RUSH: I guess the NFL outreach to our communities on our issues didn\u2019t matter much. Thursday Night Football ratings down last night, preliminary overnight metered markets. The Raiders, it was a close game, apparently. I didn\u2019t see it. I didn\u2019t watch it. But the Kansas City Chiefs lost 31-30 on a last-minute, walk-off touchdown pass. The Drive-Bys are calling it a walk-off touchdown pass. It sounds like it was a good game, but I didn\u2019t see it. And not as many people as used to see it saw it, because the ratings continue to plunge.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Have you also seen — I\u2019m just setting a table here, folks, to give you an idea what\u2019s on tap today — have you seen where President Trump and Vice President Pence have released a petition demanding that all players and fans stand for the National Anthem? And they\u2019ve emailed supporters asking for signatures. They did this yesterday.<\/p>\n
Now, this is according to the GOP\u2019s website, but I saw it independently of that. The president has asked for a list of supporters who stand for the national anthem. Add your name below to show your patriotism and support, the petition reads, before asking for your name, your email and your zip code.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/FB-100917-Pence-Colts-1.jpg\")
Think back to what you have been hearing all year about what Trump is going to be, a dictator, that Trump was going to be another Hitler or Mussolini. Did Hitler do online petitions? Did Mussolini do online petitions? Did either of those guys leave it up to public opinion when any of their agenda items came up? I don\u2019t believe so. And the Drive-Bys can\u2019t believe that Trump won\u2019t let this go.<\/p>\n
Oh, and there\u2019s this. The CEO of the San Francisco 49ers, his name is Jed York. He is the son of John York and Denise DeBartolo York. Denise DeBartolo is the sister of Eddie DeBartolo, the former owner of the 49ers back when they had their Super Bowl dynasty. And he was perhaps the most popular owner in the NFL during his stewardship. He was run out of the league because he had some kind of collusion with the governor of Louisiana, Edwin Edwards, over gambling or some such thing. I don\u2019t remember the specifics. But the father, Edward DeBartolo Sr., from Youngstown, Ohio was the patriarch of the family.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/NFLKaepernickSmall.jpg\")
Anyway, the daughter, Denise DeBartolo, and her husband John York got the team. Now their son is running it. The 49ers is a team that Kaepernick played for. The 49ers is the team that Kaepernick told to go pound sand in March. They offered him a $14 million contract, and Kaepernick walked out on it for whatever reason, thinking he could do better or he was still in the protest frame of mind. But the guy that employed Kaepernick and the guy that says great things about Kaepernick has answered the media charge that there is no collusion keeping, quote\/unquote, Colin out of the NFL.<\/p>\n
And of course the sports Drive-Bys are not happy about this because they want there to be collusion between the owners to keep poor Colin Kaepernick out of the league.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Fort Collins, Colorado, home of Dan\u2019s Bake Sale, this is Rick. Great to have you, sir, what\u2019s up?<\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019m so hurt that Kaepernick and the MSN progressive cabal has culturally appropriated the great national tradition of NFL leisure time.<\/p>\n
RUSH: That\u2019s exactly what has happened. They have hijacked the National Football League and they\u2019re in the process now of politicizing it according to the Black Lives Matter political agenda.<\/p>\n
CALLER: And this is our safe space. We\u2019ve never had politics here. It\u2019s a uniquely American tradition going back for generations. And rituals that we have practiced, which are now being raped by these social justice warriors. They don\u2019t understand it. They don\u2019t appreciate our cultural identity.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Oh, wait, wait, I know what you mean, but they\u2019re threatened by it. They understand it enough to know that it\u2019s patriotic, it celebrates and honors the military, it\u2019s got toxic masculinity, and it is free of politics and therefore it must be taken over. They know full well what it means.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: That\u2019s right, my friends, a man, a legend, a way of life on the ever-expanding EIB Network.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/NFLLiberalismPenaltyPIX-1-2.jpg\")
Now, quickly I want to go back to our last caller. He did a marvelous job. He had less than a minute and didn\u2019t know it and said everything he wanted to say. And I was not unilaterally completely disagreeing. His point was that these people that are corrupting the NFL don\u2019t know anything about it. They don\u2019t know anything about the football culture. They don\u2019t know anything about what it takes to play the game, what you go through to get there play the game.<\/p>\n
