{"id":10264,"date":"2014-01-31T19:22:36","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T19:22:36","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2014-01-31T19:22:36","modified_gmt":"2014-01-31T19:22:36","slug":"making_sense_of_the_senseless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2014\/01\/31\/making_sense_of_the_senseless\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Sense of the Senseless"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, let me close the loop on immigration<\/a>. We sit here, it doesn\u2019t make any sense. It\u2019s the end of the Republican Party. The polling data all shows it. The people that would be granted amnesty are not gonna vote Republican because of this or anything else. I mean, not without a lot of work. And the Republican Party being so publicly for amnesty is not going to change how these people vote. I don\u2019t know if the Republicans think that\u2019s going to happen. I do know that the prevailing thought or theory is really baked in total defensiveness. <\/p>\n

“Don\u2019t criticize the president. Delicately, even hesitantly suggest a different approach to the same objective, whatever the objective is. If it\u2019s Obamacare, we have an alternative. If it\u2019s amnesty, we have an alternative. Whatever Obama proposes, we\u2019re not gonna oppose it, because it will not be helpful. That\u2019s what the Tea Party does, and the Tea Party\u2019s hated, and we hate \u2019em, and we don\u2019t want to be the Tea Party, and we want to show the American people that we can be bipartisan, cross the aisle and work with the Democrats.”<\/p>\n

Look, it defies logic that there are still Republicans and consultants who believe this, but they do. But there\u2019s another possibility, and I\u2019m really uncomfortable in addressing it, mentioning it. I did yesterday \u2019cause I\u2019m like everybody else trying to make sense of this, and it doesn\u2019t make sense. Politically, this is not gonna grow the Republican Party. It\u2019s not going to change the direction Obama\u2019s taking the country. Why do it? Well, many in Congress make no more than what their salaries are. Chamber of Commerce, very much pro-amnesty, very much pro-immigration. They\u2019re really, really pushing it. I mean, it\u2019s almost like the Chamber of Commerce has been infiltrated and taken over by a bunch of leftists. That doesn\u2019t make any sense to me, either, folks. It\u2019s been a rather quick evolution here. The Chamber used to not be oriented this way. They\u2019ve been trending toward it, but it seems like it\u2019s overnight. <\/line><\/p>\n

Now, if you are a member of Congress and you want to leave, and you probably know you\u2019re gonna get beat after you make amnesty happen, well, what if somebody\u2019s promised you a job with health care and a couple million bucks, what would you do? And if that\u2019s the only way you think you\u2019re ever going to make any money… let\u2019s say you\u2019re in Congress and you want to leave Congress, and you don\u2019t know what you can do out there that will pay you as much as what you\u2019re getting now, let\u2019s say it\u2019s $175,000. I hate even thinking this, but, remember, this is the place that had the House bank and the House post office. And this is the place where a lot of people have shown up to Congress with nothing and they end up becoming millionaires while there. Not just in Congress, but the whole citywide. <\/p>\n

I hate thinking this, but I\u2019m telling you, I\u2019m at wit\u2019s end trying to understand it. Look, the political aspects, okay, they hate the Republican Party base, fine. And they want to get rid of their Republican base, fine. They don\u2019t like the Tea Party. They don\u2019t like pro-lifers. They don\u2019t like social issue conservatives. Fine. They want to get rid of \u2019em, and the fastest way to get rid of \u2019em is pass legislation they universally oppose. Fine. And then they want to rebuild the party with a whole new base made up of moderate, independent types. And even if that takes \u2019em 10 years, that\u2019s fine. Getting rid of the conservatives, the Tea Party, getting rid of our current base, that\u2019s what we want to do. That may be the case, too, and they may be willing to wallow in the wilderness ineffectively for 10 years while they try to reassemble a new base and a new coalition where they can win elections. <\/p>\n

But that\u2019s doesn\u2019t make sense either. On the one hand it does, but it really doesn\u2019t. Who would want to purposely take action that\u2019s gonna cause you to be a permanent minority, unless you\u2019re not gonna be there when the permanent minority is the permanent minority. I mean, it really doesn\u2019t make any sense. You can come up with logical explanations that are outside of politics, but it really doesn\u2019t make any sense. Folks, they have been hell-bent on getting this done since the early 2000s. Well, maybe even longer than that, but it intensified, as you know, in the early 2000s. And back then, just to refresh your memory, we were told in the early 2000s that this was the only way to grow the party. In fact, I\u2019ll tell you, I remember, \u2019cause I\u2019ve had the lecture. <\/line><\/p>\n

They came down here and tried to get my mind right. They sat me down and said, “What you\u2019re missing is, if we can pull off immigration, convert the Hispanic population to voting for us the way the black population votes for the Democrats, we will be the permanent majority party.” That was the original impetus behind this from the upper levels of the Republican Party in the early 2000s. That was the thinking, as it was explained to me. It was about wiping out the Democrats, which made sense as an objective. I\u2019m all for that, wiping them out, turning them into a permanent minority. I\u2019m all in. But this isn\u2019t the way. <\/p>\n

