RUSH: One of the things that happened last week, folks. As I mentioned at the top of the program, because of the death of our partner here, last week was a fog. It really was. I mean, even the issues in the news, even the things happening in the country that we discussed here… I’m just gonna speak for myself. It was just… I don’t know. Everything was in a fog. I don’t know how else to describe it.

It was more than going through the motions, but still there were mental distractions. There was one story that happened last week that perfectly illustrates what it was that diverted my attention, if you will, and it was the firing of the CEO of McDonald’s and the reasons for it. The reasons for it is the McDonald’s stock price is way down, McDonald’s profits are way down. I saw the story, and my instincts were one of the things that were dulled last week.

Simply because I was feeling a mixture of emotions that were best stated by describing ’em as sorrow. Had last week been a normal week, my instincts and my curiosity would have forced me dig deep and find out, “Okay, why are they letting go the CEOs?” In the Obama economy, people getting fired and businesses not doing well are not all that abnormal. So during the day yesterday before the Super Bowl stuff began, I started digging back into show prep and looking at some things that happened last week.

I’m now prepared to explain fully why McDonald’s is in trouble, and I have the answer, which I would have had last week had I been all here. You’ll have to forgive me for not being — and I’m talking about mentally. I was here physically. But it is clear… I’ll just tell you: The root of what is happening to McDonald’s is exactly what’s happening to the Republican Party. McDonald’s is trying to appease and please their critics. And who are McDonald’s critics? Vegans!

Militant vegans, militant vegetarians, are attempting not to get McDonald’s to serve food they want to eat because they’re never gonna go to McDonald’s. They’re trying to shut McDonald’s down just like they tried to shut Burger King down in Berkeley by making ’em sell veggie burgers out there in the fast-food lane or whatever. You start appeasing the left… I don’t care if you’re the Republican Party or if you’re McDonald’s.

If you start appeasing them, you try to make them happy… One of the things they do… They’ve perfected this. McDonald’s ended up thinking that half the country was ticked off at ’em for serving unhealthy food, and it was probably 12 people. Twelve people making themselves look like they were 300,000 people with weird Twitter algorithms and whatever other kinds of abuses they engage in, and we know this because they do it to us.

We’ve nailed them. We’ve identified the 10 people that comprise the Stop Rush. It’s 10 people, and they are able to fire out thousands and thousands and thousands of supposedly legitimate, threatening complaint tweets and e-mails, and they’re just 10 people. This has always been the case with me. I’ve always known. We’ve just been able to approve it with this bunch. It’s always been the case that people protesting certain businesses or whatever.

Businesses don’t want to deal with complaints. It’s the last thing in the world they want. They’ll do anything to shut the complaint down. If it’s a result of where their advertising, they’ll get rid of it. If they’re selling a product people don’t like, they’ll cancel the product, whatever it is. And you’ve got 10 or 12 “nattering nabobs of negativism,” a bunch of worthless people sitting in their basements with nothing better to do than harass people, making themselves look like 300,000 or a million or whatever.

The McDonald’s CEO was simply cowered into fear. First move: Take the beef tallow out of the grease that they use to make the French fries. That was the reason to go to McDonald’s for many people. Once you take the beef tallow out, french fries at Mickey D’s are no different than anywhere else. Then along comes Michelle Obama and her health kick, and then the Happy Meal. For crying out, the Happy Meal! Who are McDonald’s customers?

Kids, children, and parents who want to eat in less than 10 minutes and move on and get things done. It’s not a white-tablecloth restaurant. It’s not custom-made food! It’s not you go in and order, specify how you want it. You go in and it’s already made, sitting in the rack. You buy it, whatever. You walk out, you eat it, feed your kids. You don’t take out the French fries and put an apple slice in there, in a kid’s Happy Meal. That’s just not what McDonald’s is. But that’s what they… Well, it’s certainly not a Happy Meal.

The kids that get a Happy Meal with an apple slice in there or Tangerine Tango, whatever it is, are the same kids that are protesting this kind of crap being on their school lunches, and they’re not eating it. But this is clear as a bell what happened here. The cure for McDonald’s, just like the cure for the Republican Party and the cure for anybody, is to stand up to these people on the left and not be bullied by ’em, ’cause that’s all they are. They don’t want to work with anyone!

