RUSH: Look here. New Republic. Now, the New Republic is under new management. The New Republic is owned by some Silicon Valley tech gazillionaire. My memory is sketchy on this. I don’t remember the guy’s name. I think he was one of Zuckerberg’s founding partners in Facebook. He took his money, they either kicked him out or he left on his own. He’s got a gay boyfriend that ran for Congress, lost, spent more money — it was upstate New York. But, anyway, that’s who runs the New Republic. And they got rid of everybody. The old guard is all gone.
The New Republic has been remade, reimaged, rebuilt, reconstituted, and it is being run now by 20-something Millennials. And there are a couple of writers that are veterans and a little older. But they have come out against Hillary. “Hillary Clinton Is Not Ready for Prime Time.” The last time the New Republic was anti-Hillary would have been when Marty Peretz owned it and ran it back in the nineties, and even then it was sporadic.
Now, the New Republic is a nonentity even more, but it’s important for one reason: It’s run by Millennials. And keep in mind, the Millennials do not know the Clintons the way you and I do. They were not either old enough, not born, not paying attention in the nineties during all of that stuff that happened back there, and now they’re hearing about a bunch of things for the first time.
They’re hearing about Hillary’s husband flying all over the world with a pedophile playboy on the pedophile playboy’s 727 jet. And the playboy pedophile had a private island in the Caribbean where the playboy pedophile and Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew were all running around with underage women. Now, nothing has linked Clinton to it, but he knows the guy. They were good buddies.
These Millennials are just hearing this stuff. They have not grown up with all of this stuff swept under the rug. They have not grown up with Clinton idolatry. They’ve not grown up and become conditioned and experienced with the Clintons getting away with everything because they’re the star of the Democrat Party. They have an entirely different view simply because of their age. And this story in the New Republic, again, as far as it being a powerful journal of opinion, it isn’t anymore. It may well rebound.
Chris Hughes is the guy’s name, and he cofounded Facebook with Zuckerberg. He’s 31 years old. He’s married to Sean Eldridge, political director of the group Freedom to Marry. It’s an entirely different generation looking and judging. Do you think these people see Hillary Clinton the same way people who were active in the nineties and adults in the nineties saw them? It’s an entirely different thing. There’s no way this woman’s a slam dunk. There’s generational differences now. And I think you’ve got younger people all over the Drive-By Media as well.
I think one of the things that generations — like I’m a Baby Boomer, and I’m 64. And the point about this is, is you have to be — let me speak about me. I have to be aware daily that the world is a different place to a lot of people than it is to me, because they’re younger. They’ve not lived through what I’ve lived through. They’ve not seen what I’ve seen. They’ve read about it, maybe, they’ve heard about it, but they weren’t nearly as impacted by it, and, as such, it has a whole different meaning to them.
When you’re between 25 and 54 you are in the midst of everything. You’re right in the middle of it, because that’s the age, for the most part, of people making things happen. But as you get older and you get out of that demographic and realize that that demographic is still where the power is — exceptions, of course — but you realize that people now moving into that 25-54 demographic have an entirely different worldview simply and only because of their age.
Now, I know history curricula, textbooks have gone to great lengths to sing the praises of the Clintons and so forth, but the Clintons are not the rock stars to the 25-54 group that they were to Baby Boomers. So all these scandals are starting to erupt and these young Millennials, they know this e-mail stuff. They know what this means. They know Hillary using a private server versus a government server, they know the differences, they know why anybody would do it, and they’re doing it to hide. They’re doing it to keep secrets.
Hillary did it. There’s no question she did this to keep secrets. She did this so that she would not be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. She did this so that people would not have automatic access to what she was doing, even as secretary of state. The Clintons do everything in secret. It doesn’t sit well with this current crop of young people growing up.
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RUSH: (I’m gonna try to verbalize this.) One of the things I do on this program, as I’ve mention to you before…
One of the fundamental requirements I have always believed for a program like this to work is empathy, as distinguished from sympathy. Must have empathy with the audience. Have to be able to hear things the way you do and react to them the way you do, or understand how you’re going to. You know I have always said throughout my entire life that I couldn’t wait to be older because when I was 15 I wanted to be 20.
