{"id":214994,"date":"2016-11-21T17:54:16","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T22:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/172.24.32.11\/daily\/2016\/11\/21\/advice_for_dealing_with_trump_haters\/"},"modified":"2017-01-04T11:22:30","modified_gmt":"2017-01-04T16:22:30","slug":"advice_for_dealing_with_trump_haters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2016\/11\/21\/advice_for_dealing_with_trump_haters\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice for Dealing with Trump Haters"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: We have 15-year-old Michelle from San Ramon, California.  Hi, Michelle.  It\u2019s great to have you here.<\/p>\n

CALLER:  Hi.  Thank you for having me.<\/p>\n

RUSH:  It\u2019s my pleasure.  It\u2019s great to have you with us here.  This is great.<\/p>\n

CALLER:  So I was calling in to ask for any advice that you can give me on how I can convince my friends that Donald Trump is really not as bad as they think he is. I come from a very — my brother and I come from a very conservative town, but the kids around here are very liberal, and so they have been protesting and even some of our school administration influenced them to do that, and it\u2019s frustrating because we go to school to learn, right, and people —<\/p>\n

RUSH:  No.  No.  No.  No.  No.  Sadly, no.  I mean, they may think that\u2019s what\u2019s happening.  They\u2019re actually being indoctrinated, Michelle, sadly, or propagandized, rather than being taught things.  That may be a fine line.  Let me ask you, are they the same age as you, 15, 16, around there?<\/p>\n

CALLER:  Yeah, 16, yeah.<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH:  Well, what do they think of Trump?<\/p>\n

CALLER:  Well, they think he is a sexist, a lying person. They just absolutely hate him.  They think very negatively about him, but for Hillary they absolutely love Hillary. They think she\u2019s better than him, and it\u2019s a little bit like — yeah, it\u2019s frustrating.<\/p>\n

RUSH:  Well, look, I don\u2019t think you\u2019re gonna be able to change their minds right off the bat because you\u2019re not dealing with people who have arrived at what they believe via a logical progression of thought.  They\u2019re not engaging in thinking, critical thinking.  They\u2019re simply, I think, regurgitating what they\u2019ve heard from either their parents, teachers, what they see on social media, you know, whatever is bandied about there, and their emotion is just taken over. <\/p>\n

And I also think that there\u2019s a little peer pressure.  They probably think that a majority of people their age think the same things and they want to be considered — I don\u2019t know what the word is — in, hip, whatever, with that bunch.  I think time will take care of some of this as it is revealed that Trump is not what they think.  But even at that, depending how deeply propagandized your friends have been, they may never, ever admit to themselves that they\u2019ve been wrong and that Trump is not what they\u2019ve been told or who they think he is. <\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton is, I think, a cult figure.  I think the people that ended up supporting Hillary Clinton didn\u2019t care what she was or who she was.  It\u2019s what she embodied and what the Clinton mystique was as it was passed down from parents to children and so forth.  Because logically none of this makes any sense, as you are encountering. So you\u2019re trying to confront all these people with logic, and I would maintain to you that they don\u2019t have any where this is concerned.  Is it causing you to lose friendships?<\/p>\n

CALLER:  Not right now, but I feel like if we talk about it more, it really — it really doesn\u2019t — it doesn\u2019t end well when we talk about it.<\/p>\n

RUSH:  No.  It exacerbates the problem the more you talk about it. Well, how have you tried to convince them that what they think is not correct?<\/p>\n

CALLER:  Well, I\u2019ve tried to tell them that — I mean, Hillary is not really as good as the media is portraying her.  She also has a lot of faults.  I mean, Trump has faults also, but —<\/p>\n

RUSH:  I\u2019ll tell you what, our time is dwindling.  I have a little bit of an idea for you here.  Since Hillary\u2019s out of the picture right now —<\/p>\n

CALLER:  Right.<\/p>\n

RUSH:  — and any lingering attachment to Hillary is purely emotional, I think it might be interesting for you and maybe even helpful if instead of defending Trump, which, you\u2019re gonna run into brick wall there with these people, what you ought to do is get them, challenge them to see if they can maybe question what they hear in the media, question what they see on the news, question what they see on social media.  You know, instead of arguing with them, try to expose what\u2019s wrong about their process. <\/line><\/p>\n

Ask \u2019em, “Well, why do you believe that?  Who\u2019s telling you this stuff?”  And then, as they give you examples, you will be able to say, “No, you\u2019re wrong about that, that\u2019s not true.” And you\u2019ll be able to go to various sources to tell them that they\u2019re wrong about it.  I think maybe try to challenge what they believe are their credible information sources.  Now, if it\u2019s their parents, good luck with that, but that\u2019s what I would do.  Frankly, Michelle, I only do it as a fun exercise.  I don\u2019t do it to actually try to change their minds.  I\u2019ve been doing this 30 years.  It doesn\u2019t happen very much.  But, look, hang on.  I\u2019ve gotta take a break here, and we have not enough time to continue, but don\u2019t go away.  <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH:  We now go back to Michelle in San Ramon, California.  I was a little pressured with time there.  I didn\u2019t really give you enough time to answer my question.  You\u2019re still there, right, Michelle? <\/p>\n

CALLER:  Yes.<\/p>\n

RUSH:  Okay, cool.  Here\u2019s the nut of what I wanted to tell you.  I don\u2019t think that you are going to succeed in changing their minds.  I think the most fun you can have with this… You need to turn this into a fun project.  You need to have the attitude here not of condescension, but understanding, that they\u2019re misguided and have been ill-educated. Feel sorry for them, because they really deserve some sympathy here.  They have been programmed to believe stuff that has them scared to death that isn\u2019t true. <\/p>\n

You could say that to \u2019em. “There\u2019s no reason to be afraid of anything.  We\u2019re gonna be… The country\u2019s gonna return to greatness. We\u2019re gonna have an entirely different return path here to American prominence.”  But then the way to get to them, if you want to — and I don\u2019t think you\u2019re gonna succeed, but it\u2019s worth the effort — is to focus on why they believe what they believe.  It\u2019s gonna be the media or their parents, maybe to a certain extent teachers. <\/p>\n

I would simply get them not on specifics of this campaign or anything, but just as a means of actually doing something smart, ask them to start challenging and questioning whatever they see in the media about things that they both believe and don\u2019t believe. Inspire them to become curious and suspicious and not believing everything that they have been programmed to believe, and get them to focus on who\u2019s told them what they believe and where they\u2019ve seen it, where they\u2019ve read it, and get them questioning that. <\/p>\n

Because you could point out to them that they are in the minority.  You can point out to them the humongous majority of Americans think the exact opposite the way they do.  Now, I wanted to tell you a little story, too.  By the way, to the rest of you, you know, there\u2019s a new show on Fox News that may be the best show on Fox News.  It\u2019s hosted by Chatsworth Osborne Jr.  Tucker Carlson has the new seven p.m. show on Fox and right now it may be the most interesting and engaging show.<\/p>\n