They’re not trying to help McDonald’s. They’re not trying to make McDonald’s a healthier restaurant. They’re trying to shut McDonald’s down. That is their objective. On the militant left — I don’t care if it’s vegans, if it’s vegetarians, if it’s environmentalist wackos, if it’s feminazis — there is no desire to work together to compromise to take their enemies or their opponents and straighten ’em out and make ’em right. They want to shut everybody down. It’s like Obama.

He wants not a level playing field. He wants to wipe out the opposition. It’s just who they are. That is part of their political existence and playbook. Eliminate the opposition. The very idea that a bunch of miserable, unhappy people in this country who are nameless and faceless don’t like McDonald’s and therefore need to embark on a crusade to shut it down? Okay, if you don’t like McDonald’s, don’t go there! But that’s not good enough. They want to shut down McDonald’s.

They don’t like McDonald’s, and McDonald’s needs to be shut down. They don’t like McDonald’s — and by God you better not go! If they find out you go, you’re gonna get harassed. And it’s not… T his is exactly what happened, and it’s what the Republican Party’s up against. Whenever you hear the Republicans say, “Yeah, well, you know, we gotta meet the Democrats halfway on amnesty.”

No, you don’t! That’s not the answer. You’re not gonna be loved and adored by people that hate you if you go halfway in on amnesty. It doesn’t work that way. They’re trying to eliminate you. They’re trying to get you to destroy yourself by supporting things your supporters are never gonna support you on. This is why it’s such a mystery. The Republican consultants should know this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’m gonna tell you one more thing about this McDonald’s thing. Some of you people, “No, no, no, Rush, they can’t follow your strategy.” I’m gonna tell you somebody who did. Scott Walker. Scott Walker running away with it so far, way too soon to mean anything, really, but in terms of early polling data right now Scott Walker is running away with every Republican presidential poll out there. You know why?

Even though he may not be right on immigration for some people, and even though he may not be right on this issue or that issue, you know why he’s governor? Because he fights back on ’em; because he stands up to ’em; because he does not capitulate; because he does not try to compromise. He stands up to ’em.

So many people on our side are just demanding and ready for anybody on our side to stand up and fight these guys. And the same lesson, I guarantee you, McDonald’s, whoever, stand up and fight the 10 or 12 people making themselves look like half a million, and you are gonna be rewarded. I know it’s hard to do. You think it’s a lot of customers upset that you’re selling French fries and beef tallow. Stand up to ’em.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So I got some e-mails during the break questioning my take on what’s wrong with McDonald’s. There’s one thing I understand and I wish there were a way to change this. I think many of you people will agree with me that there are a lot of institutions, companies, businesses, individuals, who really, really do not understand the militant left. And even if you explain it to them, they think it’s crazy. They think you’re crazy for believing it. They think it isn’t possible.

“Militant vegetarians? Come on,” is their reaction. They can’t possibly conceive of what is really actually happening to them. In McDonald’s case, for example, I would wager you, they just can’t come to grips, get their arms around whatever cliche you want to use, the fact that there are actually people who want to shut them down, other than their competitors.

And so when presented with this reality, when presented with the possibility that, hey, do you realize that maybe the people hammering you to get rid of beef tallow or to get rid of French fries, replace ’em with apple slices for eight-year-olds, you maybe think that there are people who are not trying to help you? That they’re not gonna ever come in here and buy one of your Happy Meals anyway. That their real purpose is to get you to undermine yourself?

It’s a serious problem. People do not understand the militant left. There is a militant left and there’s a docile left. Even the docile left can get militant. Occupy Wall Street, militant. The idea that there would be militant vegetarians doesn’t compute. Vegetarians, what’s their image? Rail-thin, waif-like, obsessed with themselves health freaks. They may be oddballs, but the idea that they would mobilize and try to bully other people? The idea that there are any group of people that believe in something so strongly that if you don’t do it as well they want to eliminate you. It’s just something that I don’t think enough people in our culture, particularly American businesses, understand about the militant left.

Therefore, when you present them with the truth of how the militant left operates, in this case, you know, I don’t have any proof in this instance, but because I know it happens, and has happened for 27 years on this program, I can guarantee you that the people bitching at McDonald’s and sending ’em complaints and filing protests and all this, are trying to make themselves look like they’re actually McDonald’s customers, and they’re not. They’re just a bunch of anti-capitalist militants who have figured out Twitter algorithms and any number of other procedures to make themselves look like they are hundreds of thousands and maybe millions, when they are 10 to 20 people.

