{"id":265488,"date":"2018-02-22T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=265488"},"modified":"2018-02-23T16:23:59","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T21:23:59","slug":"the-midterms-where-do-we-stand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/02\/22\/the-midterms-where-do-we-stand\/","title":{"rendered":"The Midterms: Where Do We Stand?"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: So where does this leave us politically?\u00a0 People say, “Is there anything out there besides this going on?”\u00a0 There are things happening.<\/p>\n

The Mueller investigation\u2019s steaming along<\/a>, and there are a few additional developments in it, and there are still people discussing various aspects of it.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing really earth-shattering new in it, but it\u2019s trucking along out there.\u00a0 But the midterm elections is another subject that is routinely popping up here in Drive-By Media news reports, because the Drive-Bys are getting concerned that the once gigantic advantage the Democrats had in what\u2019s called the generic ballot for the 2018 midterms is gone.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Democrats had a 15-point lead last December in the generic ballot, and what that tests is party preference. “In the upcoming November elections for the House and the Senate, are you more inclined to vote Republican or Democrat?”\u00a0 The Democrats were leading in those polls by plus 15, and so the media was saying, “This is it!\u00a0 This is it!\u00a0 The Democrats can win back the House!”\u00a0 The Democrats were saying it. “This is it!\u00a0 This is it!\u00a0 We\u2019re gonna win back the House, and then we\u2019re gonna impeach Trump, and then all is gonna go back to normal.”<\/p>\n

And then the tax bill was proposed, and the media started lying to people about it, telling people that taxes were gonna go up for 80% of the American people. “Taxes are gonna go up! Trump is lying to you! The Republicans are lying.\u00a0 The only people getting tax cuts are people that don\u2019t need \u2019em: Big corporations and the rich.” So the tax bill polling showed that 75% of the American people were opposed to the tax cut.<\/p>\n

So the media said, “Wow!\u00a0 It\u2019s gettin\u2019 even better.\u00a0 The Democrats are plus 15, and we\u2019ve made sure that a majority of Americans oppose and don\u2019t like Trump\u2019s big tax cut.”\u00a0 So they\u2019re on a roll.\u00a0 They\u2019re sitting there thinking that they\u2019ve got it in the bag, and they\u2019re starting to talk like it\u2019s in the bag and they\u2019re starting to act like it\u2019s in the bag, and they\u2019re already doing news stories about what Washington\u2019s gonna be like without Trump.<\/p>\n

And then something unforeseen happened.<\/p>\n

The American people began to notice that they were, in fact, getting a big tax cut<\/a>.\u00a0 More and more Americans began to realize they had more money every pay period than they had a month ago.\u00a0 So the polling on the tax bill took a dramatic turn to the point now where it is 51% and climbing who like and approve of the tax bill.\u00a0 Now, as an aside, this is an indication of the power the media still has.\u00a0 They were able to lie to the country at large and convince 75% of likely voters that they were going to get a tax increase.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Now the economic news — the growth — is roaring. The stock market\u2019s going through some up and downs right now, but it\u2019s still in a positive trajectory.\u00a0 Consumer confidence is reaching all-time highs, and more and more polling on the midterms is showing great advantages for the Republicans, and so some of the enthusiasm for the Democrats is beginning to wane.\u00a0 And a… I wouldn\u2019t call it a panic yet. But deep concern has settled in over the Democrats and the media.\u00a0 Now Crazy Bernie is upset.\u00a0 He has learned that Mrs. Clinton was working with the Russians to undermine his campaign too.<\/p>\n

Crazy Bernie Sanders is out there demanding to know why Hillary Clinton didn\u2019t help him, didn\u2019t do more to stop the Russians when they were trying to hurt him!\u00a0 Not supposed to get that angle to this.\u00a0 The Russians are supposed to be helping Trump!\u00a0 What were the Russians doing trying to help Crazy Bernie or help Hillary? That\u2019s not the way it was supposed to go.\u00a0 The Russians were not helping Hillary.\u00a0 They were helping Trump, and yet Crazy Bernie has learned the Russians were helping Hillary.\u00a0 So as I see it, here\u2019s the Democrat platform for the midterm elections.\u00a0 The Democrats are now campaigning against tax cuts.<\/p>\n

Pelosi continues to portray these tax cuts as crumbs. She did a town hall. Snerdley, where was Pelosi when she did this town hall recently<\/a>? Was it Phoenix or was she out in California? I forget where it was, but she was doing one of her usual criticisms of the tax bill claiming it was only for the very wealthy and the well-to-do and so forth. And somebody in the audience, “How much are you worth? How much are you worth? You got a lot of money,” something like that. And Pelosi said, “It\u2019s not about me. This is not about me.”<\/p>\n

