RUSH: One of the things that was awaiting me in my show prep e-mail account when I got back was a Business Insider story. And the headline is: “Wall Street is Getting Tired of Funding Socially Conservative Republicans Running for President.”
There’s a picture of Ted Cruz here. And here’s how this story begins.
“For years, when it came to presidential candidates, Wall Street made huge compromises in order to support the Republican Party. The money men in New York City set aside their socially liberal views in order to support fiscally conservative candidates because that was the only way to get on the same page as the GOP base. The result has been a series of candidates Wall Street’s big donors didn’t really want.
“It seems those donors are getting tired of that outcome. Hedge fund billionaire Leon Cooperman recently vented his frustration with this arrangement on an episode of Wall Street Week. ‘I tend to be more Republican in my views, but socially very liberal. I’m going to have trouble with any Republican that does not disavow a fixation with social issues,’ he said.”
This irritates me to no end. I’ve had, as I’ve reported to you on several occasions here — many of my Republican friends over the course of the years have also said the same thing to me as though somehow I’m the leader of the social movement aspect of the Republican Party. They come up to me and they practically wag their fingers at me. “We just can’t win. We got get rid of the social issues. And, if you don’t lead the pack on this, we’re never gonna win anything. The social issues are dragging us down.”
I said, “What social issues?”
“Well, you know, abortion.” Okay, fine, and I saw this headline, finally something clicked. It is not Republicans who push social issues. It is not conservatives who push social issues. And I realize now that many are saying, “Wait just a second, Rush.” Ladies and gentlemen, would you agree with the statement that our culture is rotting? Would you partially agree? Would you somewhat agree? Would you totally agree? Would you totally disagree? My thought is that most people on our side would agree to one extent or another that our culture is rotting. Now, who is responsible for this? Who actually is injecting social issues into politics and has been from practically the beginning?
If you think it’s the Republicans and if you think it’s the Christian right — the Moral Majority or what have you — you are wrong. They are defenders. As is the usual case, it is the left that establishes the agenda on practically everything because they’re relentless. What is the demand that everybody agree to and accept and support and agree with and love gay marriage? Is that not a social issue? And now what is it and who is it that is demanding that we open up and embrace transgenderism? Is it not the left demanding all of this?
Who is it that has watered down all of these social institutions that are rooted in morality? Not us. It’s the left. So when conservatives respond in a way that is actually an attempt to defend tradition in institutions, particularly social and moral institutions, that’s exactly what it is. It’s a defense. It’s a reaction to what we see as an aggressive attempt on the part of the left to transform our culture into something that it hasn’t been. That’s how we get to the idea that if what used to be weird or kooky is now the new norm, then of course who are the new kooks and weirdos?
Which I think is part of the agenda is to have Republicans and conservatives thought of as uncool, unhip kooks and weirdos, to the point now that when Caitlyn Jenner or transgenderism itself comes up in the context of a political debate, question, interview, or what have you, the odds are every Republican you see is gonna punt the issue by saying, “Oh, we support human beings and we love human beings, and if a human being thinks he’s a woman is a man, then fine with me.”
That, to me, is an attempt on the part of any Republican that does that to appear to be hip, to appear to be cool, to avoid being thought of as the new weirdo. But in the process the culture rots because nobody’s willing to stand up and stop or oppose. It’s like, folks, I saw one thing. I don’t remember how I saw it, but it made me abandon my sabbatical and head to the Web to try to find this. This notion…
I thought it was a joke at first, and it didn’t take me long to realize that it wasn’t a joke, that the term “you guys” represents sexism now, that “you guys” is discriminatory. “You guys” (as inclusive of all of humanity) is a slight to women, and women who call each other, “Hey, you guys,” they are betraying the sisterhood. This is getting absurd. It has been getting absurd. It has been absurd, getting absurd for years now, and nobody stands up and says, “Stop!”
Nobody stands up and says, “This is stupid. This is silly. Stop it!” Instead, everybody reacts in a way… I say, “everybody.” The vast majority of people react in ways that they will not be tagged as the new weirdos or kooks, and in that way the left wins in their effort to transform the culture, which is rooted in a desire that actually destroys the culture and reestablishes a new one that is not gonna do anybody any good in the long term.
I believe one of the fundamental problems we have in our country is not just political. It’s hard to separate the two, but it’s the cultural rot that we are all witnessing. You who have kids growing up into this? No matter what you’re willing to say publicly, I know you’re scared to death of what your kids are growing into. This Rachel Dolezal! How does this happen, for example? How does apparently a perfectly normal appearing white woman end up thinking she’s black?
