RUSH: No, no, no, no. No, no. My only point… I know everybody knows what I said in the first hour. Everybody in this audience. Again, I’m just disappointed that so many on our side still refuse to see what’s going on. They missed it seven years ago, and some are just now waking up to it because of personal experiences. You know, the problem for me is, folks, is that I saw all of this back in 2007. Not 2008 and not 2009. I saw all of this back in 2007. And people asked me, “How did you know? How?”
Because I know liberals, and I understand the modern incarnation of liberals, and liberals are different than Democrats, and there is no old-fashioned Democrat around anymore. These people are all brand-new, radical left. And “liberal” doesn’t even cover, really, what we’re up against. It’s, in fact, a little bit confusing, because, you know, we refer to Democrats of the sixties, seventies, and eighties as “liberals,” and they can’t hold a candle to this group.
It’s really fascinating when this all began. The Democrat Party transitioned to an anti-American liberal party after the assassination of JFK, and I think, just to review that for just a second… If you remember JFK goes to Dallas in an attempt, it was said… He was having trouble in his reelection polls. It was 1963, and everybody was worried, and they said in the aftermath of the trip he had gone down to Texas to try to ameliorate support there because a bunch of right-wing radicals were opposed to JFK and were threatening great damage to the country and this kind of thing.
And then the assassination occurred, and a communist killed JFK.
A communist poisoned and influenced by Castro and the Soviet Union, Lee Harvey Oswald.
I don’t care whatever you think, Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK. He was not a right winger. He was not from Dallas. He was not an American conservative Republican Bircher or whatever the left wants to make him out to be. He was a flat-out, left-wing, uber-communist who was opposed to JFK and had been brainwashed into opposing JFK by the Castros, the Cubans, and the Soviet Union. He was a defector. In fact, the Soviet Union had kicked him out. The trail of proof for this is long, but it’s not arguable.
Well, the point is the left could not abide that. The left in this country. They were there, and they were as radical as they are now. They were just fringe back then. But they couldn’t let it stand that one of their own had killed the Democrat president. That just couldn’t be allowed to stand. Go take a look at the New York Times if you want to on the day after the assassination. You’ll find on the front page columns by James Reston and others blaming the right wing in Dallas for influencing Oswald.
I mean, they began the day after Kennedy was assassinated. The idea that the radical right was out committing assassinations. And that is when the modern incarnation of today’s liberalism began in the sense of blaming America and American things began. The whole idea that America was to blame, that America was responsible and at the top for the assassination of JFK, and that’s when the modern incarnation of today’s radical liberalism began. And then of course Vietnam War came along and fueled it and everything which followed.
But that’s where it began, simply because the left back then could not let it stand that one of their fellow travelers had killed their president. That was never gonna be allowed to stand. That set in motion what to this day remains a standard operating procedure in the manual of American liberalism that America is to blame, America is culpable, America is flawed, and that political progress is there to be had by blaming America. And they have become experts at it. Anyway, I had seen all this back in 2007 with Obama.
I’d listened to his campaign speeches; I had listened to his tapes, interviews and so forth; I knew who he was, coupled with my in-depth understanding of liberalism. I was just surprised that people back then on our side wouldn’t listen. It still boils me. It stills boils me. Because my insight was nothing unique. It didn’t require any sort of super intelligence or insight or anything. It was just right there for anybody and everybody to see. It’s not incredibly complex who Barack Obama is and what his plans were.
If it were complex and hard to ferret out and hard to understand, I’d be more sympathetic. But it isn’t. It wasn’t complex at all. Barack Obama was a five-alarm radical, and people on our side didn’t want to see it. They just wanted to treat it as the traditional argument between left and right that’s always gone on and there was nothing more to it than just political disagreements and arguments and debates in the arena of ideas and this, that, and the other thing. It’s allowed for all of this transformation to take place. You may have heard that Obama interview on NPR.
We have a couple of sound bites here. Morning Edition today. Steve Inskeep interviewed Obama. First bite, we have question. “Mr. President, we are nearing the end of a year where the question of national identity, who we are, has been a part of one large event after another.” See? I mean, they’re even openly talking about it now: Who we are. “I made a list here, in fact. Gay marriage, the Black Lives Matter movement, immigration, the question of whether to admit Syrian refugees into the country, the question of whether to admit Muslims into the country. All of them in some sense touch on that question of who we are.
“What is the reason, the cause, what has caused that issue of who we are to come forward again and again and again at this moment in history?” Another way to ask this question: “Why didn’t any of this ever come up before you moved into the White House? What is it about you, Mr. Obama? What is it about you, Mr. President, that has made this whole question of ‘who we are’ become a question? Why all of a sudden is it a question, ‘who we are’?” I think the question answers itself if you phrase it that way.
Obama is transforming ‘who we are’ and redefining ‘who we are’ because in his view, ‘who we were’ was evil, immoral, unjust, corrupt, or what have you. And so now all of the victims of all of that corruption and unjust behavior and immorality, all of that we’re getting even with now, and all the victims of all that corruption are now being empowered and will soon be running the country and will have their chance at payback. That’s essentially what’s going on. Here’s Obama’s answer to the question…
OBAMA: I do think that the country is inexorably changing. I believe in all kinds of positive ways. … [W]hen you combine that demographic change with all the economic stresses that people have been going through because of the financial crisis, because of technology, because of globalization, the fact that wages and incomes have been flatlining for some time, and that particularly blue-collar men have had a lot of trouble in this new economy… [Y]ou combine those things and it means that there is going to be potential anger, frustration, fear. Some of it justified, but just misdirected. I think somebody like Mr. Trump is taking advantage of that. That’s what he’s exploiting during the course of his campaign.
