R.I.P. - El Rushbo


Posted On: Wednesday - February 17th 2021 7:56PM MST
In Topics: 
  Pundits



A conservative acquaintance long ago with one of those Walkmans told me "you gotta listen to this guy" and put the headphones on me to introduce me to Rush Limbaugh. This was the early 90s. He was very excited that there was a Conservative on the radio, of all things! Daily!

I have never been the type to walk around with a headset, as I just don't like the lack of situational awareness. I also never had a regular commuting schedule with a long-enough daily driving time during Rush's show to have been a regular listener. There was a time for 3 to 6 months or so during which a friend of mine and I used to watch the TV show late at night.

I did listen enough times, sporadically, to know that Rush Limbaugh was a guy who really liked America and Americans. He had a good sense of humor - his "for those of you in Rio Linda" (or whatever that suburb of his city Sacramento is) joke is used on this very blog occasionally.

I guess Rush was a Neocon back in the day, when most Conservatives couldn't see the problem with this. He did seem to be a part of "Conservative, Inc" or the GOPe for most of his broadcasting career. From what VDare's James Fulford writes in his obituary for Mr. Limbaugh, Rush changed to be a real patriot, especially on immigration, during the Trump years. (He had also been hard-core anti-amnesty, at least in '08.)

Though he was not near hard-core conservative, much less libertarian, enough for this blogger, I still say Rush Limbaugh was a good thing for America, especially the America of the 1990s, when he stood out the most among the leftist media.

Rest in peace, El Rushbo.

Comments:
Mr. Anon
Saturday - February 20th 2021 10:05PM MST
PS

@Peterike:

"What matters now is Nationalist vs. Globalist. 95% of the Dems and 90% of the Repubs are globalists, which is why we are where we are. Liberal/Conservative or Blue/Red are just false categories they impose to keep everyone squabbling over culture war shit like Tranny bathrooms, while the Uniparty keeps robbing us blind."

Whom do you think has pushed the trans-issue? Those who have are certainly aligned with globalists, if not globalists themselves. Cultural degeneracy is just one part of the globalist agenda.

Issues like that - and that one in particular is an excellent example - are not irrelevant. They are an attempt to make us complicit in our own humiliation and destruction. Saying that a man can become a woman and talking about "chest feeding" and "women with penises" is the equivalent of strapping a rat-cage to our faces and forcing us to repeat 2 + 2 = 5.

And of course there is the fact that one of the purposes of the trans-agenda is to normalize pedophilia. When that campaign finally emerges out into the open, will you say that is a minor issue, and just a distraction?
Ganderson
Friday - February 19th 2021 7:48PM MST
PS

Mr. Hail- thinking now about what I can add to your post. I’ll be posting tomorrow!
Moderator
Friday - February 19th 2021 10:26AM MST
PS: Thanks, Mr. Hail. I'm in the middle of reading it now.
Hail
Friday - February 19th 2021 10:05AM MST
PS

Attn GAnderson

and

Attn Adam Smith

Inspired by comments in this thread, I've put together a post with some thoughts on the following topic:

"Why the lack of high-profile 'Cheerleaders' for the Corona Anti-Panic side? An inquiry into Covid-as-social-phenomenon"

https://hailtoyou.wordpress.com/2021/02/19/why-the-lack-of-high-profile-cheerleaders-for-the-anti-panic-side-corona-as-social-phenomenon-mystery/
The Alarmist
Friday - February 19th 2021 7:50AM MST
PS

@Adam Smith: I’m not a lib, just an occasional agent provacateur or devil’s advocate.

@PeterIke: Mr. Grant banned me from his show when, as the US was being asked in the ‘90s to bail out Mexico, I suggested we pony up $10k each for every man, woman, and child and simply buy the whole country. I was unquestionably right, and Mr. Grant is unquestionably dead.
PeterIke
Thursday - February 18th 2021 2:21PM MST
PS
Rush was definitely a Cheerleader, but in his early days he would talk about having read James Burnham and Joe Sobran and others. So he knew of what he spoke. But he was no Bob Grant (NYC reference).

@AdamSmith: "But who knows anymore, liberal and conservative have lost some of their meaning."

