The Primaries Are Over -- And Now We Must Stop Hillary to Save the Country

CALLER: Thanks for taking my call, Rush. I just wanted to comment on your comment that you just made about Trump and his illegal -- and his deportation shift. I just distinctly heard you say it's not considered a flip-flop. And I just want to tell you, you're doing a disservice to all of us Republican primary voters who didn't vote for Trump that are struggling with whether or not to vote for Trump, when you diminish the impact of his single policy that he ridiculed all other candidates for for over a year.

I mean, John Kasich classically said on the debate stage -- he laughingly said -- "Come on, folks, this isn't serious. He's not gonna deport everyone." And Trump went ahead and ridiculed everybody who wasn't for deportation. And for all of us who were saying that it was a con job, that it was a snow job -- that he doesn't know what he's talking about, that he's unqualified to be president -- for you to sit here and say that now that he adopts all the positions of everybody he ridiculed as not even being a flip-flop and it's no big deal? This is why so many Republican voters have such a hard time going to the con man!

RUSH: Well, in the first place, I don't think Trump has actually changed that much from what I he said. And I'm also not aware that he told every Republican they had to agree with him or else whatever he was gonna do to them, he did. I'm just... The point of... What is it that you're --

CALLER: With all due respect, Rush, on Chuck Todd's show he specifically said when asked the question, "You mean, you're gonna rip the families apart?" He said, "No, I'm not gonna rip the families apart. They all have to go, even the US citizen children." He then got in the middle of the debate between Marco and Ted. When Ted wanted legalization and Marco wanted citizenship as part of a comprehensive plan, he said, "They're both wrong, they're both being absurd, they all have to go or we don't have a nation of laws." Come on! You were watching the debates as the rest of us were! You know exactly what he said and you know exactly how he ridiculed everybody on that stage!

RUSH: Yeah? Well, I guess the difference is -- or not the difference. I guess the thing is... This is gonna enrage you. You know, I could choose a path here to try to mollify you, but --

CALLER: But 30 million -- or 15 or 10 million... Excuse me. Ten million people did.

RUSH: Yeah, and they still don't care! My point is they still don't care! They're gonna stick with him no matter what.

CALLER: But this is why Trump is gonna get annihilated, because nobody called him out early on about his absurd policies!

RUSH: Yes, they did! For crying out loud, fifteen candidates called him out! Everybody was calling him out! Everybody was calling him an idiot and a charlatan and a phony baloney, plastic banana, good time rock and roller! Everybody was.

CALLER: Except, unfortunately, the number one place where Republican primary voters get their news --

RUSH: (interruption) Oh, he said Fox. I thought he was dumping on me. Okay. Well, I'll pretend he was dumping on me when we get back anyway. I'm prepared for it.

RUSH: Look, I'm pretty sure -- you can double check me on this -- you can go to the immigration plan for Trump on his website. I think it always was and to this day is silent about mass deportation. It was also silent about letting deported illegal aliens come back.

Now, I don't want to nitpick this because I think what people have to understand about Trump, look, let me go back and review the primaries here for just a second. 'Cause I'm well aware that our first caller touched a nerve out there. I know that there are many of you Republicans that really don't want to vote for Trump and you hate Hillary and you're frosted. You don't know what to do. You don't want Hillary like you just don't want anybody; but man, oh, man, you're having trouble stomaching Trump.

You are resenting the entire primary process 'cause you don't understand how in the hell it could have happened. How could 15, most of whom eminently qualified Republicans, get blown to smithereens by an orange-haired reality TV star? Now, I spent most of the primaries -- you people know I do not ever endorse during primaries. I've had this policy since even before I began this program. It is not a cop-out to say that. I do not do it, for a host of reasons.

Folks, I'll tell you how far I take it. I don't even have interviews on this program. The candidates call here and they want to appear during primaries, I say no, because then I would have to have them all, and I am not turning this program over to a political party or a campaign or what have you. I do not want to be obligated in that way. I don't want to be bound by if I take one interview, I have to do a whole bunch of others and lose control of the program. And that has been a professional policy of mine, professional broadcaster policy, not political policy -- well, some political policy in there, but it's been a broadcast-related policy.

