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<\/p>\nRUSH: We\u2019re doing Open Line Friday on Wednesday today. This is my last program, live program this week. Got a best-of show tomorrow. Who did we con into coming here on Friday, Mr. Snerdley? (interruption) Jason Lewis! We conned Jason Lewis into coming up on Friday to guest host. (laughing)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Now, look, folks. I know this is… I want to be very clear here. I am not obsessed or possessed here of fatalism or negativism. I just read something that triggered me, when I read the line (paraphrased), “If this stuff ever becomes mainstream, then we\u2019re gonna have problems.” I\u2019ve been frustrated for so long that so many haven\u2019t seen what\u2019s coming, that haven\u2019t seen what was in front of our faces and has been on the way to getting us to this point. It needn\u2019t have happened, but it did, because nobody has ever stood up and told basically a bunch of kids to shut up and grow up, or to sit down and grow up.<\/p>\n
Instead, we\u2019ve been bending over backwards with political correctness. We haven\u2019t wanted to hurt anybody\u2019s feelings and so forth. We\u2019ve allowed these renegades to totally just destroy the public education system, not to mention much of higher education at the university level and so forth. We\u2019re dangerously closer to this. But it\u2019s interesting. We\u2019ve got a guy. One of the guys waiting to speak on the phone thinks that I\u2019m a little overwrought, that the Nike thing is actually one of the best things that could ever happen in terms of reelecting Trump. Now, we had somebody make this point yesterday in a different way.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: McHenry, Illinois, is where it\u2019s from. Bill, great to have you with us, sir. How are you?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Very well, Rush. I called actually to try to talk you off the ledge here, but you\u2019ve done it yourself. You walked yourself back. You know what? This is a battle, and three weeks ago we were at the Reagan library in Simi Valley, and —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Wait, wait whoa. Hang on just a second. I need to know. Did I really sound like I was on the ledge?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Little bit. Little bit. Little bit. You know what?<\/p>\n
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RUSH: Did you think I was gonna jump?<\/p>\n
CALLER: No. No. I still… I reached out and grabbed you to hold you back. The whole idea is this. You know, I\u2019m about your age, maybe a year older. I\u2019ve seen a lot. You\u2019ve seen a lot. I\u2019ve seen things worse in this nation than they are now, but the media is doing its best to keep us at each other\u2019s throats. And they\u2019re losing that battle, because they are going to self-destruct right before our eyes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I\u2019ve heard people saying that they\u2019re gonna self-destruct before our eyes for I don\u2019t know how many years — and there\u2019s CNN self-destructing, and they\u2019re still there. My whole point here… I\u2019m not on a ledge. I\u2019m desperate to get people into the here and now and stop thinking this stuff is down the road!<\/p>\n
CALLER: I understand.<\/p>\n
RUSH: We are facing it right now, not 10 years from now!<\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019m not trying to be naive about this. I\u2019m not Pollyanna about it. I\u2019ve seen things happen. You have too. The whole idea is that we\u2019re winning this battle. I think the Betsy Ross flag will be probably front and center stage on every Trump rally from here on out, and to a great degree — and I don\u2019t want to sound naive here. To a great degree, this is gonna really project this gentleman into a second term, and it\u2019s not because we\u2019re gonna sit back and watch it. We\u2019re gonna push him to a second term, with your help and with everyone else\u2019s help on the conservative side. We need to all be engaged in this; I don\u2019t care how old or young we are.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Bill, that\u2019s another good point. Let me try to express this in an additional away. I don\u2019t define… My sole judgment, definition of whether we\u2019re winning or losing is not who wins elections. Trump won the last election. Look what they did. He can win the next election. Winning the election is a good thing. I mean, don\u2019t misunderstand. There\u2019s no alternative to it. But take a look at California. California…<\/p>\n
