{"id":14560,"date":"2012-09-17T17:48:27","date_gmt":"2012-09-17T17:48:27","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-09-17T17:48:27","modified_gmt":"2012-09-17T17:48:27","slug":"policy_and_the_partisan_divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2012\/09\/17\/policy_and_the_partisan_divide\/","title":{"rendered":"Policy and the Partisan Divide"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: This never-ending question we\u2019re all asking: What does explain the partisan divide in this country? You know, I\u2019m curious. I would love to know why certain people who I think (by virtue of the rest of their lives) are demonstrably intelligent… These people are self-starters, and they are entrepreneurs. They\u2019re very successful. I asked myself, “How can they intellectually not just support Obama, but fund-raise and bundle for him?” A lot of high-tech people in Silicon Valley come to mind when I think of this.<\/p>\n

There are answers to this.<\/p>\n

There are answers to these questions, and that\u2019s what I\u2019ve spent a lot of time pondering. I saw something that made me think of this in a different direction. It\u2019s a Rasmussen Report poll. Let me quote it to you, a portion of it. “Among those who rarely or never attend church or other religious services, Obama leads by 22 percentage points. Among those who attend services weekly, Romney leads by 24.” Among people who go to church now and then, they\u2019re pretty much equal.<\/line><\/p>\n

So look at this divide. Look at this partisan divide. Now, this told me that policy couldn\u2019t have anything to do with this. This has gotta be cultural. This has to be cultural, pure and simple. And then I thought back, as I do frequently, of the story I\u2019ve probably bored you silly with by telling it so many times, about the highfalutin Republican establishment Hamptons dinner party where I was approached and jabbed in the chest and asked, “What are you gonna do about the Christians?” by a bunch of Republicans.<\/p>\n

“What are you gonna do with the Christians, these pro-lifers? They\u2019re embarrassing us.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I think right there, that word, “they\u2019re embarrassing us,” tells us… Ah! I\u2019ll speak for myself. It tells me a lot of what I have been trying to find or trying to learn.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: I have come to believe that… Let me give you an example. Let\u2019s take, for now, a nameless CEO, although I have a person in mind. This person I\u2019m gonna describe exists. Let\u2019s take this CEO of major, major Silicon Valley Internet company. This CEO is a huge Obama bundler. Huge! I mean, he throws fundraisers at the family abode, raises money, donates money, bundles money. He is totally devoted to Obama. It can\u2019t be because of Obama policy. It simply can\u2019t be!<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s policies <\/a>are diametrically opposed to every economic philosophy implemented by this person. It simply cannot be policy, this partisan divide. When I saw this religion breakdown — 22% more people who don\u2019t go to church vote for Obama; 24% more of people who do vote for Romney; and the people that go once a week, now and then, it\u2019s evenly split — that\u2019s cultural. There is no question. Now, what makes cultural? What comes under that umbrella? Well, it\u2019s any number of things, including religion.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also pop culture. It\u2019s movies, television shows; what\u2019s cool, what\u2019s hip, who\u2019s smart, who isn\u2019t smart. Branding. All those things are what come to the fore. So I\u2019ve been asking myself: What would make otherwise smart people support somebody who\u2019s got policies that will harm their company? Why would they do this? Why would they raise money for this person? Why would they donate money?<\/p>\n

Now, that\u2019s allowing for the possibility that they don\u2019t really understand that Obama is harmful for them. I have a tough time with that. I often say we need to redefine “smart” because a lot of high-IQ people do dumb things within the realm of common sense. There are a lot of people who are highly educated that do even stupider things. Again, it led me to conclude that for these people — it could be Hollywood<\/a>, could be Silicon Valley, could be Wall Street, could be any company — it\u2019s not policy.<\/p>\n