I am a radio guy. I do a radio program. And my success here is defined by radio and broadcast business metrics, not political. It never has been defined by political metrics, I've never wanted it to be. I have always said countless times, my success is not determined by who wins elections. That doesn't mean I'm not interested, doesn't mean I have vested interests, but I'm a radio guy. I have no question about who I am, I have no question about what I do, and I have made the effort from the get-go to never cross the line of demarcation. And for a host of reasons.

At the top of that list of reasons is I don't control a single one of 'em, and they're gonna do things that are gonna be tough to defend at some point, and I don't want to be in the position of having to defend it, when I didn't say it, when I didn't do it. By the same token, they're gonna come and go, and I am not gonna tie myself to the fortunes of a politician. Never have, and I'm never going to. I'm gonna outlast them all.

But that's not the objective; that's the result. I'm a radio guy. I am a broadcaster. Everything I do is within the confines of broadcasting. My business model is a broadcast business model. The way I measure my own success is with broadcast metrics. So we come to the primaries, as we do every year, and I do not endorse. I will express people that I like and dislike, things that I hear that I approve of and agree with. I mean, I don't sit it out. But in terms of endorsing and telling you what you should do, no way. And part of that is I have the utmost respect for all of you to make up your own minds about these things.

I never have believed, like the media has said, that you are a bunch of people waiting for marching orders here. You know what you think. You know who you trust. And you don't need me. Now, I'm not denying that if you're leaning to somebody and you think I'm leaning it might make you more comfortable doing so, but I'm not under the illusion like the media wants to believe that you all wake up every day thinking nothing, knowing nothing and waiting to have your brains filled by whatever it is I say.

So what I was doing during the primaries, I went to great lengths to even explain what I was doing during the primaries. The big shock and the surprise in the primaries was Trump. How can this guy being skunking everybody? And I sought to explain it to you. And I was dead-on right about all of it. And I did it multiple times. And the reason I wanted people -- if you're gonna beat Trump, let's say you're Cruz, let's say you're Marco Rubio, if you want to beat Trump, you have to understand how to separate Trump's supporters from Trump.

The first thing you have to learn, and that is the media can't do it for you, because the media is not responsible for Trump's supporters being supportive of Trump. I mean, you may be able to say that Trump is a media creation because he's hosted The Apprentice and has been all over the media, but the media did not make Trump the candidate. Trump made Trump the candidate.

So when this whole thing starts and everybody thinks, "Well, that's it," after his first announcement. Everybody's laughing, what a buffoon, this is an embarrassment, and everybody's waiting for him to implode, and we all know the story. He does the opposite of implode, and nobody can understand why, and I'm trying to make everybody understand why.

In the process of trying to make everybody understand why some people say, "You're for Trump and you don't have the guts to say it." Nope. I was just telling you what was going on. Intelligence guided by experience equals flawless commentary in this sense. And that's what I was doing. And it's what I continue to do. But now we're out of the primaries. Now we're to the general election. I'm just gonna tell you what I've been telling you from the get-go anyway. I don't care what the options are. Anybody but Hillary Clinton. Anybody but more of what we have had the last eight years.

Anybody. It can't get more destructive than what we've had the last eight years, and we do not need somebody who is simply gonna rubber stamp what has happened and try to build on it, and that's Hillary Clinton. We're losing our country. Our country's being torn apart. Our country's being disassembled right before our very eyes by people who have that as their objective.

And it's working on people like Colin Kaepernick, by the way. It's working on a whole lot of otherwise innocent people who are being radicalized each and every day by hatred for this country, which is absurd. We are the luckiest people in the history of humanity.

To show you how out of whack this campaign is, I ran into a story over the weekend -- actually there were two of them -- people just shocked, surprised, could not explain it, why does the economy not matter anymore as an issue in a presidential campaign? Because if it did, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would not be getting more than 30% of the vote because they have destroyed the US economy. They have destroyed the US health care system. They have destroyed the job market.

It is near criminal what this party, the Democrat Party and Barack Obama and Hillary, wants to continue, what they have done to the United States economy. So why doesn't it matter? All these experts, these political scientists think that -- I mean, how many have grown up thinking, well, the economy, that determines who wins. I can tell you, not to be redundant, but I'm gonna take you back to 2012, and I should have seen it sooner. In 2012, Obama's been in office four years, the exit polls came in, the five o'clock wave, the first wave of exit polls. And I saw in those exit 72% the people still blame George Bush for the economy.