I guarantee you, the Democrats in California are telling themselves, “As far as we\u2019re concerned where we are, we don\u2019t care who the president is \u2019cause it doesn\u2019t matter. We\u2019re gonna turn this state into what we want this country to be and to hell with everybody. There\u2019s nobody here that can stop us, and we\u2019re gonna do it, and it doesn\u2019t matter who the president is,” and they\u2019re right. So winning the next election, of course, is crucial, but it doesn\u2019t stop them. It doesn\u2019t defeat them. It\u2019s gonna take more than winning elections.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, people are moving out of California. I live in Illinois, very close to the Wisconsin line. A lot of our friends are moving north to Wisconsin to get out of this disaster known as The People\u2019s Republic of Illinois.<\/p>\n
RUSH: They haven\u2019t lost enough people to lose electoral votes yet.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, it depends. I\u2019ve been told, you know, in the census of 2020 we\u2019re gonna lose two seats in the House. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s correct or not, but the bottom line is that we are winning this battle and, you know, I just want to encourage you to keep the positive aspect of it. I know you\u2019re doing that. You\u2019ve been a big factor — you\u2019ve been a huge factor — in what\u2019s been going on for the last 30 years. I started to tell you, we were just at the Reagan library three weeks ago, and I walked out of there rejuvenated.<\/p>\n
I walked out of there thinking, you know, this president did so much with his ideas and his convictions without the support — any support — from the press, and yet now we have an opposition. We can push back, you know, thanks to you and thanks to other folks who are doing the conservative bidding. But we have to do it. All of us do, and we can\u2019t… You know, we can\u2019t withdraw from the fray. I\u2019m engaged as much as I possibly can be.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I know.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I work in academia, Rush. I\u2019m around liberals every day.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, you\u2019re facing it head on.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, but —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Look, it\u2019s another good point. Reagan was able to dominate and persevere with no assist in the media. It was the three networks, the two newspapers, and CNN — and CNN didn\u2019t get started \u2019til sometime in the eighties. But there wasn\u2019t even the internet with Reagan. He strictly overcame the mainstream media of the day without any conservative media. He had William F. Buckley\u2019s National Review magazine, and then Emmett Tyrrell came along with the American Spectator, but that was pretty much it.<\/p>\n
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But Reagan was able to do that by going over their heads and appealing directly to the American people with the power of his communication skills and his charisma. My point to you is — and your call is demonstrating the tough challenge I have given myself here, because I\u2019m not on a ledge, yet you think I am. You think I\u2019m at my wits\u2019 end pulling my hair out and about near the end of things, and I\u2019m not. My concern is that not enough people are yet fully aware of what we face.<\/p>\n
Remember what triggered me — and I\u2019ll read it to you again. It\u2019s this line: If these protests, and things like Nike “ever takes hold in mainstream American life, we\u2019re in real trouble.” As though it\u2019s not yet a problem, but if this stuff ever get into the mainstream, then we got a real problem. I think we\u2019re confronted by the problem today and have been for years. It\u2019s not any longer something that\u2019s gonna happen if we don\u2019t do something about it. It\u2019s not something that\u2019s destined to become front and center five years from now or 10 years. It\u2019s right now! We are dealing with it right now — and, yeah, I don\u2019t care how big or small it is.<\/p>\n
We know it\u2019s not the majority of the country yet. But the mainstream media makes it look every day like it is. And if that keeps up, people are just gonna make the assumption. Look, how many of you believed that Trump just decided to give up on the citizenship question in the census? Snerdley believed it. It\u2019s everywhere! (interruption) “Somebody in the DOJ said it.” Well, we\u2019ve got renegades in the DOJ who are undermining Trump every day, but we don\u2019t stop and think that might be going on here. We just accept what we see at first; then we get corrected. Human nature, you hear it, you see it, you read it, you believe it.<\/p>\n
Look, I\u2019m long here in this segment. I gotta go.<\/p>\n
Bill, thanks for the call. I appreciate it.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: He\u2019s Lisa. Lisa in Highland Beach, Florida, it\u2019s great to have you on Open Line Friday on Wednesday. Hi.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Hi, Rush, and thanks for taking my call.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Did I sound like I was on a ledge to you, Lisa?<\/p>\n
CALLER: No, Rush. You\u2019re passionate about what you\u2019re doing, and we really appreciate it.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Thank you.<\/p>\n