They've lost most of it. What matters now is Nationalist vs. Globalist. 95% of the Dems and 90% of the Repubs are globalists, which is why we are where we are. Liberal/Conservative or Blue/Red are just false categories they impose to keep everyone squabbling over culture war shit like Tranny bathrooms, while the Uniparty keeps robbing us blind.

The scary part is that Tranny bathrooms are more important to many Liberals than rampant corruption in the political class.
Moderator
Thursday - February 18th 2021 12:50PM MST
PS: Mr. Smith, one could get a lot of people out by cutting off all student visas and sending the undergrads, grad students, and even Catholic/Private high schools that go around recruiting the Chinese kids for for the bucks.

At the college level, besides kicking out a half million or so, you'd also prevent lots of parents and in-laws from coming and staying. (The 1/2 million or so is just Chinese - it could be just as much for the .Indians and Saudi's, what-have-you...)
Adam Smith
Thursday - February 18th 2021 12:21PM MST
PS: Mr. Ganderson...

I've become such a strict immigration restrictionist that I believe all immigration should cease* and that emigration should be encouraged for all hyphenated Americans. I would send all the visa holders, most of the newly naturalized and most hyphenated Americans back to where they came from, weather they like it or not.

* We can make an exception for hockey players and their hot WAGS.


Adam Smith
Thursday - February 18th 2021 11:56AM MST
PS: Good afternoon everyone...

Mr. Ganderson...

People who tried to be calm and anti-panic have been flushed down the memoryhole as deniers and potential grandma-killers. Anyone with a decent sized audience who is not a panicker gets canceled. Many people know this and disseminate the party line, weather they believe it or not. Most people on the electronic synagogue have no integrity.

Panicfest is obviously a scam, but common sense abandoned these lands long ago.

Mr. Hail, I like your made up terms Original Ideas Genius and Cheerleader Genius. Rush was definitely a Cheerleader Genius and not an original ideas guy. He was quite good at what he did.

Achmed the Boy Scout, I'm good at tying that knot, but I never wear a tie. Oddly enough I have a whole box full of awesome silk ties that I'll probably never wear. I even have a couple dozen of the nicest hanging in my closet just in case I do ever wear one, though I likely won't. Not sure why I still have them.

Mr. Alarmist, you don't strike me as a liberal. But who knows anymore, liberal and conservative have lost some of their meaning. The political compass test scores me as a hardcore leftist. I think my hardcore antiauthoritarianism confuses their algorithm.

Mr. Moderator, the other day you mentioned how some people believe that the hardcore right and hardcore left have some overlapping ideas. I think sometimes people on the extreme right and extreme left agree with each other, but for different reasons. I look at the left/right spectrum not as a line but as a circle.

Not that it matters, but Ted Cruz is not a natural born citizen.

I hope you all have a great day.


Hail
Thursday - February 18th 2021 9:37AM MST
PS

RE: GAnderson

"who's saying ['stop the Corona-Panic'] nationally, with the kind of megaphone Rush had?"

A good point. It bears asking, WHY are there so few.

(I also wonder how much pushback to it all Rush gave in his broadcasts in 2020.)
Hail
Thursday - February 18th 2021 9:23AM MST
PS--

So Brimelow's criticism of Rush is as a gate-keeper. What is the 'gate' keeping in/out? It long sought to keep out of mainline conservative discourse any direct criticism of immigration.

Inside the gate you even find platitudes about how great immigration is, even faded into Immigrants are The Real Americans (an insane belief for any polity to have, a kind of pyramid scheme, everyone who comes in becomes morally inferior to a new arrival, so you need new people to constantly churn in).

Outside the gate is any open advocacy for immigration restriction from anything like an ethnonationalist perspective, which was centrist opinion in the 19th century (liberals of the day led calls for full bans on Chinese immigration, for one thing) and for most of the 20th century.

Am I wrong that Rush NEVER criticized "immigration" unless he made a point to tack on the word "illegal" to the front? People like this sometimes praised legal immigration as a preface to any milquetoast criticism of "ILLEGAL immigration" they'd toss out.