And on that he\u2019s exactly right. You basically have a bunch of people who have literally heretofore shown no interest in it whatsoever. And about that he\u2019s totally right. But my point is they know exactly what they\u2019re doing. The NFL threatens them precisely because it\u2019s outside their control. It\u2019s outside — and up to now it\u2019s been outside their ability to infiltrate, if you will. (sigh) I mean, look at the ownership structure and look at the executive structure of the NFL.<\/p>\n
The usual open doors for a Black Lives Matter or Southern Poverty Law Center or take your pick of any left-wing group, to get in there and corrupt it have been shut off. And it represents things which threaten them. You understand, the left is not a bunch of people that can peacefully coexist with people who disagree with them. If you disagree or if you\u2019re in opposition you have to be destroyed. You have to be shut down. You have to be eliminated one way or the other. They do not tolerate any disagreement or opposition. They\u2019re threatened by it.<\/p>\n
The left, remember, is totalitarian and authoritarian; they\u2019re not democratic. And they cannot tolerate people being permitted to make up their mind which side of any issue they agree with. And so the NFL is the most popular sport in the country. It\u2019s the wealthiest sport in the country. As such, it is a humongous target, and that\u2019s all they need to know. Then they look at who loves it, and they hate the people who love the NFL. To the left, the people who love NFL are the same people that love NASCAR. They\u2019re a bunch of Deliverance types.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re Southern, they\u2019re hay-seed, they\u2019re hicks, they\u2019re gross, they\u2019re not sophisticated. They engage in all of these activities the left finds reprehensible. You won\u2019t find metrosexuals in the bunch, for example. You won\u2019t find any transgenders in the bunch. There\u2019s just blatant, toxic masculinity. There is rugged individualism confined in a team sport. There are routine acknowledgments of the military. Gigantic American flags are on display before every game.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/NFLFlagChiefs-Anthem-1.jpg\")
It\u2019s just… That can\u2019t stand, and I\u2019m not exaggerating, and I don\u2019t want you to think that I am. All of the things I\u2019m telling you are things that genuinely scare them and offend them and represent things they have to destroy or to diminish. Because those things threaten them and their existence, which is why they take over political parties. They take over universities. They take over Hollywood. There is no other way of thinking. There is no tolerance for other ways of thinking.<\/p>\n
Now, some in this group don\u2019t want to totally destroy the NFL. They want to keep it just big enough to fleece, shake down, what have you. Others on the left want to totally obliterate it because it represents a significant portion of America that will never ever cower and cave to what they believe. Except now the league is. Now the league is beginning to cower and cave. The league is allowing itself to become corrupted.<\/p>\n
And the league and the game have been hijacked. It\u2019s the players that have hijacked the game in the process of it, and this is what has fans so upset. Fans of professional sports, young and old, have an instinctive admiration for the people who play — and the greater the player, the greater the fandom. It\u2019s just human nature. One of the fastest ways I have found to destroy that putting of people on a pedestal that\u2019s part of loving the game, is that when the players are exposed as not being worthy of that kind of admiration.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the first, that\u2019s the first little dink in the armor, when the fans start thinking that players really aren\u2019t that special. And then when that begins to cascade, then the love affair begins to, shall we say, water down and begins to wane. And that\u2019s what we\u2019ve been seeing happen right here. It\u2019s been hang for a long time. I\u2019ll tell you, folks, I think that this all began long ago. And this is not a wish to turn back the clock, to go back to an earlier time. I\u2019m just going to make an observation.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not just at social media, but, rather the prevalence of so much media before, during and after each game takes so much of the mystique away that there\u2019s nothing much left to, quote\/unquote, dream about or imagine. With so much media coverage, it\u2019s just… Every question you have now or every speculation, everything that you\u2019re curious about now has an answer. And most of them let you down. They don\u2019t lift you up. I remember when I was a kid — and I\u2019m just using this as a comparative illustration, not a request to turn back the clock.<\/p>\n
When I was a kid growing up, there was one baseball game a week on television, Saturday afternoon, and since CBS owned the Yankees, it was always the Yankees. If those of us living in Missouri loved the St. Louis Cardinals, we had to go to St. Louis. You had to go to the stadium to watch them. Occasionally the Cardinals would be on TV. But if you didn\u2019t live in St. Louis, you couldn\u2019t get TV stations from St. Louis over the air, you never saw your team unless they happened to make a national game.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/RushLiberalismVsAmericanism4.jpg\")