CALLER: And it inspires many of us to call you, so that\u2019s why I called.<\/p>\n
RUSH: If I\u2019m ever on the ledge I\u2019ll tell you I\u2019m on the ledge and I\u2019ll tell you to get the net.<\/p>\n
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CALLER: (giggles) Okay. So my point is Nike may have appeased the Colin Kaepernick base, but I believe they\u2019ve waged a War on Women by taking Betsy Ross off of their sneaker. Betsy Ross was an American original. She was rebellious, she was innovative, she convinced George Washington to change the flag. She was paid to sew flags. Later on, she even experienced expulsion from the Quaker congregation due to her eloping. So here is this innovative, rebellious feminist as a symbol of liberation, and I want to know: Where are all the feminists?<\/p>\n
RUSH: As I\u2019m going through this, you\u2019re absolutely right. She was an early feminist as they are defined today.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes! She was great.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I made the point yesterday that Nike is essentially being anti-woman here. But nobody\u2019s seeing it that way, other than educated, informed people like you and others in this audience.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Nobody sees… How many people do you think know who Betsy Ross is? I\u2019m just gonna… The people that go out and buy these sneakers, how many of them do you think even know who Betsy Ross was, much less the Betsy Ross flag?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, I\u2019ll tell you what. They may do a Google search on her now; so this is great. Maybe this will have an adverse impact on what Nike\u2019s trying to do.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, that\u2019s true. (chuckles)<\/p>\n
CALLER: That\u2019s true.<\/p>\n
RUSH: They\u2019re gonna have to do a search to find out what the hubbub\u2019s all about.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I hope they do.<\/p>\n
RUSH: But do you really think the feminazi union out there is gonna come to blows with Nike or Kaepernick because of the denigration of a popular American woman dating back to our founding? Do you think they\u2019re gonna do that?<\/p>\n
CALLER: No, I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Do you think the feminazis are gonna take the side of a feminist from the date of the founding? Ain\u2019t no way.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I agree. And here we are, an independent thinker, a role model for young women. She convinced George Washington. She was rebellious. She was a simple of liberation from the earliest days. They won\u2019t stand up for her.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah, but the problem was she was probably pro-life — and if that was the case, they don\u2019t care about anything else.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: By the way, don\u2019t discount the possibility that this whole Kaepernick, Betsy Ross flag thing and the Nike pulling the shoes… Don\u2019t rule out that this is a gigantic publicity stunt — you can\u2019t rule that out, either — just to get Nike even more notice.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is Gabe, and I\u2019m really glad you waited. Hello, sir, and welcome.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Hi, Rush. It\u2019s good to be on. So I have two friends who are blatantly and irreverently anti-American. They talk about how much they hate America, how much they hate the things America does, and it really does irk me quite a bit. All this leads to… I\u2019ve developed this opinion that I think that the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, people who raise these children — not all of them. I\u2019m not trying to generalize. But they are responsible for generating this anti-American sentiment.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Interesting. How so? You mean by not stopping it when it started in their own kids, just sitting by and letting it happen, or by actively influencing it?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, you know, you always talk about how in the eighties we started to encourage this culture of losing. America is the greatest nation on earth, we are a nation that wins constantly, and all of that leads to… When you start is to discourage winning, when you start to discourage hard work, getting ahead, then people start to resent all of the institutions that represent that kind of thought.<\/p>\n
RUSH: That\u2019s actually quite true. Winning was unfair.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Right.<\/p>\n
RUSH: It wasn\u2019t fair because somebody lost. Any time there were losers, that was an unfair circumstance; we wanted to wipe it out. This is how we got scoreless junior high school softball and football. This is how we got all kinds of youth sports endeavors where we didn\u2019t keep score and sometimes the best team was penalized 20 points before the game started, \u2019cause (impression), “It just wasn\u2019t fair to win. Winning was humiliating people! We can\u2019t have this.” It fit right in at the time with the culture that the United States, as a superpower, was a destabilizing thing.<\/p>\n
