RUSH: I think one thing that’s become obvious during the campaign is that the news media try to pick our candidates long before even the first primary vote is cast. And that’s just not new. I say it’s becoming more and more obvious here. And you can watch it here in the aftermath of all of these debates. The donor class sometimes is in harmony with the media; sometimes they’re not. This case is more harmony than not. But the way the media does it is with their coverage, fawning or negative pieces.

And of course, they do it via their polls, never forget that, which are often the result of their fawning or negative coverage so that the coverage feeds the poll result that they want to get. And we are witnessing this in the current GOP race. The coverage of Carly Fiorina being the latest example. It is more than obvious that the Drive-Bys and the rest of the ruling class inside the Beltway have decided based on Wednesday night that Carly Fiorina now represents the best chance to knock off Trump.

That is the overarching objective. And they’d hoped Jeb was gonna be able to do it. They wanted Jeb, the donors did; then they tried the news media to do it. That hasn’t quite worked. So now it’s Fiorina. It’s not that they love Carly. Do not misunderstand this. See, this is the mistake that everybody makes on our side. One of the tricks here is when the media goes gushing about somebody, a lot of unsuspecting Republican say:

“Wait, wait! The media likes one of ours? Maybe she can actually win! Oh, my God!” Because so many on our side still — despite their best instincts, still — crave media approval. Remember that dinner party of my own that I walked out of, because I had some guests there telling me they were ready to throw Palin overboard because the media hated her? Same thing here in reverse. Now we’ve got people saying, “Wow, Carly! Hey, the media loves her! Hey, man, she may be the ticket,” and that’s how it goes.

The media is very much aware of this.

Not that they love her, but she is attractive to them in a couple of areas such as immigration.

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RUSH: So it is clear here that the objective is to knock off Trump, and Carly Fiorina is the flavor of the week for this because of her sterling performance in the debate on Wednesday night. The Washington Post… Sorry. This is The Politico: “New Data Shows Trump Fever Breaking.” Politico is doing its best here to say that Trump is over. My guess is they’ve had this story in the hopper for weeks as an evergreen — you know, with blanks to fill in the details based on time — which has been in the drawer, like health care reform.

The bill was in the drawer for 20 years with a bunch of blanks waiting to be filled in for current day. Now, there have been stories long before today that we have reached peak Trump. There have been countless stories. “That’s it for Trump! He stepped in it here. You can’t survive insulting a war hero like John McCain. You simply can’t survive! You can’t call Mexican immigrants a bunch of rapists and murderers and purse snatchers and muggers.” So we’ve been here and done that.

Just like with all of those previous we’ve-reached-peak-Trump stories, it hasn’t seemed to turn out that way. Here’s the way the story reads: “Donald Trump looked tired after a grueling Republican debate. He might not be alone. After a summer of spectacle and saturation coverage, signs are accumulating that, for the public and the media, the onset of Trump fatigue has begun. Mentions of Trump on both television and radio have been trending downward for a month from their post-Fox debate high.

“His share of Twitter conversation relative to other candidates has declined in recent weeks, and his odds in political prediction markets have dipped in the hours since Wednesday nightÂ’s debate. Radio and television conversation about Trump peaked on Aug. 7, the day after the first Republican debate, with close to 11,000 mentions of his name on each medium that day, according to data through Monday provided by media monitoring firm Critical Mention. …

“That was Trump’s most dominant day of the campaign on Twitter, when 80 percent of conversations about Republican presidential candidates were about him, according to data through mid-Thursday provided by the analytics firm Echelon Insights.” So they have two analytics firms here, and so Trump peaked the day of the debate. Who knew? And he’s been trending downward, but now it’s gotten to the point where people may be experiencing Trump fatigue, and they may be experiencing Trump boredom.

Early reactions to the debate, in which Carly Fiorina emerged a winner and Trump struggled to break through, also suggest the race may be moving beyond the Trump-show phase.” So you see here, it’s all over for Trump. Remember how it was over for the Beatles in 1964 after Beatlemania subsided? (interruption) What? You didn’t know what ’til now, that…? (interruption) The same year we discovered ’em, they were saying the Beatles were over.

