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Who Else is There Left for Limbaugh to Influence?

Rush Limbaugh is a phenomenon of the ’80s and ’90s when he still retained some ability to shock, and the entire regressive Republican agenda he insistently trumpeted daily, which fundamentally amounted to electing Republicans to throw money at the rich and permitting corporations and Wall Street to act without regulation, had yet to be proven by events, such as our present Great Depression redux, to be the recipe for mass disaster it has historically been.

Limbaugh had quite a time back then kicking around FDR’s liberalism that had brought the nation out of the last Republican-generated economic crisis of the 1930s, and counted on the uneducated knuckledraggers, attention-deficit cretins, McCarthyite jingoists, terrified shut-ins, imperial chickenhawks and outright cases of brain damage that populate his audience to trust his hooey-fied history lessons and giggle at his class-clown racism and sexism.

Rush often claims his talent is on loan from God but, since he’s never clear as to the identity of his personal deity, it might very well be one with two horns and a scaly tail who causes young girls to prodigiously vomit pea soup. (A reaction Rush is no doubt accustomed to from women by now.) Conservatism has often been used as a respectable ideological shield for the darker aspects of the human character such as greed, selfishness and cruelty, and Limbaugh evinces all of these flaws is his daily three-hour howlings at the moon.

What does this spoiled self-serving multi-millionaire mostly gripe about on his show? Those in the upper-10 percent tax bracket such as himself paying higher taxes. He makes $50 million a year and he’s complaining bitterly over paying a few percentage points more in taxes to help his country out of the mess caused by the Republican ‘principles’ he’s ardently promoted of deregulating markets, banks, investment firms, real estate, and unfettered corporate expansion, while lowering taxes for the rich and running enormous deficits. Instead of taking responsibility for what he’s advocated, Rush blames it on Obama and the Democrats. What a mighty good man.

Before confusing Limbaugh’s brand of patriotism with the dictionary definition of that word, it’s instructive to heed the underlying message of his broadcasts: Money before country — particularly Rush’s own sacrosanct bankroll.

Progressives, their thinking reflected through the regressive Republican lens known in psychology as ‘projection,’ have been accused of hating Limbaugh. This is nonsense, speaking for the progressives I know. While we may make rude jokes at Rush’s expense, it’s a ludicrous waste of time to hate someone you don’t know — but we do loathe the abuses of the right to free speech he engages in regularly by lying to his audience for the benefit of his career and the detriment of his country. Still, no one, contrary to right-wing diddling, wants to shut Rush up – he is the best advertisement possible against both himself and the regressive GOP creed he represents.

As his influence dwindles from its heydey of decades past, when Poppy Bush invited him to sleep over in the Lincoln bedroom to secure his support and Gingrich’s GOP Congress of 1994 made him an honorary member, today Limbaugh is only revered by the true suckers who continue to allow themselves to be gulled by his outdated dictums, phony philosophy, and braying-braggart attempts at humor. Read what Elliot Sanders, a St. Louis business owner who claims to have had a 3-month-long gay affair with Limbaugh in 1971, said about Limbaugh’s insincere ‘shock jock’ approach to political broadcasting:

“Rush said that he thought most people are incredibly gullible, and he felt that the key to radio programming was to reach that crowd, and that it would be really, really easy. He thought he could get anyone to believe anything he said, and the more outrageous it was, the more they would believe it.” […]
“I think most of them [Limbaugh's listeners] are psychotic. I don’t think these people realize he’s just pandering to them for ratings, but if they find out, I wouldn’t want to be there.”

As P.T. Barnum is alleged to have once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute”; if he were alive today, he might have added, “and they all listen to Limbaugh.”

© R.S. Janes. LTSaloon.org