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You had Reagan back during the eighties with the Soviet Union as his number one military threat and enemy and targeting them from eventual destruction, and the Washington establishment hated that. They didn\u2019t want to get rid of the competing second superpower because they thought it was destabilizing. So United States was — you\u2019re right — portrayed as big and bad, unfairly powerful, and we needed to dial it back. And losing now and then was good \u2019cause showed the rest of the world that we were not obsessed with hurting them and dominating them, whatever the thought process was. You\u2019re absolutely right about that. Way to go! You\u2019re 19 and you picked that up. That\u2019s terrific.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Thank you. Thank you, sir.<\/p>\n
RUSH: So you talked about how these buddies of yours when they put their anti-Americanism on display, it irks you?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, one of them, one of these friends is the child of Indian immigrants, and he talks about revolution. He\u2019s a self-proclaimed Marxist, and I just think if his parents remained in India where they\u2019re from, he would have had a much worse life. He attends a college, a first-rate college. He attends Pomona University, as first rate as that can be called. But, I mean, he wouldn\u2019t have had the opportunities that he has here, and yet he\u2019s just an ingrate.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah. That illustrates another characteristic that was… I don\u2019t know that it was exclusively tied to the 1980s because I think it\u2019s timeless in many ways, but there are people who felt guilty. Your buddy was just feeling guilty, became a Marxist. He was guilty. He knew who you said was true. Had he stayed in India, he would have been a prisoner of the caste system — and wherever he was born is wherever he would have ended up. So he gets out of that, comes to the United States, prospers and so forth, and is obsessed with all the people who haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Therefore, the United States, in his mind, is the instrument of unfairness. If he had to come here to succeed, it must be that the United States has an unfair head up on everybody. So there\u2019s a lot of leftists that are overwhelmed with guilt at their prosperity or success. Even The Oprah has spoken of this. I\u2019ll never forget The Oprah one time was being asked about her journey to success and what it felt like, and she said something that was fascinating to me. She said she was never afraid of success.<\/p>\n
Now, I knew what she meant. I don\u2019t think a lot of people did. A lot of people who don\u2019t think they are successful, cannot imagine being afraid of it. They\u2019re seeking it. What in the world is there to be afraid of? But then what happens to a lot of people when they do become, in their own minds — and maybe in the minds of others. If there is a collective sense that somebody has attained success, has become successful, however it\u2019s defined, some people feel immediately guilty about it because other people haven\u2019t pulled it off.<\/p>\n
Some become scared to death that it\u2019s not gonna remain so, that they\u2019re gonna lose it — and those are people you really need to feel for. They give it away! They end up sabotaging themselves out of guilt and out of fear that the success they\u2019ve had isn\u2019t gonna last. In some cases, the wealth they\u2019ve acquired isn\u2019t gonna last. There\u2019s an increased fear that they\u2019re gonna lose it, somebody\u2019s gonna steal it, the government\u2019s gonna raise taxes and take it away from \u2019em. Oprah said, “I wasn\u2019t afraid of any aspect of success,” and that\u2019s a crucial element of ongoing success.<\/p>\n
And it doesn\u2019t take much.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve got the American left beating up on successful people. You have the American left beating up on people who want to be successful. That takes a toll after some people hear it. Some people immediately feel guilty, especially if they think they didn\u2019t really have to work hard for it. They\u2019re really susceptible to being talked down, talked out of their accomplishments and their achievements, because it\u2019s not… “You know, it really isn\u2019t genuine. You really didn\u2019t do it on your own. Besides, it\u2019s not fair because not everybody has done it.”<\/p>\n
This kind of pressure is constantly applied to people, especially in peer groups. Let me take a brief break. Again, Gabe, thank you. I\u2019m glad you\u2019re out there, man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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