Gallup Signals the GOP: Abandon the Bitter Clingers in Your Backwards Base

RUSH: A new Gallup poll out. Headline: "Americans Continue to Shift Left on Key Moral Issues." Now, before you go off getting depressed about this, let me tell you what the reason for this is, after we give you the details.

"Americans are more likely now than in the early 2000s to find a variety of behaviors morally acceptable, including gay and lesbian relations, having a baby outside of marriage and sex between an unmarried man and woman. Moral acceptability of many of these issues is now at a record-high level."

It's a subtle message to the Republican Party, and that is this: You better forget about your base. Those bitter clingers, those social conservatives, you better realize they're not it anymore, they're not where it's at anymore. Nobody agrees with 'em anymore. Your base is rapidly being eclipsed by a more hip and modern culture, and they are Democrats and they hate you, and you had better find a way to get rid of the religious right. You'd better find a way to get rid of your base, because they are killing you.

That's the message of this story, and it's gonna work with certain establishment Republicans. They'll cite this story and they'll go talk to their Republican buddies and they'll say, "See? See? I've been telling you for 15 years abortion is gonna kill us. You wouldn't listen. I've been telling you 15 years all this social issue crap is gonna do us in, and now look at the Gallup poll. You had better start listening to me." This is what's gonna be happening in Republican circles, particularly in the Republican establishment in the Northeast. That's exactly why this story was done. I'm convinced this is exactly why this poll is taken.

"This latest update on Americans' views of the moral acceptability of various issues and behaviors is from Gallup's May 6-10 Values and Beliefs survey. ... The upward progression ... clearly points toward a higher level of acceptance of a number of behaviors. In fact, the moral acceptability ratings for 10 of the issues measured since the early 2000s are at record highs."

Notice the language here. "Upward progression," "higher level," "record highs." The attempt here is to convince the reader that we are making great strides forward by eliminating the moral code that used to exist. Yeah, and I would ask, how much better is the country for all of this? Just how much happier are people? How much more content? How less angst is there? I don't get the sense that we're living in a country that's having a rocking good time right now.

Look, folks, I'm just telling you what I see out there as I travel around and I listen, I watch, I read, I observe. Much of my life is spent observing others. And I remember, in terms of national mood, much happier times than we live in today. And if not much happier, certainly more content. And I remember times where there was much less anger and confrontation and angst. I know some of this is due to social media giving voice to all this.

The argument could be made that all this hate and the sewage that's Twitter has always been there. It's just that the people that practice it never had the protection of anonymity. If they really wanted to spew this hate, they had to go out and say it in front of other people in order for it to be heard. Now they can go on Twitter or Facebook and make up an identity and say whatever they want about whoever. I know the argument that it's always been there, but the point is, even if it was there, it was beneath the surface.

This degradation of our morality has allowed the baser instincts of a whole slew of people to surface and to become defined as normal and something that we must accept. Now, they can run around and strut all happy and stuff with their polls on how all of this previously immoral behavior is now wonderfully moral and openly practiced and openly accepted. They can run around and they can strut and they can spout their happiness, but they can't point to where people are. I mean even the people winning all this are not happy. Some of the angriest people in the world are the people getting married on the gay side.

My point is, the left, in winning this fight to degrade the American moral code, doesn't seem to be happy with their victories. They seem angrier with every victory. "No, Mr. Limbaugh, you are confusing anger with renewed sense of purpose to keep going and not stopping." Well, you may have a point there because nothing can apparently make any of you guys happy. No matter what -- I've always said this -- no matter what the left gets, no matter what they demand, no matter how much of it they get, they are never happy.

It's something I have noted my entire life. This lack of happiness, this anger, this consternation, whatever you want to call it, I know inspires much of their behavior and their political agenda. But I think it's gotten to the point where they're incapable of being happy. You know what? I think one of the reasons, I'm gonna be very, very bold here. And I may be dead wrong about this. I may be acknowledging or granting them more awareness and sensitivity than they really have.

But I think in the case of people that voted for Obama, because they really loved Obama, because they really believed that Obama was gonna put an end to all strife and is gonna make the country loved again. He was gonna get rid of politics-as-usual and there wasn't gonna be any partisanship and there wasn't gonna be any arguing and everybody was gonna get along. I mean, there's a lot of people that voted for Obama on that basis. It's quite understandable that they would be miffed because none of that's happened.

Yet Obama's victorious. He wins practically everything he tries for. And yet everything Obama does is falling apart. American foreign policy's a joke, by design, but the American people don't want that to be the case. Obama does. The American people don't. Obamacare? Isn't a lot of happiness. I mean, the latest stories on Obamacare are the people who finally got insurance now can't afford to use it. The deductibles are too high.

I have seen a happy country. I have seen a country in a good mood, and this is not it. I've lived long enough, I've experienced enough to know. So these people can lie to themselves all they want and they can tell themselves they're winning every day, but I don't see the accompanying happiness. I don't even see the accompanying satisfaction. You know what they're most happy about? It's not what they're gaining. It's right in the evidence of this story. Their real happiness comes from them thinking we are frustrated and defeated.

I think their happiness and their satisfaction is totally encompassed -- well, maybe not totally, but largely encompassed in the thrill they get at conservatives and Republicans losing. And if they happen to be Christians, that's even better. So they're taking their happiness in what they hope is the misery of other people. I don't think that's a recipe for happiness. But the left has been selling that for as long as I've been alive.

