RUSH: Here is Tim in Washington, DC. Welcome, sir. Great to have you.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, great honor.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: So I’ve been… You know, I’m very politically vocal, and when I used to debate or engage with a liberal, I would always point out how their points of view were very similar to socialism. And before they would deny it, you know, they would fight. “Oh, no, no, no, no! I’m not a socialist.” Well, now it seems like they embrace it. I mean, they have a candidate running who’s openly socialist, and I’m just talking a period of, you know, 15 years. So I guess my question to you is: Have things really changed that much in that short of a time period?
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: If they have, where is it going?
RUSH: On their side, yeah. No question it has. They are all-in now. It used to be that calling them a liberal enraged them.
CALLER: Yeah, I remember.
RUSH: Yeah, but —
CALLER: I’m talking at the present or 15 years ago, they would fight, “Oh, no, that’s not socialism!”
RUSH: That’s right. Ten years ago, 15, you’d call ’em liberal and they would get upset. If you call ’em socialist, they would become enraged. Today they’re happy to be socialists.
CALLER: If it’s changed that much in that little time, then where is it going?
RUSH: I don’t think it’s been that long. Where was all this during the eight years of Bush? I think this change has been more overnight than just the last 10, 15 years. Now, it may be that these people have always been there near the surface. Well, they have been. They’ve always been who they are. We’re talking about comfort with labels. I think the election of Obama has inspired and encouraged a bunch of ’em just be honest about who they are. Not, interestingly, elected Democrats.
Elected Democrats will never permit you to call ’em socialists. But the rank-and-file, they actually do. The transformation is remarkable, as you point out. They believe that it is a positive moniker because of what they think people believe it means, and I think it ties in to how successfully they have co-opted the public education system for years and years and years. Now, I don’t think these people are anywhere near a majority of the country. That’s the great irony here. They are not a majority of the country. I’m convinced of that.
We have not reached tipping point. Now, we’re probably closer than we would like to admit, but they do not have guaranteed victory every election. It’s not reached the point where we are outnumbered now. That’s why I have such a visceral reaction to Republicans who think and who say that they can’t win anymore with just Republican votes. Well, that may be; I don’t know. But the answer to that is not to go out and change who you are to attract people who you’re talking about, who are avowed socialists.
We’re not gonna get Hispanics who predominantly vote Democrat just because we may be open to amnesty. It just doesn’t work that way. The problems that we have with people run far deeper than just where they perceive us to be on one issue or two issues. But I think all of that’s part of the political battle. Those people are not to be joined; they’re to be defeated. That’s why there’s such anger in the Republican base whenever any Republican talks about the ability to work with these people.
We don’t want to work with them.
They don’t want to work with us.
There’s no cooperation. That’s always a one-way street. We’re talking politics here. We want to defeat them. And the Republican base is fed up that that doesn’t seem to be part of the Republican agenda is defeating the opposition. It seems to be try to mollify it or appease it or get along with it. And that’s why you have outsiders who are leading the Republican presidential primary race right now, Trump and Ben Carson. Now, where is it going? What happens if the Democrats lose the presidency?
Let’s say… Take your pick. Well, I don’t… I think they would react, they’re gonna react violently if a Republican wins the White House. It isn’t gonna be pretty. And how they, you know, behave after that? Who knows? I can’t predict that. That’s actually one of the fun aspects of having a job like this, is you don’t know what’s gonna happen day to day. I mean, I can predict what liberals are gonna say and I can tell you what they believe, and I can tell you what they think. But how they’re going to react, I can also predict that.
But how is it gonna manifest itself in terms of how they label themselves going forward? The one thing they’ve mastered is even when they lose, they do not act like it. And because they have the media, they continue to act like they still won or they are still running the show or still leading the show. And the winners, the Republicans, are still treated as the outsiders, or as the aliens or what have you. And so it’s kind of hard to say, but I’m like you. This seemingly overnight change — not just in them but in the whole culture of the country — has been something I have been extremely curious about.
Tim, thanks for the call.