And then that just added to the mystique. And when you got to the stadium to actually see the team, it was like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to actually see your team and the people playing it. Now it\u2019s no big deal either way to see them. It\u2019s no big deal to see them on TV. No big deal to see them at the stadium. The mystique is gone. And now the media is in a locker room before the game, on the field during the game, on the field after the game, in the locker room after the game, in the players\u2019 front yards during the week. There\u2019s no mystique left. And there\u2019s no changing it. Don\u2019t misunderstand me.<\/p>\n
I think with whatever happened that began to erode — and I say mystique. There may be a better word for it. But as the mystique and as the questions that you always had but you never had the answers to — once those questions began to have answers, curiosity lessened. It just wasn\u2019t as much. And whatever propelled from curiosity stopped being propelled. Now, I know that attendance has skyrocketed with all this media coverage and presence. I get all that. Don\u2019t misunderstand. I\u2019m talking about fan attitudes, and now with as much as is known about the people that play and own and run the game, it\u2019s just less special.<\/p>\n
It still is the NFL or it\u2019s still Major League Baseball, but with players tweeting and all of this, there\u2019s less of the idea that what they do is special and hard to watch and unique and special to see to now being everywhere. And so since it\u2019s everywhere, it doesn\u2019t take much to diminish it.<\/p>\n
So when these protests began and you start having players openly disrespecting the symbols of the country, there\u2019s only one way that\u2019s going to be interpreted. And it\u2019s not anti-Trump, and it\u2019s not anti-police and it\u2019s not anti this, it\u2019s going to be interpreted as what it is: Disrespect for the flag.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m telling you, you add that to this, and bye-bye mystique and hello anger. It\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happening here. And it\u2019s all by design. It\u2019s all designed to get you to not want to watch this stuff anymore. It\u2019s all designed to get you to lose respect for it. As far as the left is concerned, there\u2019s nothing better that\u2019s going to happen and for the people that play the game to start (raspberry) on the flag. From their standpoint, this is home run. And that\u2019s what makes me sad about it.<\/p>\n
Let me ask you this, just a little pop quiz, don\u2019t know the answer here for you. If these protests ended this Sunday, if from now on every player stood, there wasn\u2019t one player that took a knee, there wasn\u2019t one player that linked arms, there wasn\u2019t one player with a raised a fist, there was nothing but respect, are you going to forget all of this, and is the game going to once again be what it once was? (interruption) So you\u2019re saying there\u2019s no way that this can be rectified? You don\u2019t know, but not this season.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/650-102017-NFL-stands.jpg\")
Well, the protests aren\u2019t going to stop. But I was just asking, if they did, if the commissioner this week had come out and said, “We have ordered our players, we\u2019ve had meetings and we have ordered our players, they work for us, they\u2019re going to stand during the Anthem,” would that have affected the way you view the league? Too late. Too late.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: This is Denny in Nemo, South Dakota. Welcome, sir.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Thank you, sir. It\u2019s an honor to talk with you. My question is concerning the NFL players that are protesting against the flag. They say that they are protesting against police brutality in their communities. My question would be on their criminal histories. You know, a person, to be able to play in the NFL, does not have to be a bastille of moral turpitude, just extremely talented as far as physicality goes. How many of these guys have been arrested by law enforcement agencies in the course of their life?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, you know what, that\u2019s actually an interesting question. You\u2019re asking if that might impact the protests that they\u2019re having, the fact that it might be personal. Look, just off the top of my head here I can name four for you who have. But it is an interesting question. But you know, they\u2019re going back and forth on why they\u2019re protesting. First it was in support of Kaepernick, which was anti-flag, anti-cops. Now they\u2019re saying, no, it\u2019s not against the flag. Now they\u2019re saying it is the cops and stuff going on in their communities. But that\u2019s an interesting question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: Thursday night football ratings down last night, preliminary overnight metered markets. The Raiders, it was a close game, apparently. I didn't see it. I didn't watch it… It sounds like it was a good game, but I didn't see it. And not as many people as used to see it saw it, because the ratings continue to plunge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":251540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n