Trump of course usually had at least one foot jammed in this bear's trap, at one time calling for "the highest numbers of new immigrants ever seen, but they must all be LEGAL" (paraphrased from his Jan. 2020 State of the Union, I think).
Hail
Thursday - February 18th 2021 9:14AM MST
PS

Peter Brimelow reflection's on Limbaugh's career is excellent.

Brimelow was thinking, in the 2000s, along the same lines as I am now -- i.e., Limbaugh as cheerleader and not ideas-man, Limbaugh as not wanting to engage outside-the-box thought-lines, such as declaring immigration-restriction (and related issues, shorthanded by Brimelow and Derbyshire and others as "the National Question") THE top-line issue.

Brimelow: "I knew, from long observation, that notwithstanding his brilliant barn-burning delivery, he wouldn't actually say anything new, especially in the area of immigration and the National Question..."

Brimelow says on Election Night 1996 that Limbaugh told him he "hadn't made up his mind" on immigration. What did that mean? I can't imagine it was true.
ganderson
Thursday - February 18th 2021 8:10AM MST
PS

In chores avoidance mode!

I've become a strict immigration restrictionist- the only foreigners I'd allow into the US are hockey players and their hot WAGS; but I was an immigration romantic in my past- a Civnat, if you will- I thought the promise of America was enough to turn people into Americans, and to use the old saw, "some of my best friends are... although the people we are talking about are Canadians, Swedes, Norwegians, Dutchmen, no Bantus nor subcontinentals. And, perhaps too late I've seem what unfettered immigration has done to the city of my birth, and the land of my ancestors.

I know, "Save your I'm sorries for Brenda Lee, Jimmy!"

I'd give Limbaugh a pass- it's a faith that dies with difficulty.
ganderson
Thursday - February 18th 2021 7:57AM MST
PS

Getting ideas out (cheerleading, if you will) is important. Look at the current Corona-mess. If one reads Mr. Hail, Kevin Roche, Briggs (apologies to anyone I've left out) listen to the guy from Catholic U whose name escapes me right now, Howie Carr, etc., well, I think it's obvious that the corona panic couldn't be anything other than a scam- but who's saying that nationally, with the kind of megaphone Rush had. I stopped listening to Rush a while ago- more about timing than anything else, but was he even making the anti panic case?
Is anyone? Carlson? To my observation none of our representatives in Congress are, yet after a year, and the evidence pointing directly to the notion that this panic is a scam, we are, at least where I live more committed to panicking than ever.
Moderator
Thursday - February 18th 2021 7:50AM MST
PS: Mr. Ganderson, I'm not partial to any type of tie myself, so long as it STAYS TIED. I mean, through the wash and everything. I don't have an easy time making that knot (the sheet bend was my specialty in the Boy Scouts), so I don't want to have to do it but once a year or so.
Moderator
Thursday - February 18th 2021 7:48AM MST
PS: BTW, Peter Brimelow wrote an obituary. Because Mr. Brimelow put his career on the line for the immigration issue, and VDare is all about that subject, his article is still down on Limbaugh for the most part:

https://vdare.com/articles/rush-limbaugh-made-up-his-mind-on-immigration-sadly-he-didn-t-do-much-about-it

Here's the end of it:

"After the 2020 election, he even speculated about the increasing likelihood of secession because of demographic displacement, a favorite theme at VDARE.com. But then he hastily walked it back.

So he knew immigration was a disaster. But he didn't want to make a fuss about it—even in the face of death, when he had literally nothing to lose.

Somehow, that makes it worse."

It had become a religious issue, I'm guessing, by that point. Limbaugh didn't want to leave this world "being a hater". Tough call, IMO.
ganderson
Thursday - February 18th 2021 7:46AM MST
PS
Mr. Alarmist: I liked the stylings of Jerry's ties, especially from a guy who never wore them, but I thought they tended to lose their shape rather quickly. I always wondered why Captain Trips never marketed branded black pocket t shirts!
Moderator
Thursday - February 18th 2021 7:45AM MST
PS: Mr. Hail, my brother was for Cruz, and he (brother) is a big immigration patriot. I told him that, yeah, Cruz SOUNDS even better than Trump on immigration, but I trusted him less. For all I knew, he was bullshitting and was going to be another bought-off, bribed, blackmailed, whatever shill. My brother changed his min,d I think based on what I told him.