Well, it’s clear that this had to start somewhere in the education system. It has its roots there, I’m doubtless about this, and also it has its roots in victimology. This country and the left has made it profitable to become a victim of something — primarily a victim of an evil, faceless majority. If you become a member of a minority are automatically a victim, and the victim gets goodies. The victim gets special consideration, gets special treatment.
The victim is pardoned.
The victim gets excused for all kinds of aberrant, weirdo behavior and instead is the recipient of sympathy. So it’s clear that this is a purposeful and studied move that this woman made, and I think she signals it by saying, “No, no, no. Do not tell me that I’m not African-American. I don’t identify as African-American. I identify as black.” ‘Cause she knows she can’t pull off African-American. The blood just isn’t there.
Have you noticed the same people who are demanding of us that we not only embrace but that we love and support Caitlyn Jenner, are the same people telling Rachel Dolezal to go to hell? The very same people. Why? If some guy wants to identify as a woman then we’re supposed to say, “Yeah, man — or dude — right on!” But a woman comes along and says, “Yeah, well, I identify as black,” and it’s, “No, you don’t!” and, “No, you can’t because you … you … you can’t!”
Why not? I mean, once you change the definition and once you open the door, what gives you the right to say “no” to one woman’s self-identification crusade and support another guy’s self-identification crusade to become a woman but still has a penis? As the famous blogger Ace of Spades asked (summarized): “All of you leftists who are supporting Caitlyn Jenner’s right to become a woman, would you go out and have sex with her? Would all you guys go out and have sex with her?”
The answer is, “Of course not,” because you’re having sex with another guy.
So is she a woman or not?
(interruption) “No, not there’s anything wrong, of course.” That’s the line. “Not that there’s anything wrong, of course. Not that there’s anything wrong!” Oh, no, there’s nothing wrong with anything, you see? The only thing wrong is the damn Republicans and they won’t give up the social issues. I’m telling you: The Republicans/conservatives willing to talk about social issues are the last line of defense in the cultural rot that’s happening all around us right in front of our eyes. I get so sick and tired of the Republicans being accused of pushing social issues. I’ve had it happen to me; I’ve told you the stories.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Oh, yeah, exactly. I know exactly what’s going to happen here, just after this first half hour. I know exactly what’s gonna happen. What’s gonna happen is this: Somewhere on cable news or on some blog, the comments that I have made in my opening half hour today are going to be positioned as extreme and insensitive and cold-hearted and all of that. Not compassionate. Showing a lack of understanding. Because I dared break from the orthodoxy of political correctness and conventional wisdom.
Orwell wrote about this. The consensus opinion can be something that’s literally insane. A consensus opinion can be… Make it up, whatever you want to have a consensus opinion about. Somebody comes along and via his own eyes looks at it and says, “This is absurd! That’s not real. Here’s reality.” The one person courageous and gutsy enough to point out what is real, will be branded insane by all the people who have adopted the conventional wisdom on whatever it is we’re talking about.
This is how mass delusion takes place. This a fascinating piece I found on this at The Federalist, which I’m gonna find a way to get into before the program ends today because it explains this. If you’re like me, you’ve been wondering, “How in the hell in the last five to ten years has everything been turned upside down?” In terms of morality, culture, normal, acceptability, and so forth, it’s all upside down, in ten years. “Was it brewing out there for 50 and then it exploded?”
Well, this article that I came across attempts to explain it, and one example I just gave you is a manifestation of how it works. A consensus can form on anything, and if the thing that consensus agrees with is literally wrong and insane, doesn’t matter. If the consensus — like the Drive-By Media and the entertainment media and whoever — all agree than that’s okay and fine and normal, when it isn’t, one or two people come along, “No, no, no. That’s not good,” they are the oddballs, kooks, and weirdos.
That’s exactly what is happening. This is people who do see reality and who are not swept up in this conventional wisdom — this delusional conventional wisdom — it’s how they are marginalized and portrayed as the oddballs and kooks. Orwell wrote about it. It’s a studied, practiced technique of statists, or party people, people who want to dominate and control everybody else. The crazy thing about it is that all of these people that are part of the conventional wisdom don’t have any idea what’s happening to them.
They have no idea that they’re actually being controlled and taken over. Their freedom is gone. What they don’t realize is they’d better conform or they’re not free. Freedom is defined as agreeing with what everybody demands you agree with, and if you don’t, that’s when you’re in trouble. And that’s where we are. This is exactly where we are in our culture right now.