The point is that people started shooting back, firing back at all of this, because the Democrats continue to campaign against tax cuts. And, remember, these are now seen overwhelming favorably, and there\u2019s not a single Democrat that voted for them. So there\u2019s not a single Democrat who\u2019s gonna be able to claim any credit for this. As a result of tax cuts, the American people have much more disposable income, much more discretionary income.<\/p>\n

The Democrats are also now campaigning on repealing, damaging, harming the Second Amendment. The Democrats are at full speed being seen wanting to take guns away from people. The Democrats do not realize that that is a minority position in this country. They continue to believe that the things they support and believe are supported by a majority of the American people. So what are the Democrats doing? They\u2019re campaigning against tax cuts.<\/p>\n

They are campaigning against disposable income. Meaning they\u2019re having to tell people that those bigger paychecks are not real and the tax cut, you really shouldn\u2019t count on it, and it isn\u2019t gonna last very long because when the Democrats get in office they\u2019ll wipe it out. They don\u2019t have Trump colluding with Russia. They built the 2018 midterms on that premise, that they were finally by this campaign gonna prove that Trump had colluded with Russia and that alone was gonna get rid of Trump.<\/p>\n

Not only is there no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia, there is evidence of serious malfeasance from Obama\u2019s Department of Justice and Obama\u2019s FBI and collusion between Hillary Clinton and the Russians. The Democrats are going to be forced to defend all of this. They\u2019re on the record now as opposing and lying about the tax cuts, A, that they were happening, and, B, that they\u2019re beneficial.<\/p>\n

The Democrats are now gonna have to run against a growing, burgeoning economy. They\u2019re going to have to defend a position in which they tell the American people this isn\u2019t real, that they shouldn\u2019t believe it, and that disaster lurks around the corner. They have boxed themselves into a corner with a platform or agenda that is entirely negative, based on lies, and is propped up by the one thing that they think is going to launch them back into power, and that is hatred for Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

They are so lost in their hatred, poisoned by it, that it\u2019s real, and they believe a majority of Americans feel the same way. And they\u2019re wrong about that. While all of this is happening, Trump is actually accomplishing significant things. He may not be a personality people like. They might not like he\u2019s tweeting. They might not like his mannerisms or what have you, but he\u2019s appointing great people to the courts.<\/p>\n

Trump is going to have a serious proposal on dealing with these school shootings, something the Democrats have never come up with. The Democrats owned the House and Senate from 2009 to 2011, the first two years of Obama\u2019s administration. The Republicans could not have stopped anything, and the Democrats did not even propose a single piece of legislation on guns or the NRA. There are a lot of Democrats that take money from the NRA, by the way. They don\u2019t want you to know it, but they\u2019re there.<\/p>\n

Trump is already reminding people of this. He\u2019s already reminding people the Democrats had every opportunity, the Republicans could not have stopped them. It\u2019s how we ended up with Obamacare. The Republicans did not have enough votes to matter. If every Republican — well, every Republican did — voted against Obamacare in the Senate, it didn\u2019t matter, there weren\u2019t enough to stop it. The Republicans couldn\u2019t even come up with 60 votes to stop debate. They could not stop a thing.<\/p>\n

\"\"If the Democrats really wanted to do something about the NRA and guns, they had two years of unobstructed power to do it, and they didn\u2019t even propose it. And so now it\u2019s very easy to point out to people, well, now, wait just a minute here. You\u2019re telling me that the first two years of the Obama administration, and even through the whole eight, I mean, here you\u2019ve got your nirvana candidate. You\u2019ve got the guy that\u2019s gonna roll back the rising sea levels. You\u2019ve got the guy that\u2019s gonna save the earth. You got the guy that\u2019s gonna save America. The guy\u2019s gonna save the world. The guy\u2019s gonna end war. The guy\u2019s gonna make all nations love one another, and they didn\u2019t make one move on guns.<\/p>\n

And now all of a sudden, after the next school shooting, somehow this is the fault of the NRA and Marco Rubio and every other Republican walking the planet, in addition to some people in the media they want to rip into. Let them try. They do not hold a majority position on anything they\u2019re touting, including this. Despite how it might appear in the media, they do not have a majority position. They have a platform and agenda that they have to defend and promote that is entirely apocalyptic.<\/p>\n

It is doom. It is gloom. It is the end of the world. Throw climate change in, too, and what they believe about that and what they say about it, and there is not a single thing that they can be optimistic about except getting rid of Trump, which they think is something that turns their people into big, positive agitators. Yeah, it was a Pelosi town hall in Phoenix where she was heckled about her own wealth and said that that didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: We have the Nancy Pelosi sound bite. This is in Phoenix on Tuesday, just a couple of days ago. She\u2019s doing a town hall meeting at the Arizona Center for Economic Progress.<\/p>\n