The reason why I didn't think Trump would be just bribed, blackmailed, etc, is that, well, he's rich, we already knew he's this flamboyant playboy, so what could the really get him on? "Oh, he cheated on his 2nd wife!" "We don't give crap. This is not 1992." That "pussy-grabbing" story was an example that proved me out. People on the right are beyond caring if a candidate is a choir boy.

On Rush, yeah, I'd say he was the cheerleader genius type.
Hail
Thursday - February 18th 2021 7:03AM MST
PS

RE: The Limbaugh and Trump MAGA Movement legacy.

I'm seeing an old news story from Dec. 2015: "Rush Limbaugh endorses Ted Cruz." It seems he was for Cruz over Trump in the 2015-16 R-primary season, right at the critical period before the first primaries. I assume the Rush endorsement shifted votes from Trump to Cruz among listeners who were on the fence on the Orange Man in primary season.

Eventually Rush did, of course, become a Trump cheerleader. And I am confident he was never anything close to being a Never Trumper. But he *was* for Cruz when it mattered most.

Even as late as Memorial Day 2016, I'm seeing an article speculating "Will Rush endorse Trump or not?"
Hail
Thursday - February 18th 2021 6:59AM MST
PS

There is something I wonder about Rush Limbaugh, for all the talk of his genius and influence and how he created Trumpism already in the 1990s (or similar lines coming out in obituaries and reflections):

Did he ever have original ideas? Or was he more of an R-team promoter, cheerleader, anti-"Liberal" talking-point deliverer?

Both of those can be types of genius. The "Original Ideas Genius" is out in front of the pack, trying to move the pack in a new direction. The "Cheerleader Genius" is firmly in the middle of the pack, or symbolically near the front when need be, but in any case carried on a sedan chair, armed with a bullhorn, shouting encouragements to the rest of the pack (...as the pack moves in ever-shifting directions as time flows on, following one or more people who are out front, Original Ideas men).

I think Limbaugh was a Cheerleader Genius but I may be wrong, especially in his early career of which I know little. It is a mistake to think of a Cheerleader Genius as a leader.

(Incidentally, I think Ann Coulter was dismissible as a Cheerleader Genius in the late 1990s and 2000s, but by the 2010s had broken free and was a rogue Original Ideas Genius, to continue to use to terminology I just made up.)
Moderator
Thursday - February 18th 2021 6:54AM MST
PS: Haha, funny story, Alarmist!
Hail
Thursday - February 18th 2021 6:47AM MST
PS

He became a brand of his own and continued to coast to fame and fortune on that brand for years. In that, and in much else, he was similar to Trump.
Ganderson
Thursday - February 18th 2021 6:22AM MST
PS. Rush was part of my conversion from liberal puke to right wing bastard. For a few years in the early 90s I worked in NYC, but lived in Western Mass. I’d drive down early Monday and come back Friday, usually early afternoon to, Dodger fan style, beat the traffic. I needed something to listen to before Mike and the Mad Dog came on at 3; I discovered Rush. As many in our thing have pointed out, he was too easy on the cucks in the Republican party, and I don’t think he was a race realist, but he was right about most of the important stuff, and was good natured and good humored. Like the Trumpster- he inspired hatred all out of proportion, in a way laying bare what the left is all about. RIP, buddy.



The Alarmist
Thursday - February 18th 2021 5:18AM MST
PS

I should have mentioned my fave Rush moment: I went to a taping of his TV show. At the time, Rush was very proud of his line of ties, so feeling a bit mischievous, I decided to wear one of my Gerry Garcia ties (this one was actually much nicer than Rush’s line). So he comes out to applause, and as he scans the room and the applause dies down, his eyes locked on my tie, and he said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I think I have spotted a liberal.”
The Alarmist
Thursday - February 18th 2021 4:47AM MST
PS

Any man who has the temerity to publicly refer to a young female Georgetown grad student flacking for “free” contraception on my dime as being a slut and a prostitute is a real mensch in my book.

I don’t think he was a neocon per se, but he was too easily swayed by them.

It was a sad day in Western Europe when they started taking down the AFN AM transmitters that doled out the first hour of his show during the local evening drive-time.
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