Because in most cases these people, unless they have a crony corporate relationships with Obama — unless that exists — are voting against their own company\u2019s interests. Why would they do that, then? “Well, they\u2019re not looking at that” has to be the answer. They\u2019re not looking at policy. This matters. Because if we think that we want to pick those people off and convince them that our policies are far better for the country; that\u2019ll create more customers with more disposable income for their businesses than Obama or liberal Democrat policies will…<\/p>\n

<\/a>If we think that we can persuade them with policy, we\u2019re barking up the wrong tree — if they\u2019re choosing Obama for things have nothing to do with policy. And I think, going back to that Hamptons dinner and that one word: “embarrassing,” it\u2019s branding or whatever you want to say. But I think there\u2019s some blockheaded thickness out there. I think the people I\u2019m talking about actually think…<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll put it this way: They would be embarrassed to be openly Republican. They\u2019d be embarrassed, because of what people would think of \u2019em. And what would that be? Well, they\u2019re pro-life, yes. But they\u2019re not cool. They may, in fact, be stupid, which I think a lot of them think of conservatives. So how then do pick \u2019em off? How do you go get \u2019em?<\/p>\n

More in a moment. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: In fact, my friends, I would go further. I would say that it is true that a majority of people who vote for Obama are actually voting against their own self-interest, even the people on welfare and food stamps. They don\u2019t understand. They don\u2019t understand the destruction that he is wreaking out that\u2019s going to interrupt the flow of their benefits. But let\u2019s take Sigmund Freud. Sigmund Freud, for example, used to think… (interruption) Now, that got Snerdley\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

If you mention Sigmund Freud, people will listen to you. Sigmund Freud used to think that sex was the ultimate motivating power in people\u2019s lives. And when they issued Viagra, I was tending to agree with him. I\u2019d never seen anything like it. But it turns out that as Sigmund Freud got older (and as do most people who get older, he got wiser), he realized that it was not sex that was the ultimate motivating power in people\u2019s lives but rather it was the drive to be respected by their peers.<\/p>\n

And even further, a desire to be respected by the elites who decide who is respectable or not. So let\u2019s take this a step further. If it is true, as I surmise, that people are not voting against Romney for policy or for Obama for policy reasons — if they\u2019re voting for other reasons — then how do we pick \u2019em off? Is it a mistake to run a policy-oriented campaign? Again, take this mythical CEO. And for this example, this CEO does not have a knowingly traceable crony relationship with Obama.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s simply a political fundraiser. He simply has an emotional attachment — as opposed to, say, somebody like the Solyndra guys, who, frankly, wouldn\u2019ta cared whatever Obama was gonna do because he was giving them money. He was funding their business, so policy didn\u2019t matter. For this mythical CEO I\u2019m talking about, that\u2019s not the case. In fact, this mythical CEO knows that Obama\u2019s policies are harmful. Yet something is stopping her from voting for people that will actually give her more customers with more disposable income which will grow her business.<\/p>\n

So what is it, if it isn\u2019t policy?<\/line><\/p>\n

I think it goes back to that word “embarrassed,” and I think that for whatever marketing or branding reasons there are people to whom the most embarrassing thing in the world is to be a conservative and thought of as one, or a Republican or being thought of as one. That\u2019s just as embarrassing as it can be. Now, we could go through the reasons why — and if I did, you would probably be forced to agree with me. But the point here is, the point is: We\u2019re running a campaign.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re trying to win an election, and if policy is not how you go get people, then how do you do it? That\u2019s a huge question. Now, it could well be there\u2019s also this factor: This mythical CEO assumes that by being such a vocal public supporter of Obama, the CEO is gonna end up being in the elite circle of who decides who\u2019s hip and who\u2019s not and who\u2019s respected and who\u2019s not, or respectable or not.<\/p>\n

The older I get, the more I learn that the people are totally — and it frustrates me to no end as I\u2019ve said I don\u2019t know how many times — governed by what people think of them. It\u2019s the desire to be respected by their peers. Well if you are in Silicon Valley, you are not gonna be respected if you\u2019re a Republican. It just ain\u2019t gonna happen. You\u2019re not gonna be respected if you\u2019re a conservative. It isn\u2019t gonna happen, and policy won\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

