The Silent Radio: A Third Year Without Rush
EXCERPT:
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.”