When I was 20 I wanted to be 25; 25, wanted to be 30; 30, wanted to be 40. It always has proven out. Getting older has always been better for me. Everything about life got better as I got older. I became freer. I became more independent. I became more successful. Everything that I wanted and envisioned about getting older happened. Consequently, I never feared it, never feared getting older. So now people ask me, “Rush, you’re over 60 now. Do you wish you were 70?”
I said, “No, it doesn’t manifest itself that way now.” It’s not that I’m 64 and can’t wait ’til I’m 70. What would that mean? The way age matters to me now, particularly as it relates to this job and this program, is like I said. I don’t know if this is the right way to say it, but the 25-54 demographic is the target demographic for advertisers for a reason. That is what they call “the power demographic.”
The 25-54 demographic is where a lot of things in our culture are happening. People are on their success tracks. People are becoming freer and becoming more independent, and they are becoming more successful, and they’re making more decisions with more power behind them. They’re becoming less dependent. They’re arguably becoming (there are exceptions to this, of course) more self-reliant. They are attaining, in their careers, positions of greater influence and power and all of those kinds of related things.
When you are in that demographic, it is safe to assume that you’re watching everything — say in the news or if you’re watching popular television show or what have you — that everybody else is, too. It’s almost like that when you’re in the 25-54 demographic. Now, those are not hard boundaries. It might be 29 to 63. But basically in that window is where it can be said that everybody who’s doing anything is doing it. Now, I understand that there are flaws here because there are a lot of successful, powerful people, 65, 70, still working.
I understand that, and I’m not relegating them to irrelevance here. That’s not my point. My point is that when you become older, when you outgrow that demographic, you are… I’ll talking about myself. Now that I’ve outgrown the 25-54 demographic, I’m no longer confident that the way I see the world is the way everybody else does. I’ve gotten old enough now that there are younger people, generationally younger, who have an entirely different view, an entirely different experience.
It’s no fault of anybody. It’s simply a factor that they haven’t lived as long as I have. They haven’t seen the things that I have. They haven’t experienced the things that I have. And they don’t care. When you’re in that demographic, you know you’re the center of things. You know that you’re on the focus. You know that you’re on the center of attention. And this is why, if you must know, I spend so much time studying the tech blogs.
They are all young people, and I want to do everything I can to learn about them, ’cause I’m ultimately gonna try to get to ’em and persuade ’em. I mean, they’re young. Their minds are skulls full of mush. They don’t think so, they don’t understand it, but they are. Mine was when I was their age. Not as much as theirs is ’cause I was way advanced. But nevertheless, I still have to find a way to get to ’em. Hillary Clinton’s story is a great example of what I’m talking about.
The Drive-By Media is missing this entirely. They’re still reporting on Hillary as though everybody loves Hillary, as though everybody knows Hillary as everybody knew her in the nineties. They’re still covering Hillary Clinton and her presidential prospects the way everybody looked at Hillary and her presidential prospects in the nineties as given, as automatic, as unchallengeable, as the Clintons are near royalty. That is not how people under 35 look at them. They don’t see the Clintons that way at all.
The Drive-By Media is missing this, because they have arrogance and hubris and are not engaging in the effort, I think, to understand how people born, say, in 1983 or 1985 see politics today. Do you understand…? I’ll give you this as a little observation. We could do this all day long. The Millennials that we are talking about, the young people… This is the 25-to-35, 40 age-group. Do you realize none of them, not a one of them, have ever had a chance to vote for a conservative?
Do you wonder why conservatism to them is this obscure, way-out-there kind of odd thing? They’ve never been exposed to it, because the Republican Party has not been ideological since Reagan. They were either pups, infants, babies — too young or not even born — during Reagan, and that was the last conservative president, the last chance Republicans actually had to vote for a genuine conservative. They have grown up with completely other experiences, influences, attitudes.
I think it’s crucial, rather than be critical of who they are and what they think, understand why that is, because it all makes sense. It’s why I have continually harped, in this example, anyway. It’s why I have just spent a lot of time trying to persuade people that ideology is crucial in persuading people, because these people that we’re talking about — young people, the Millennials — don’t know it, but they have grown up immersed in the left-wing ideology.