Holy smokes, after four years of Obama policy, including Obamacare, four years of stimulus, job losses out the wazoo, no recovery whatever. Still blaming Bush. I said, "Oh, my God. We're toast." Now we've had eight years of Obama, and it doesn't matter. And it really isn't. You and I will both agree that the economy, Trump's not talking about it, Hillary isn't talking about it, nobody's talking about it. Obamacare! It's about to fall apart! Trump's not talking about it; Hillary's not talking about it.

The economy and health care. They are inexorably linked and nobody's talking about them. I don't know why Trump's not talking about it. I mean, Trump says we're gonna rip it up and start over, but where is the easily available evidence to tell people that they were sold a bill of goods and lied to? It's out there, Obama on videotape. (imitating Obama) "You like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. You like your plan, you can keep your plan. Your premium's gonna go down $2,500." It's there. It's not being used.

We have 94 million Americans not working. I'm gonna tell you why the economy isn't an issue, and it's another indictment of what the Democrat Party or Obama or whoever, the forces who want to transform America, however you want to think of 'em, what they have done.

The reason the economy is an issue is that a down economy doesn't matter that much to people anymore. Isn't it patently obvious, 94 million Americans are not working. They have telephones. They're streaming video. They're watching reality TV. They are eating. They have cars. They have air-conditioning. So? You want to tell them there's something wrong with the economy? Not in their point of view.

Now, not all 94 million. Some of them want to work, I grant. Don't misunderstand. There are a lot of people that want to find work and can't. There are a lot of Millennials whose futures are over because they are saddled with so much student loan debt and worthless degrees. And they somehow find a way to blame everybody but those responsible for it. In many cases they say, "Well, we've just happened to come of age when America's lost its mojo. We've come of age when America's best days are behind 'em."

They have no idea that their student loan, which is an albatross around their neck, they have no idea that the fact that they cannot find career oriented jobs, they have no idea that it's the result of Democrat Party policies. They apparently just think it's evolutionary, or maybe you can even trace it back to George Bush and the financial disaster of 2008. There is literally no effort made, and there hasn't been an effort to made to hold Democrat Party accountable for the destruction they are bringing about and have wrought.

So it's very easy to understand to me why the economy's not an issue. It doesn't matter. If those 94 million Americans -- let's just put it this way. If, when you were unemployed, say 20 years ago, if circumstances then were the same today, then the economy would be an issue and the lack of jobs would be an issue. And it would be front and center, and it would be the determining factor in this presidential campaign, but it isn't.

I know if you look at polls, people will tell you, people say it, the economy, number one issue. I understand all that. But I don't believe it because if it really is, if the economy is the number one issue to most people as expressed in the polls, then there's no way Hillary Clinton's winning this election, and there's no way Obama's approval numbers are high. So if the economy is an issue to people, if it's the number one issue facing the country, not gonna deny that, but they have no idea why.

And then there's an accompanying story to this. "Germany Tells Citizens To Stockpile Food In Case Of Attacks." Now, most people would see that headline and start quaking in their boots and would look at this, "Oh, my God, the government's really worried. Oh, my God, the government's telling us this. Oh, my God."

That's not how I see this. This headline infuriates me. The German government's like every other damn government in this world every day telling every one of its citizens to depend on it, to look to it. Vote for us, say Germany's leaders, say the U.K.'s leaders, say any country's leaders, including America's, vote for us, we'll take care of you. Vote for us, we're Santa Claus. Vote for us, we'll protect you. But when real challenges show up, guess what? You're on your own.

They will make you think they'll protect you and take care of you, whatever they have to do to get your vote, but when a real threat pops up like ISIS or terrorism in Germany, what are they telling people? You better stockpile food. You better stockpile water in case of a terrorist attack. You are on your own.

Isn't that wonderful? These compassionate leftist, statist politicians promising that government can take care of everything, government can fix everything, government's your salvation, government's where you should turn, except when a real crisis hits, they don't want any part of it. You are on your own. You better find your own food. You better find your own water. You better find your own electricity. You better find your own shelter. We can't take care of you. Thank you, Angela Merkel. That's what Germany is telling its citizens.

