the others. Conservatism, Inc. took Limbaugh under its wings, and co-opted grass roots movements like the Christian Right and the Tea Party to maintain a hold on the right flank of the Uniparty.
Limbaugh held a steady audience of 15-20 million listeners, mostly white males, until his death. However, starting in 2015, there was a change in the political environment that broke the dominance of Conservatism, Inc., from its hold on the right side of "acceptable" politics. The first factor was the rise of Donald Trump, essentially outside the conservative-liberal window. His was the most successful populist rising since perhaps Andrew Jackson. Unlike Ross Perot, George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, and others, he worked within the Republican Party rather than try a third party run.
The second factor was the increasing radicalism of the Democratic Party. Decades earlier, Gus Hall, head of the Communist Party, USA, stated that his party's goal was to take over the Democrats. Remember that Communist ideology transmuted from class based warfare to race and sex based warfare, using the theories of Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School. As more moderate Democrats were pushed to the margins, we saw the rise of politicians with significant connections to leftists and Communists come to prominence. Communist and other leftist influence started in the Democratic Party as far back as the New Deal era, e.g., Alger Hiss and Harold Ickes. With the flight of white Southerners and later Northern white Catholics away from their ancestral party, the party increasingly shifted leftward. We have a President Biden, who got his start through Armand Hammer, the mid-20th Century equivalent of George Soros, a President Obama, who was mentored by Communists like Frank Marshall Davis, Bill Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright, and a President Clinton, a draft dodger who as an undergraduate traveled to then Communist Czechoslovakia and Russia, as the guest of the head of the Czechoslovak Communist Party.
The third factor was the rise of leftist billionaires, not only the public figures of Bill Gates, but investment firms like Black Rock and tech billionaires, corporate America became the enemy of traditional values, pushing a cultural Marxist agenda while also maintaining their economic dominance, sometimes aided by the Federal government and their blue state counterparts. By the 2020s, many conservatives questioned their allegiance to corporate America, something Buckley or Limbaugh would not have countenanced.
The fourth factor was the overreach of the Left during the COVID lockdown and the attempts to suppress conservative and other dissenting speech. The unprecedented attempts, at least in American history, to punish Trump and his supporters through lawfare and the Federal police forces, contributed to the collapse of Conservatism, Inc's hold on the conservative public. Trump himself was duped during the COVID madness, endorsing the "vaccines" that proved increasingly unpopular with his MAGA movement.
The 60+ year hold of the conservative elite on the conservative masses has ended. That has its benefits and drawbacks. Conservative voters are less likely to support moderates like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, who talk a good conservative game but are members of the Uniparty. The downside is that at least some voices on the alt-right are blinded by the nonsense coming out of the Kremlin that Russia is an Orthodox Christian champion, while Lenin's corpse is still honored at Red Square and the red star is still above the Kremlin.
Rush used to reference articles from American Thinker. I know the site has its detractors here on FR, but every time I post an AT article I think of Rush.
Clay is a joke. He’s a Democrat pretending to be conservative. Admits he voted for Obama.
He believes polls and even worse, exit polls. Anyone who believes exit polls can’t think for themselves.
Them leave jerk
Clay and Buck are AWFUL. NOBODY can take Rush’s place.
Yes he was.
“He was so much fun to listen to.”
He was way more fun before he ended his parodies. Not sure exactly when that happened, but he was going strong with the Clintons. He has some funny stuff in the mid to late ‘90s.
I have a couple CDs of the Paul Shanklin parodies from Rush’s show.
“mourns ... the hole in the day where Rush used to be.”
Well said. I suppose most of us feel that way.
Please note that thousands of episodes of his show are available gif free at https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/
He was MUCH funnier back in the '90's. Somewhere along the way, he started getting more serious. Still though, with some 'Irreverent humor".
I LOVED the parodies. Spatula City, Hillary's "Try to Remember", and my favorite... The Barnacle Brothers 60 second sale. "Bars of pure plutonium, three for a dollar!"
That one really cracks me up... still
“In A Yugo” is one of my favorites.
“My Boy Lollypop” when the subject is Barney Frank. Hilarious!
And, as you said, Spatula City.
Good points. I do remember seeing FR on his iMac several times.
I know some people were sad that Rush did not seem to make a plan of succession to be followed after he passed. I just don’t know what that plan could have looked like. The best thing we have is the great legacy of thousands of hours of his show at his web-site.
But there’s no one that could replace him. I tried listening to Buck and Clay for several weeks in 2021, and will give them a try again.
👍😢
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