RUSH: Oh, really? So Trump is exploiting economic and racial fears of the bitter clingers? Now, note the existence here of the Limbaugh Theorem. Note all of the problems the president cites as though he’s had nothing to do with it, as though it all just happened and he wasn’t even on the scene. Well, “economic stresses that people have been going through because of the financial crisis, because of technology…” What about technology is causing fear? “[G]lobalization, the fact that wages and incomes have been flatlining for some time…”
Yeah, like the last seven years, maybe? [Y]ou combine those things and it means that there is going to be potential anger, frustration, fear. Some of it justified, but just misdirected,” meaning: It isn’t on me. None of that’s on me. “I think somebody like Mr. Trump is taking advantage of that. That’s what he’s exploiting during the course of his campaign.” So Trump’s out there exploiting economic and racial fears? No, he’s validating ’em. Everybody already has the fears. He’s not exploiting anything. This is a trick for the left. They go out and they create an absolute mess. They make everybody miserable.
Some people come along and want to fix it and all of a sudden they’re exploiting it. No, we’re trying to fix your mistakes. We’re trying to fix abject liberal failure. That’s why we don’t understand the budget deal. There’s no attempt to fix any of it. The budget deal gives a couple of big attaboys, confirms it, and indoctrinates in our law for the next two years. Doesn’t do one thing to stop it, deal with it, arrest it, fix it, you name it. That’s why people are appalled.
Next question: “Years ago you made that remark. You were much criticized for saying something about people clinging to guns and religion. Now, this is before you were even elected president. And although you were criticized for the phrasing of that, it seems to me that you were attempting to figure out what is it that people are thinking, what is it that’s bothering people. Now you’ve had several more years to think about.” What the hell’s the question here? Well, I’m gonna explain it. Here’s the answer and let me translate when we’re finished here.
OBAMA: If you’re referring to specific strains in the Republican Party that suggest that somehow I’m different, I’m Muslim, I’m disloyal to the country, et cetera, which, unfortunately, is pretty far out there and gets some traction in certain pockets of the Republican Party, and that have been articulated by some of their elected officials, what I’d say there is that that’s probably pretty specific to me and who I am and my background and that in some ways I may represent change that worries them.
RUSH: Well, folks, he doesn’t even address the question. Here’s what he was being asked about. You go into these small towns — this was at a fundraising in San Francisco where nobody was supposed to be there. I mean, there wasn’t supposed to be anybody with a camera or microphone. Some left-wing journalist was in there with her phone turned on, recorded the audio and it leaked out of there, but nobody was supposed hear this. Quote, Barack Obama, in 2008 at an elite fundraiser: “You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
In other words, you’ve got a bunch of these losers here that time has passed and instead of admitting that time has passed ’em by and they haven’t kept up, they resort to their racism and bigotry and hyper-religionism and they seek solace in their guns, they seek solace in their religion, or in their hatred for people that don’t look like ’em. That’s what Barack Obama thinks, not what they think. That’s his characterization of them. And, to me, that always told me more about Barack Obama than the bitter clingers he’s talking about.
There was real enmity for these people. He wants to be president of the United States, and he’s got real enmity for a whole lot of average across the board middle class blue-collar people. To him they are the representation of what’s always been the majority, and they gotta go. These are backward thinking racists and bigots and so forth. They love their guns and all this stuff is happening so fast they don’t understand, it’s leaving ’em behind, so they go to their old security blankets to hang on.
No. It is their country being sold out from under ’em. It’s their country being negotiated away from them. It’s their country being abandoned. They voted every which way they know how to stop it, and it doesn’t seem to matter. But then you go to his answer. “Well, if you’re referring to specific strains in the Republican Party –” No, no, no. That’s not what he asked you. What’s this on your mind for? He’s clearly asking you about your bitter clinger comments. He’s not asking you about people who think that you’re from Mars as a means of explaining what the hell you do. Why are you so sensitive about who you are, sir? “Well, if you’re referring to specific strains of the Republican Party that suggest that somehow I’m different, I’m Muslim, I’m disloyal to the country, which is pretty far out there but gets some transaction certain pockets of Republican Party. Well, probably pretty specific to me and who I am and my background, and that in some ways I may represent some change that worries them.”
That’s not what he asked you. If none of that’s true, why are you worried about it? You’re not losing anything. You got everything in the world you wanted. Why are these people not happy? This is the thing that continues to amaze me. The left’s getting everything they want, and every time they accomplish it, they get angrier, more upset. But, again, the real frustration continues to be the large number of people on our side who remain totally tone deaf or just straight deaf and blind to all of this. I maintain to you again that’s one of the reasons why we got this budget deal that we got, is the Republican Party just doesn’t think there’s anything really that abnormal going on here. It still doesn’t square with the fact that Democrats are the biggest minority they’ve been since the Civil War and still act like they run the place.