But as far back as 14 years ago this was what was thought to be the magic bullet. This would do it. This is how we would persuade Hispanics that we are worthy of their vote. That we are on their side; that we will be looking out for them; that we have their best interests in mind and that voting for us is the best thing that can happen to them and their families economically, culturally, societally, you name it, and it was really based on taking them away from the Democrat Party. And it may well be that you still have upper echelon Republicans who think that that is what is going to happen. And you do have a number of them who say that. I don\u2019t know whether they still believe it but they do say it. <\/p>\n

You\u2019ve heard \u2019em one way or another, you\u2019ve heard \u2019em say, “The demographics in the country are changing, Rush, and we\u2019ve got this influx of Hispanics. Forget immigration. They\u2019re being born. We\u2019re gonna have to convert these people to Republicans, and one of the ways to do it is be for amnesty, because we all know that every Hispanic wants every other Hispanic to be able to come to this country legally whenever they want to. And that\u2019s how we\u2019ll show them we love \u2019em; that\u2019s how we show them that we\u2019re on their side; that\u2019s how we show them they can vote for us.” So we\u2019re gonna get into identity politics? That\u2019s something we\u2019ve never done. We\u2019ve stood for everybody. <\/p>\n

Conservatism doesn\u2019t see groups, doesn\u2019t see victims — well, other than people that vote Democrat. But we don\u2019t want to capitalize on it. We want to remove them from victim status. We want to teach them self-reliance, rugged individualism. We want them to be able to provide for themselves. We want them to maximize their lives. We want them to get the most out of life possible. We want them not depending on a political party, no matter which one. <\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t seem to be the objective now.<\/p>\n

It seems like our party\u2019s looking at things in this identity politics way. “Okay, we\u2019ll have a position to get the Hispanics, then next we\u2019re gonna have to do something for women. You know, this War on Women they\u2019re gonna say? That\u2019s killing us. We\u2019re gonna have to do something to convince the women that we don\u2019t hate \u2019em like the Democrats say.” What\u2019s that gonna be? I shudder to think what that\u2019s gonna be down the line.<\/line><\/p>\n

But that isn\u2019t who we are. <\/p>\n

We don\u2019t see people as members of groups or sexes or orientations. We see Americans. We see a country. We see a distinct American culture that\u2019s the envy of the world, that provides more opportunity for people who want to work for it than has ever existed anywhere in the world, and we don\u2019t understand why… Well, we do understand why. But we don\u2019t understand why people wouldn\u2019t want have beliefs like that be the primary definitions of our society and the country. <\/p>\n

They\u2019ve convinced a number of people — 91 or 92 million people are not working and they\u2019re still eating, so what\u2019s the problem? I understand what we\u2019re up against. But what the Republicans are doing in this simply doesn\u2019t make any sense. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I need to make not so much a clarification, but I need to draw a distinction. I have been using the Republican Party generically, and I should not have. I should have been specifying it\u2019s the Republican Party leadership that is hell-bent on ramrodding through this amnesty plan. Now, the Republicans are at their retreat on the frozen shores of the Chesapeake Bay, and from what I understand, there was what\u2019s called an open microphone at these meetings when these issues come up. Members of the House are allowed a minute or two to speak and the leadership gets all the time they want. <\/p>\n

There was an embargo placed on anything coming out of there, an embargo on the leadership position. It turns out the leadership distributed their own position on amnesty to the media. The upshot of it is that it seems like two-thirds of the House rank-and-file is opposed to what the leadership in the House is trying to push. It might be three-fifths. But the point is it\u2019s probably more accurate to say it\u2019s not the entire Republican House. Obviously you have some Tea Party people in there, and you\u2019ve got some great straight down the middle conservatives in there. <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s the leadership that is tied to the Chamber and is getting their view out as though it is the view of the chamber when it\u2019s just the view of the leadership. I wanted to draw that distinction. ‘Cause I meant leadership every time I said Republican Party. Leadership is who\u2019s making things happen. Anyway, in case I fail to draw the distinction in the future, when I talk about the Republican Party, I\u2019m talking about House leadership, maybe Senate leadership, and certainly the Republican consultant class, the people that run campaigns and devise strategies for members to win elections. They are tied to the leadership, most of them in many ways, at least a lot of them are. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Now, let me close the loop on immigration. We sit here, it doesn\u2019t make any sense. It\u2019s the end of the Republican Party. The polling data all shows it. The people that would be granted amnesty are not gonna vote Republican because of this or anything else. I mean, not without a lot of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nMaking Sense of the Senseless - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/daily\/2014\/01\/31\/making_sense_of_the_senseless\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Making Sense of the Senseless - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Now, let me close the loop on immigration. We sit here, it doesn\u2019t make any sense. It\u2019s the end of the Republican Party. 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