To them, it’s just normal day ebb and flow life, and Republicans and conservatives over here are really from Mars. They haven’t had presented to them an opposing ideology. They’ve got a bunch of old guys in suits and ties in Congress that want to stop what the Democrats are doing. But there’s no ideological opposition to what they’ve grown up experiencing. I think it’s missing a huge reason for why things are the way they are.
If the Republican Party is not going to be conservative, if it’s not gonna present an ideological characterization of itself, if it’s gonna hide that and try to deny that — which it’s doing — then there’s nothing that’s ever gonna stop liberalism. The Republican Party is demonstrating that they have no desire to. I mean, the current Republican leadership. That is why I continually harp on this notion, this necessity that people be trained to spot the ideology of politicians or other political leaders.
If that doesn’t happen, then the truth that you and I know about liberalism is gonna have a much tougher time being taught to people who have never even looked at life that way. Now, the left knows this. That’s why they don’t call themselves ideologues. Liberalism is not an ideological point of view the way they talk about. It’s just natural. It’s just what “is,” and anything else may as well be from Mars. Anything else is odd, crude, extreme, discriminatory, or what have you.
That’s why ideology is so important.
So when I look at this pile-on of Hillary Clinton, I see this wouldn’t happen 15 years ago. This would not happen ten years ago. The Clintons are being… Hillary is being treated here entirely differently than she is even used to. This is new ground for everybody. Now, there could be other reasons for this, and I’m sure that there are. I still believe that because of the evolutionary metamorphosis that’s occurred here, I don’t think Hillary Clinton is the dominant shoo-in preference of everybody on the left these days.
I just don’t believe it. I think this indicates it. But the aging Drive-Bys who have no ability to think that anybody see the world any differently than they do are not gonna understand why Hillary is not the dominant shoo-in, because they still think everybody sees the Clintons way they see them, which is the way everybody saw them back in the nineties. It just isn’t the case.
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Now, folks, what I mean on the Millennials and this ideology business, it’s very simple. I think that young people today have no more idea that they have grown up surrounded by liberalism than a fish knows it’s in water. Have you ever asked yourself, does a fish know it’s in water? It can’t know. It doesn’t know what water is. A fish doesn’t have any self-awareness.
I saw a story — this is gonna aggravate you — I saw a story in Psychology Today earlier this week that your dog has no memory. That your dog, my dog, anybody’s dog, does not remember what happened yesterday. And in many cases, may not remember what happened 20 minutes ago.
Now, I know what you’re doing out there. “My dog does. Every time I do X, my dog knows it’s gonna get fed.” That’s not memory, these people claim; that is conditioning. And the reason they say a dog or a cat doesn’t have any memory is they have no sense of self. And if you have no self-awareness, no self-consciousness, you can’t possibly have a memory.
So a fish has no idea it’s in water, and a young person, I don’t think, has any idea it’s growing up under liberalism, that there’s something else out there, a competing ideology. Now, 25-54 demographic, somebody says, “Hey, wait a minute, Rush, you’re wrong. The 25-54 demographic is simply that because advertisers know that’s where people who have the money to spend are.” That is actually a misnomer, and I will explain in due course.
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RUSH: Okay, just to wrap this up, the 25-54 demographic, it’s always been assumed that advertisers target that group because that’s where the money is, that’s where the disposable income is. In the past that has been true, but it’s never been the sole reason why that demographic is the target.
Never forget, folks, over the years I have informed you that if you want to find out what people who must connect with customers to separate them from their money, if you want to find out where the culture is and where it’s heading, pay attention to the advertising. Good advertising, in order to separate people from their money, must connect to them. And advertising is one of the greatest windows to the culture that you can see.
Now, some advertisers miss it, they fail to make the connection and they go by the wayside. Advertising is not the only measure, but it’s a good one. Well, in this case the 25-54 demographic, the real money in any culture is held by it’s elderly. The real money, the people who’ve worked the longest, the people who’ve earned the most, the reason they are not targeted is their minds are made up. That’s why advertisers go for the young. Their minds aren’t made up yet.