Beatlemania was over in 1964. After the first round of concerts, that was it. Oh, I don’t… I’ll never forget that. The Beatles were washed up once Beatlemania subsided in ’64. Yeah, ’64 was the year they were discovered here, and later that year they were finished, and many parents across America were happy. They were going, “Whew! Glad we took care of that.” Except they hadn’t. Beatlemania was nowhere near over. It still isn’t, if you look at record sales and this kind of thing.

Well, I mean, the Bay City Rollers. Mary Hopkin didn’t quite take off, either, you know, on the Apple label. Beatlemania was not over in ’64 is the point, but nobody maintains a peak like that. So we have some wishful thinking. I’m just passing it along to you Trump people out there so that you know what’s being said. They’re desperate for this to be real. And Carly Fiorina is headlining the decline, if you will, in the phenomenon of Trump.

Now, from the Washington Post: “The Republican Brand Hits a New Low. Is Trump the Cause or the Symptom?” (laughing) “The Pew Research Center regularly surveys Americans on their views of the two major political parties. Since January, those with a favorable opinion of the Republican party have dropped from 41 to 32 percent of the total. Opinions of the Democratic party are mixed, with a net plus-1 favorability. For the GOP, it’s far worse, with a net -18.”

So the Republican brand in deep, deep trouble. It’s hit a new low! And that couldn’t possibly be Mitch McConnell. No, no. It couldn’t possibly be Boehner or the Republican leadership in Washington. No way! Whatever problem the Republican brand has, it has got to be due to Donald Trump!

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RUSH: We stick with the phones. This is Rob in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. My comment is, the Trump phenomenon is bigger than any individual. The Trump phenomenon is about patriotism. This is a patriotic movement, and that’s what scares the media, that’s what scares the left, and that’s what scares the establishment Republicans, is patriotism.

RUSH: I don’t think that’s incorrect. I think the explanation for the Trump phenomenon is multifaceted. Patriotism is clearly a part of it. But the one thing that may — I may be being too literal here, but it’s only because I have a desire that people genuinely understand. When you say the media is afraid of patriotism, I know what you mean, but I don’t think it may be specifically that, although I don’t think anybody in the media are running around, “You know, we gotta stop this Trump guy, he’s sounding too patriotic. He’s too pro-American.”

What it more likely is is Trump represents a threat to everybody in the establishment and to the political order of things. Folks, it’s a club. We talk about the establishment and we give it names, the inside-the-Beltway elites, the ruling class or the establishment or whatever, but it’s a club, and admission into this club has nothing to do with merit. There’s no meritocracy involved in this.

It’s like any other club of elites. There are other determining factors. And Trump is never gonna be in it because he does not in any way subscribe to the way of life these people themselves live. It starts with where you go to school and how you’re educated and where you work and for whom you work. And of course, what your attitudes are. None of this is ever spelled out. There are no bylaws in this club. There’s no manual that says this is what you have to be.

The way you know who gets in and who doesn’t is how they react to people they don’t want in the club. And you see it manifested as Trump. See, this is the thing, too. They know, they’re fully aware, everybody in this club knows that in terms of numbers, they’re a minority. They are the ruling class. They are the powerful elite, but they know that they are a really small number of people.

And so how do they survive? How does a small number of people like this survive, being so outnumbered? The way you do that is very simple: You get control of government and you simply legislate away liberty. You legislate away freedom. Little by little. And you do it under the guise of making everybody safe, or you do it under the guise of protecting the planet, or you do it under the guise of protecting the environment or protecting children or what have you.

But little by little you limit the liberty and freedom of people you know who obey the law, for the most part. And that’s how you ensure that even though you are massively outnumbered, you are never, ever anything other than but the boss and in power. And a lot of people want in this club. You can see who they don’t want in it by how they treat people who try to get in it one way or the other.