If you haven’t been fired, you haven’t actually done anything.  It’s strange.  In a lot of businesses getting fired, it’s a black mark forever.  In this business, it’s… Well, it’s not great, don’t misunderstand. But it’s certainly not limiting as it is in other things.  But 28 years with one radio show at number one for all of those years is a rare thing, and it’s all owing to you being there.  So that’s why, whenever one of these anniversaries comes up, we at least acknowledge it, because it is something that is unique for this business.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Also, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, because I just mentioned it, one week from today is the 28th anniversary of this program, August 1st, 1988.  So we’re gonna be starting our 29th year on August 1st.  And I was reading one of our favorite websites today, part of the show prep, NewsBusters from the Media Research Center, and they reprinted excerpts of a blog post from Saturday that appeared at the Washington Monthly.

And here’s the headline:  “Unhappy Anniversary: Blogger Accuses Limbaugh of Leaving a ‘Sick Stain’ and a ‘Loathsome Legacy.’” And here is what it is.  The Washington Monthly “has a different choice for ‘the moment when the GOP truly lost it.'”  They start by saying Paul Krugman thinks that supply-side economics, when supply-side, when Reaganomics became what the GOP was known for, that began its downfall.  (laughing) That led two landslide Reagan wins.

But the Washington Monthly has a different take, “a different choice for ‘the moment when the GOP truly lost it’: August 1, 1988, when Rush Limbaugh’s radio show went national. By the sheer size of his audience, many millions of Americans have disagreed, answering “Yes” to Time magazine’s question on the cover in 1995: “Is Rush Limbaugh Good for America?” Of course liberals say no.” This is from the Washington Monthly, the blog. “The 28th anniversary of that morbid moment will arrive in just a few days.”

The blog said that “syndicating the program had been ‘made possible by President Reagan’s elimination of the Fairness Doctrine a year earlier. Limbaugh and his backers had a clear goal of driving the GOP, and America’s overall political/media culture, as far to the right as possible — and sadly, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.'”

The left continues, the Democrats, whoever they are, continue to fail to understand how this program began.  I did not have backers.  I had a broadcast executive partner who invested, took a risk in some satellite time that he had been given in his retirement package when he left ABC.  It was Ed McLaughlin.  And he was not a Republican.  I don’t even know if he was a Democrat.  He was a broadcaster.  There weren’t any backers.  This is a capitalist money-making enterprise.  There isn’t any funding here. (interruption) You think they really don’t understand it and just persisted?  You know, they may not.  I think they may have, two things: such a hatred for capitalism and therefore a lack of understanding about it. And, secondly, a belief in how they function in the real world.

Everything they do is fundraising.  Air America had backers.  It was fundraising.  Everything they do is fundraising.  Every enterprise they have is with backers.  Well, we didn’t have any backers. But beyond that, “Limbaugh and his backers had a clear goal of driving the GOP.”  Nothing could be further from our minds.  Driving the GOP?  I wanted to be a radio guy.  I didn’t want to be a party person, for crying out loud.

They’re accusing us of driving America’s overall political media.  To this day, after 28 years, they fail to understand what drove this program.  It was a desire to be a successful media guy.  It was simply that.  It was nothing more.  I wanted to be the most popular radio show in the country.  That’s all it was.  And I had the opportunity to be honest, which meant I could make jokes about liberals, which just wasn’t done.  I could be honest about my conservatism, but there wasn’t any political agenda here.  This program took everybody by surprise, including us, at how quickly it was growing and why.  They want to make it out to be this brilliantly strategized, flawlessly executed secret plan to take over America’s politics in the GOP.

Anyway, hang on, ’cause it gets better.  In the view of the Washington Monthly, “Limbaugh has left a ‘sick stain and [a] loathsome legacyퟀ�Thanks to his poisoning of the Republican Party, America was unable to lead –” get this now, because of me “– America was unable to lead in a bipartisan fashion on such issues as health care reform, gun control and climate change.'”

Well, thank God, if I had something to do with stopping all that from happening, then I’ll take it.  But note this guy’s perspective.  If I hadn’t come along, the Republican Party would have gladly helped erase some of the Second Amendment, would have gladly helped national health care, and would have easily assisted the notion of man-made climate change.  But I came along and I poisoned everything, and I made it impossible for there to be bipartisanship.

Get this, now. “Considering the international implications of [Limbaugh thwarting bipartisan success on climate change] it can be argued that Limbaugh largely prevented America from leading the rest of the world in transitioning expeditiously away from fossil fuels — a transition that could have spared countless lives over the past 28 years.”

So you understand that this clown is saying that because I prevented the Republican Party from acting in a bipartisan way to implement the Democrat agenda on climate change, that people have died.  I have caused people to die because I stood in the way of eliminating fossil fuel.  People are dead because of me, in this sick, perverted view.

If I hadn’t had this show, and if it hadn’t gone national, we’d probably have everybody in America agreeing with man-made climate change, and everybody would have agreed long ago we need government running health care and we probably would not have the Second Amendment, we would have gun control, and we’d be just on our way to utopia, except for Limbaugh who came along and saw to it that people died.

He wasn’t through.  This guy argued “Limbaugh influenced the current GOP standard-bearer.”  Yes.  From the blog: “Donald Trump became the 2016 Republican nominee by copying Limbaugh’s shtick — appealing to the worst angles of our nature, exploiting extremism, casting scorn upon common sense, prevaricating with pride. It was Limbaugh who removed all traces of logic, reason, decency, civility and compassion from the party of Abraham Lincoln. … It was Limbaugh who led the GOP towards lunacy — and the party may never, ever find its way back.”

Why, you know, folks, if I didn’t know any better, these Democrats love the Republican Party.  They thought the Republican Party was the home of logic and reason and decency and civility and compassion all during the Reagan years, except I know that’s not what they thought.  They wrote this same kind of stuff about Reagan that they’re writing about me now.  Man, look at all I have done.  Look at all the damage.  Just a guy on the radio.  And here’s this little guy at his blog probably wondering what it’s like to have that kind of power.