Most beer commercials are aimed at people who can’t even legally drink the stuff yet. Most beer advertising is aimed at 18-year-olds, 20-year-olds or what have you. Beer advertising presents a certain picture that people of that age-group would like to see themselves in. Their minds are not made up yet. Somebody 60-plus has already made up their mind. They’ve got their favorite beer and advertising isn’t going to change their mind. That’s why a certain kind of advertising is not targeted.
I’ve always believed that the demographic 55-plus is a gold mine waiting to be tapped simply because they have such a huge amount of disposable income, simply because they’ve lived longer, they’ve worked longer, they’ve earned more. Now, this is not factoring in retirement or any of that. But it’s not just that 25-54 has been where the disposable income is, and even now you would have to say 25-54 is not where it is. Millennials are living at home. Half of them are living at home. Their jobs are being downsized to 30 hours a week. So the old canard that disposable income is 25-54, maybe 49-55, 39-55, maybe, but not 29 to 40. That’s not the case anymore.
From TheHill.com: “Clinton Critics Tie Email to Benghazi.” This is one of the target areas everybody in the media is looking at here. “The revelation that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a private email account for government business breathed new life Tuesday into a congressional investigation of Benghazi. … Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said the development will likely require Clinton to make several appearances before the panel, possibly stretching the investigation into 2016.”
I’m here to tell you, I just want to remind you that if this were ten years ago, this stuff wouldn’t have mattered. It would have gotten swept under the rug, like any Clinton scandal was. But the very people pursuing it now, the Drive-By Media and certain elements of the Democrat Party, the people pursuing Mrs. Clinton now are her former defenders. When Hillary Clinton went on the Today show in the nineties and said that it was a vast right-wing conspiracy that made her husband have the affair with Monica Lewinsky, the Drive-By Media was right there, lapping it up, eating it up, and running with it.
The whole Lewinsky affair became a vast right-wing conspiracy out to get her husband. The same people who did that are now the same people who have Hillary in their crosshairs. Something is happening out there.
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RUSH: Here’s John in Dallas. We head back to the phones. I’m really glad you waited, John. Thank you for your patience. Hello.
CALLER: Mr. Rush, it’s an honor to speak to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: I remember listening to The Way Things Ought to Be and See, I Told You So on long family road trips as a kid.
RUSH: Man, you were a kid. That’s like 22 years ago. So you were 10 years old when that was happening.
CALLER: That’s about right.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: That’s why I called you. In fact, I agree with your interpretation of the Millennial perspective on Hillary, which is why I called.
RUSH: Oh, cool. What is it?
CALLER: You know, in my thinking — at least in my experience — Millennials have been taught three things, right? One: CNN is impartial. Two: The Republicans are the next Nazis. Lastly, that the Clintons are heroes in spite of infidelity or Epstein or Whitewater or any of that stuff. But that being said, I feel like there’s also an obsession in my generation with newness, and the Clintons are not new. They’re not new news, and they’re not new people.
RUSH: No, and I think there’s somebody much more attractive than Mrs. Clinton, and I’m speaking politically (because that would be obvious if I weren’t speaking politically) and that’s Elizabeth Warren. The liberals of the Democrat Party think Elizabeth Warren’s their answer. Not Hillary. She’s old news, and who is she besides Bill Clinton’s wife? Nobody would even know who she is if it weren’t for her husband, and that’s probably one of the biggest insults you could aim at her. So you guys are actually taught that the Clintons are heroes?
CALLER: I can’t… From my personal experience, that’s what I hear from a lot of my friends. The Clintons are heroes, the deficit was low during his presidency, he did a lot to help the African-American vote and he helped a lot with housing projects and so forth. That’s the feeling that I get.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: The Clintons are the heroes of the Democratic Party, much the way we think of he Reagan as the hero of the Republican Party.
RUSH: Hmm. Interesting. If that’s true, under the influence elements that would make them heroes is how successful Bill Clinton was in beating back those Nazi-like Republicans that you were talking about.
CALLER: (laughing) Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
RUSH: Well, I think it would be part and parcel of it. Well, that is fascinating. They weren’t around when the Clintons were running things, but you’re right. The history textbooks for high school and so forth we all know have portrayed Bill Clinton and Hillary as hero-like, and they have overcome great odds with the deck stacked against ’em. Anyway, I appreciate the perspective very much, John.