When you destroy the concept of self-reliance, when you stigmatize rugged individualism, which is what we have been doing in this country for 30 or 40 years, maybe longer, when you stigmatize people that are self-sufficient, able to take care of themselves and their families, and when you turn the country over to the various stages of minorities who haven't accomplished anything and make them the power simply because they're the minority and because it's unfair that we have a minority, you're in the process of destroying the foundation that any country needs.

And I'll tell you something else that's going on. When you stop honoring heroes -- Colin Kaepernick, he can do whatever he wants, you know, sit on his ass during the national anthem, be applauded for it by the proper liberal authorities in sports media, and all the intellectuals saying he's got the constitutional right, freedom of speech, don't you know, it's very courageous. Yes, very courageous to sit on your ass as a third-string quarterback likely to be cut. Very, very, very courageous to sit on your butt in the country that made you the star and the wealthy millionaire that you are.

So as I was saying, Colin Kaepernick can make the courageous decision to sit on the bench during then nationally anthem, and he could be applauded for courageous dissent and protest by all the usual suspects in the Drive-By sports media. And the St. Louis Rams players can run on the field waving their arms around as in "hands up, don't shoot" protesting something that never even happened. The Dallas Cowboys asked to put a sticker on their helmet this season to honor cops, particularly the five officers killed in that mass assassination attempt in Dallas, and the NFL said, "No, no! We're not that courageous."

Yeah. "Not in 2016 America! No, no, no, no. No, not cool. Not cool." Well, when you stop honoring heroes -- and we are -- you will stop having heroes to honor. The same can be said, when you start mimicking heroes -- mocking them, when you start tearing them down -- you're not gonna have any heroes to mimic, to tear down, or to honor. And that's where we're headed. And I'm convinced the majority of America knows it and resents it. But look what happens to anybody who pops up and points out the obvious.

When we return, I've still got the audio sound bites, the media using me all day yesterday, plus your phone calls are coming up straight ahead.

I have always wound up voting for the republican nominee too, but I didn’t do it out of party loyalty because they were the republican nominee, but rather because in each case I was convinced the republican would make a far better POTUS than the democrat alternative.

Party loyalty means very little to me - I go by what I think they’ll do in office vs what I think their opponent will do. Period.

As for down ticket elections, on the other hand, I admit I have been part of the pro GOP rah rah rah - we need a majority in the house, the senate, governors, etc.. and I’ve voted straight republican mostly for that reason.

But this last year has taught me the party thing is a sham - it gives a false sense of “checks and balances” in government. The checks and balances were never meant to be the parties opposing each other, or balance between a republican house vs a democrat senate, or balance between a democrat congress vs a republican White House. It was meant to be opposing ideas getting a fair hearing, the opposing perspectives of states and localities vs the central government getting fair representation, and the balance of power between the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

Somewhere in there was the founders’ assumption (turned out to be false) that a free press (along with 1st and 2nd amendments) would represent the voice of the people as a check of last resort against the power of government as a whole.

Nowhere in the founding documents is there an expectation that opposing political parties should be relied on to provide balance or anything else to the system. I am afraid the opposing political party mentality has been foisted on us after the fact to give a false sense of healthy debate, and competing ideas, checks and balances.

All the party mentality has done is distract us from the radical leftward drift in all three branches, with the corrupted press leading the way.

Donald Trump got my attention last year in the first debate when he said he wasn’t ready to pledge anything to the GOP - that he’d have to wait and see how the GOP treated his candidacy. I think that was spot on, and signaled that whatever support he got from the people, was going to remain with the people, and not be sold out to a political party. Later, when he was clear front runner, he ironically signed the pledge to support the nominee (himself), but that was just a way to drive home the point that it was never about pledging party loyalty, it was about the will of the people.

Trump has risen within the Republican Party but first and foremost he should be the champion of ideas, not a party.

I know it seems important to have Republican control of the house and senate so that president elect Trump can get things done, once in office. But hasn’t recent history shown us that is a false premise? Republicans have shown that they can control both houses of congress, the White House, control appointment of judges, etc.. and yet do zilch for conservatism, and do zilch to oppose leftism.

It took me a long time to realize it, but I’m totally done caring about who is a Republican and who is not.

Go Trump!!

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