They’re taking advantage of the fact that businesses can’t take the chance, getting this many complaints, why, we gotta respond to it. They’re not even really getting any complaints. They’re not getting any legitimate complaints. The complaints they need to be worried about are the people stopping shopping there, because the food doesn’t taste as good anymore. That’s the real complaint. They ignore that, and instead pay attention to the militants because they don’t understand who they are.

It’s not just McDonald’s. I don’t mean to be harping on McDonald’s. I love McDonald’s. This has been going on a long time. Way back in the early days, do you remember we sent, Snerdley, one of your cousins, Mario, we sent Mario to a McDonald’s on Seventh Avenue to buy $1,500 worth of Big Macs one lunch hour, remember that? When the leftists were attacking McDonald’s back then, we stood up for ’em. And Mario Snerdley came back with $1,500 worth of Big Macs and Quarter Pounders to our studio and passed it out.

He called us from the McDonald’s and put the manager on the phone. So we have a long history of standing up for American business, and particularly McDonald’s. I’m the one really trying to help them here. Why in the world would you eliminate the ingredient that makes your French fries the best in the world? Why would you do that? Well, because you’re trying to appease supposed health freaks who want you to believe that you’re killing people with your freaking French fries. And all you do is take that exclusive ingredient out that makes your French fries, which once used to be a signature item, no different than anybody else’s. And you expect to be rewarded by customers, “Oh, let’s go to McDonald’s, it’s healthy now.” Except that doesn’t happen. You lose your existing customer.

If this sounds familiar in terms the Republican Party, it should. McDonald’s and other businesses do not know how expanding their customer base could happen if they would fight back against these people, but it’s so difficult. Trust me on this. It’s difficult to persuade people just who their enemies really are. It’s hard for people to conceive that there are vegetarians that are militant, that are the enemy, try to put us out of business. You tell them that, and if you don’t have any supporting documents, all you have is you know the left. I know who these people are. I’ve been targeted by ’em. I know exactly how they work. I know what they’re doing. I know why they don’t like you.

Have you not been paying attention? They think cows are the biggest problem, global warming. Beef, have you not known they’re coming for you? They’ve been coming for you for 20 years. Did you not see what happened to Burger King? They demanded Burger King sell veggie burgers in Berkeley, of course, because in Berkeley they’re politically correct, they’re not gonna eat beef at all. Well, okay, so Burger King put veggie burgers on the menu. You know what? Burger King ended up closing. They lost their customer base, and the militant vegans didn’t go in and shop because that’s not what they’re about.

I’m telling you, folks, from a personal and professional standpoint it gets real frustrating, and it has been for years, trying to persuade people that are not as politically educated and informed as we wish they were to try to tell them who their enemies really are and what their enemies’ tactics are and what their enemies’ objectives are. They reject it, because they personally can’t conceive of it. It doesn’t compute. They think that accusations made in this nature say more about the accuser.

This has not happened, but just to illustrate what I just said. Let’s say that I was able to get a meeting with a generic executive at McDonald’s, don’t care, CEO, no names, don’t know anybody there. Let’s say I had a meeting and told him exactly what I just told you, he would think I’m the one that’s nuts. Not the people that are harassing him about the lack of healthy food on the menu. He wouldn’t understand, why, make all the changes, accommodate every complaint. Get rid of French fries. Get rid of beef tallow. Put apple slices in the Happy Meal, and don’t understand why they’re not setting sales records. And then furthermore don’t understand why sales are plummeting, and sales are because the CEO just got blamed for it by being fired or let go.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Dennis in Richmond, Virginia, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Wow, Rush, thanks for taking my call. Longtime listener, first-time caller and I’m just thrilled to be on with you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much. Same here.

CALLER: I’ll be quick. I was just thinking about the McDonald’s situation, and one of the most important ways to gauge your product mix, and even your core value mix, is to look at your competition and see how they act and respond to different things. You’d think that McDonald’s people would look at how Chick-fil-A responded to the left when they came out in defense of marriage. They tried to take Chick-fil-A down. They tried to boycott ’em, and in that couple of weeks following that you couldn’t even get into a Chick-fil-A because people responded because Chick-fil-A stood up to the left and defended their core values.

RUSH: Right, but there’s another factor, and that is the existing customer base of Chick-fil-A dwarfed whatever number of protesters there were out there trying to make themselves look like they were the majority of people, they were a barely visible minority. And the customer base that Chick-fil-A already had dwarfed ’em.