If you, as a Silicon Valley CEO, can explain why conservatism is better for you — better for everybody else, better for the country, better for Silicon Valley, better for customers — the fact that you\u2019re still a conservative will not help you be respected. And that\u2019s what they all want. Conservatism is considered uncool. It\u2019s backwards, and it\u2019s rigid, and it\u2019s judgmental, and it\u2019s old-fashioned. It\u2019s almost Victorian. This is the branding.<\/p>\n

Plus, it has the pro-lifers in it, and nobody, nobody, nobody wants to be associated with them! The Tea Party has been branded as similar, and nobody wants to be associated with that. Nobody wanted to be a Republican during Bush because the guy was an idiot, a cowboy idiot. I can\u2019t tell you the number of people who told me that. I\u2019d go to California and I\u2019d get frustrated out of my gourd when liberal idiots would tell me how stupid Bush was when I know he\u2019s not stupid, at all.<\/p>\n

Harvard MBA, for example!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Reagan was able to make being conservative attractive and cool, and they learned their lesson with that. What was the lesson? Never again is a prominent conservative gonna be thought of as nice and jocular, and never again is a conservative gonna be portrayed as having beer with Tip O\u2019Neill at the end of the day and getting along with Democrats. That ain\u2019t gonna happen. They\u2019re not letting another Reagan get created in terms of branding.<\/p>\n

So Romney\u2019s gonna continue to be — no matter what he is — stiff, rich, heartless, the whole cliche. But it boils down to the fact, I think, that Freud ended up being right. What people want is to be respected by their peers. And as they get older and as they move up their own ladders of success, that being respected by others then changes. It becomes being respected by the elites. The elites they want to be. The elites they want to be part of. The elites.<\/p>\n

The small group of elites who will be exempt from all the new policies, who will be exempt from all the high taxes, who will be exempt from all the regulation. That\u2019s what they\u2019re striving for: To not ever be considered to be part of the hoi polloi. That\u2019s why Hollywood, ever since Reagan, is going to continue to destroy (or try to) everything and anyone in show business who might make conservatism seem hip and cool and attractive.<\/p>\n

The last thing that these people can allow to happen is for prominently successful conservatives to be seen as hip and cool and likable, respectable. Now, I\u2019m just sharing with you my thinking about this. When I saw these religion numbers, that\u2019s what clued me in here — and, by the way, it should have occurred to me years ago. I\u2019m beating my head up against the wall arguing with Democrats and liberals on policy, winning every argument. On taxes, lowering taxes grows revenue.<\/p>\n

The reality is what it is. It happens every time it\u2019s tried. That\u2019s the solution to the problem now: The lowest taxes on the largest amount of people that broadens the base that funds the government, that lowers the debt, that promotes economic activity. It\u2019s simple. That\u2019s what needs to happen, and it works every time it\u2019s tried. But that\u2019s not gonna persuade anybody because policies don\u2019t matter. We have gotten so partisan and so polarized, and it\u2019s not the policy that\u2019s doing it. Not totally.<\/p>\n

To some people, of course, it is the policy — and the lower down you go in the IQ scale, the more the lies about policy matter.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: You have an answer to my question? Snerdley is saying that it\u2019s all in emotions. Yeah, of course, when you\u2019re worried about what people think of you, when you want to be respected by the people you think determine who\u2019s respectable or not, yeah. All I\u2019m telling you is that I could go out there, Snerdley, I could go out there and emote as well as any liberal, and I\u2019m not gonna persuade a liberal to become a conservative, because of what they think conservatism will make them appear to be with the people they care about being respected by. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: This never-ending question we\u2019re all asking: What does explain the partisan divide in this country? You know, I\u2019m curious. I would love to know why certain people who I think (by virtue of the rest of their lives) are demonstrably intelligent… These people are self-starters, and they are entrepreneurs. They\u2019re very successful. 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