What do you think class warfare is? What do you think tax increases for the rich are? That's designed to stoke anger for the rich and then to make the middle class and the poor somehow think life is better 'cause the rich's taxes went up. They're supposed to take happiness, they're supposed to be satisfied that their enemies, the rich, had it stuck to 'em. Their lives don't change. They don't have any more money after the rich's taxes go up. So they're not happier because there's been substantive change in their lives. No, they've been conditioned to be happy at the misery of others. That's not happiness to me. That's sick.

I think it's destructive, psychologically destructive, when you measure your happiness by how unhappy other people are, or how miserable other people are, and that's what this is all about. 'Cause I just don't see the happiness. I'll tell you, folks, if we conservatives were winning the same way the left is winning during these years with Obama, do you know how happy we'd be? I mean, we'd be happy, confident, sitting on top of the world, and we'd be thinking we can change anything, persuade anybody of anything. We'd be riding the wave. With these people there is none of that with their victories. There's anger and there's consternation and there's angst and there's bitterness.

So they have to come out with stories like this to tell themselves that they're winning and they're destroying the American moral code. But you can take a look at country and say, "Well, where is it better off? Where is it better off?" I mean, parents are less trusting of their kids' safety today than I can ever remember. They're less confident that their kids are gonna even do well. Where are the signs of all of these Obama and Democrat Party victories? Where's the happiness that goes along with it? It simply isn't there.

But again, the main purpose of this story, subtle message to the Republican Party, "You better abandon your base. We're winning, we're wiping 'em out. Those stodgy old conservative Christians, the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, those Victorians, people that want to deny everybody a good time, well, we're kicking butt and we're reducing them in number, and you can't win with 'em anymore. You had better throw 'em overboard." That's the point of this. That's what I think the objective purpose is, the objective of this story is, to further persuade Republicans to abandon their own base, as they've done in immigration and in a couple of other issues as well.

Rand Paul On Shutdown: "Even Though It Appeared I Was Participating In It, It Was A Dumb Idea"
I said throughout the whole battle that shutting down the government was a dumb idea. Even though it did appear as if I was participating in it, I said it was a dumb idea. And the reason I voted for it, though, is that it's a conundrum. Here's the conundrum. We have a $17 trillion debt and people at home tell me you can't give the president a blank check. We just can't keep raising the debt ceiling without conditions. So unconditionally raising the debt ceiling, nobody at home wants me to vote for that and I can't vote for that. But the conundrum is if I don't we do approach these deadlines. So there is an impasse. In 2011, though, we had this impasse and the president did negotiate. We got the sequester. If we were to extend the sequester from discretionary spending to all the entitlements we would actually fix our problem within a few years.
[Posted on 11/19/2013 12:16:51 PM by Third Person]

Rand Paul: Time for GOP to soften war stance
...by softening its edge on some volatile social issues and altering its image as the party always seemingly "eager to go to war... We do need to expand the party and grow the party and that does mean that we don't always all agree on every issue" ... the party needs to become more welcoming to individuals who disagree with basic Republican doctrine on emotional social issues such as gay marriage... "We're going to have to be a little hands off on some of these issues ... and get people into the party," Paul said.
[Posted on 01/31/2013 5:08:50 PM PST by xzins]

Rand Paul's immigration speech
...The Republican Party must embrace more legal immigration.

Unfortunately, like many of the major debates in Washington, immigration has become a stalemate-where both sides are imprisoned by their own rhetoric or attachment to sacred cows that prevent the possibility of a balanced solution.

Immigration Reform will not occur until Conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution. I am here today to begin that conversation.

Let's start that conversation by acknowledging we aren't going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants.

If you wish to work, if you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you...

This is where prudence, compassion and thrift all point us toward the same goal: bringing these workers out of the shadows and into being taxpaying members of society.

Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers.12 million more people assimilating into society. 12 million more people being productive contributors.
[Posted on 03/19/2013 7:04:07 AM PDT by Perdogg]
Rand Paul calls on conservatives to embrace immigration reform
Latinos, should be a natural constituency for the party, Paul argued, but "Republicans have pushed them away with harsh rhetoric over immigration." ...he would create a bipartisan panel to determine how many visas should be granted for workers already in the United States and those who might follow... [and the buried lead] "Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers...
[Posted on 04/21/2013 1:52:42 PM PDT by SoConPubbie]
[but he's not in favor of amnesty, snicker, definition of is is]

Rand Slams Congress for Funding Egypt's Generals: 'How Does Your Conscience Feel Now?'
Sen. Rand Paul is hammering his fellow senators for keeping billions in financial aid flowing to Egypt's military -- even as Cairo's security forces massacre anti-government activists. [by "anti-government activists" is meant church-burning Christian-murdering jihadists]
[Posted on 08/15/2013 5:44:10 PM PDT by Hoodat]

The republican base is leftist Rush. Thats the reality today. Look at the leftists they fought to empower. Romney, Bhoner, Mitch...

There's a grain of truth here somewhere, but don't miss the rest of the field of grain. The base kicked butt in 2010 and 2014. Was it because it's Leftist? Most of the candidates for the GOP nomination are social conservatives. In most ways, except for Carly, all of them are. Are they Leftist?

Here's the grain: People are conservative, especially in the GOP. They are more conservative than they are radical or idea-driven. Too literally conservative to trust an idea standing by itself on its own logic, without a lot of reassuring voices and influences around it. They are not the kind to jump on a bandwagon until it's become respectable. It's frustrating for people like us, but as we well know, we are radicals—people who focus on the radix or root, of things, and are content to let everything and everyone else catch up.

The kind of literal conservatism I'm describing can be annoying, but it is sane. Most wild-haired people lead men into danger or terrible deeds, like John Brown. That is why it is important and honorable for men like us to carefully demonstrate how life goes on better than before after our "extreme" ideas are applied.

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