CALLER: You would think McDonald’s and, by extension, the Republican Party, would take a cue from those folks and see what it is to stand up to the left and defend your core values.

RUSH: I don’t know that McDonald’s even recognized they’re being attacked by the left, that’s my point. They might have fallen for the fact that, you know, we’re living in a healthier country now. Who knows, the CEO might think, “Yeah, I got a problem with my menu here. You know, I really do have to modify.” You never know what was going through his head. But, the point is, he ended up appeasing, and he created menu items that the existing customer base, that’s not why they go there. They don’t go there for a little slice of an apple in a Happy Meal for their screaming kid. It’s fast food by definition. It’s fast food. It has its purpose.

CALLER: I never ate at a Chick-fil-A until that all happened, and I’ve become a regular customer at lunch. I’m on the road quite a bit.

RUSH: You must like it then.

CALLER: I support ’em.

RUSH: You must like Chick-fil-A.

CALLER: Part of it is I can get a chicken sandwich at McDonald’s, but, you know, I go to the Chick-fil-A because I support their values.

RUSH: Yeah, but, I mean, you wouldn’t go to Chick-fil-A if you didn’t particularly like it, would you, or would you just to support them?

CALLER: No, you know what, I’m not a big fan of fast food, but when I do decide to eat fast food I do go to Chick-fil-A. It’s not because of the product. Like I said, a chicken sandwich is a chicken sandwich, but I defend their core values. If I’m gonna spend my money, I’m gonna vote with my pocketbook in that direction.

RUSH: Well, see, that’s the thing. Now, I may be a little bit different from you in this regard. A chicken sandwich is not a chicken sandwich. I cannot make a chicken sandwich at home that tastes anywhere near as good as what I get at Chick-fil-A or even Mickey D’s. Whatever they call theirs. I just can’t. Ditto burgers. I love the beef tallow in French fries, I swear I don’t know anybody that can get that stuff and use it at home. McDonald’s gave it up, the signifying factor in their French fries, their signature factor.

But at any rate, you’re right, Chick-fil-A had a customer base that came out in total support, as did Scott Walker’s voters, and as did, you know, when Occupy Wall Street showed up some place, the Tea Party showed up and opposed them. In your case, your example, why didn’t McDonald’s take the example or see it at Chick-fil-A, I have no way of knowing. I could only hazard a guess and that probably wouldn’t make much sense. But it clearly was an example to be seen and learned from. They don’t understand that these health Nazis are not about improving McDonald’s because they don’t want to eat there. They want to shut the place down.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, so I got some e-mails. “What do you mean, McDonald’s got rid of the beef tallow in their French fries?” You may not remember this because it’s all the way back in 2002 that McDonald’s did this. That would be 13 years ago, almost 13 years ago. The New York Times had the celebratory article. The New York Times was happy as they could be. The New York Times was ecstatic.

“The McDonald’s Corporation plans to issue an apology and pay $10 million to vegetarian and religious groups for using beef flavoring in its French fries. The action is part of a proposed settlement of lawsuits charging that the company misled consumers.” The lawsuit was based on an assumption, folks. From the New York Times article: “…McDonald’s said it had switched to vegetable oil to cook its fries in 1990, many people assumed that the food was suitable for vegetarian diets.”

Vegetable oil, vegetarian.

No, it doesn’t work that way. Because McDonald’s is a capitalist company, and that’s why they were targeted. They were big, they were pleasing to young people and children, and these literally insane lunatics were out trying to make people think that global warming and climate change was being caused drastically by McDonald’s! I’m sure McDonald’s thought, “Okay, let’s get rid of this. We’ve got a hassle. We don’t want people protesting. Let’s just give ’em what they want. Fine.”

The problem never goes away. You cannot ever appease the left. You can’t appease ISIS. You can’t appease Al-Qaeda. There was nobody that was gonna appease the Nazis. All these people have to be defeated, folks! McDonald’s didn’t recognize that they’re up against enemies, not health freaks. They were up against enemies, and that’s what I think a lot of people don’t want to even go near.

They don’t even want to go there, don’t want to admit that. That requires an entirely different kind of business model. You know, a corporation may say, “We don’t want to get anywhere near politics.” But if the people trying to put ’em out of business are doing so with a political agenda, I’m sorry: They’re being dragged into it by virtue of the fact the aggressor in conflicts always sets the rules.