RUSH: Matt in Columbus. I’m glad you called, sir. It’s great to have you with us. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, 21-year-old listener, first-time caller here. Just calling ’cause I read a New York Times article stating that the youth vote doesn’t remember the 1990s and doesn’t remember the early 2000s. The only memory they have is of Obama and the Democrats ruining this country, so it’s going to switch the youth vote from the Democrats to the Republicans. I was wondering if you believe this and what your thoughts on that was.

RUSH: You know, Matt, I’m glad that you called and asked. We talked about this last week and it a big mumble-jumble of a bunch of things. There was a Pew Center research study on the Millennials which is people between 18 and 29, 18 and 31 years of age. This survey was fascinating because in practically every category, by 55-45% or 57-43%, Millennials said they believed in smaller government, lower taxes. The Reagan agenda.

Without knowing that’s what they were doing that’s what they were voting for. But then later in the poll, it said that despite all of that they still planned on voting Democrat. Now, the age group you’re talking about is not Millennials. That was another story. I was kind of struck by it just like you are, and the point of the story that you saw in the New York Times — and I’m having a mental block remembering the author. Do you remember the writer’s name? Do you have it in front of you?

CALLER: Unfortunately, I do not. I’m driving at the moment.

RUSH: Well, it was fascinating, and I think the point that he made is valid, and I said so at the time. You’re gonna have some people who are able to vote in 2016 for the first time who’ll be 18 years old, and they do not have a memory of George Bush as a reprobate like the Millennials do. The Millennials’ image of Republicans is forged by the way the media treated George W. Bush.

Of course they hammered Bush and they crucified Bush. They ripped Bush to shreds, and Bush never responded to any of it. So they think Bush is the worst president ever. Bush caused the economic crisis, Bush and the war in Iraq. Bush was horrible. Bush and Katrina. Bush didn’t care about people. Democrats care about people! That’s who the Millennials are.

But the people you’re talking about, they weren’t alive or old enough to remember any of that. They are coming of voting age in a period where the country is in a massive state of decline. It’s in a state that they do not wish to inherit, and so the point of that piece was that they are likely to be very disgruntled with the current Democrat Party and with President Obama and unlikely to vote for it, meaning to Democrats in 2014 and in 2016.

It’s 2016 when they’re gonna be 18.

I think it’s a valid point.

Now, they have been treated to a sycophantic media covering for Obama, saying great things about him. But the fact of the matter is the country is a mess and there isn’t any upbeat, positive, inspiring news or events anywhere that they are exposed to (unless it’s happening in their private lives), because media that they access is not reflecting any of that. I think it’s a valid point. I think it has to be worked. I don’t think you sit by and take a chance and wait for it, but it has to be worked, meaning people who want the votes of those people are gonna have to go out and actually seek them.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Our last caller asked about a piece in the New York Times, and it’s this one, David Leonhardt, or Leonhardt, I think is how he pronounces it, and it was titled, “Why Teenagers Today May Grow Up Conservative.”

And this was the crux of the piece that I was explaining to the caller asking about this piece. “To Americans in their 20s and early 30s — the so-called millennials — many of these problems have their roots in George W. BushÂ’s presidency. But think about people who were born in 1998, the youngest eligible voters in the next presidential election. They are too young to remember much about the Bush years or the excitement surrounding the first Obama presidential campaign. They instead are coming of age with a Democratic president who often seems unable to fix the worldÂ’s problems.” And it’s getting to the point where he seems not interested in fixing any problems.

Now, there is a counter to this, and I’m not trying to be negative, I’m just trying to infuse a little realism. Yes, these teenagers who will be eligible to vote for the first time in 2016 are indeed growing up and coming of age with an inept and seemingly incompetent, disorganized, and unattached Democrat president unable to fix anything or deal with anything. However, while all of that is true, don’t forget they have been in public school classrooms where they have been told how wonderful Obama is and how the Republicans hate him and the racists hate him and the reason he’s having trouble is because nobody will work with him.

Don’t forget what they’re being taught and how they measure or balance that against what they see. And you know as well as I do, the Obama apologists are everywhere, and they’re trying to claim that the Republicans have never supported, the Republicans are always in Obama’s way.