RUSH: Here’s Dave in Pinehurst, North Carolina.  It’s great to have you, sir.  How are you doing?

CALLER:  Merry Christmas, Rush.

RUSH:  Same to you.

CALLER:  I called because I wanted to tell you I have a profound optimism about Donald Trump’s presidency.  You know, I’m a very analytical guy.  I’ve been a vice president of software development for many years.  This is not an expression of blind faith.  But I read the signs, and I believe he has the potential to be the best president in our lifetime, and I feel that very strongly.  You know, he has the pragmatism to destroy the red tape and get things done.  He will defeat ISIS, will lower taxes and generate jobs, to say nothing of securing the border.  I think the changes we’ll see will be more profound than any of us imagined.  We may well be looking at a real reversal of our cultural of decline.  So I’m excited as I can be about it.

RUSH:  Why do you think all this?

CALLER:  You know, I’ve known about Trump since back in the eighties, back in New York when he fixed the ice skating rink and I read Art of the Deal.  The man just gets it done.  You look at his accomplishments even now before his become president, the cabinet that he’s picked, what he’s doing with Boeing, you know, with Air Force One —

RUSH:  Did you hear what Boeing did?  Boeing, okay, okay, okay we’ll cut the price, we’ll cut the price, we’ll cut the price, we’ll make ’em affordable.  In one word he admits, okay, we’ll price them affordably, which means they haven’t been priced affordably.  And then Carrier — I figure you’d throw that in the mix.

CALLER:  Well, of course.  He’s done a series of impossible things, things that seemed inconceivable, and he just —

RUSH:  Wait.  That’s a good point.  Why do we consider what Trump is doing — forget Trump in this question.  Why are things considered to be impossible, like getting the cost of Air Force One down or keeping jobs in America?  Why is it that our current political system has rendered everybody essentially hopeless thinking, “Well, it’s the best we can do.” We actually can’t do things that make common sense with our current political system.  Why is that?

CALLER:  It’s astonishing.  I don’t know if it’s inertia or red tape or just the culture has tied us up, but this man is immune to it all.  It’s just he gets it done.

RUSH:  I agree.  Look, I am very, very close to what you think here, but I have — look, you’re an analytical person, you’ve got substantive reasons for this, you said that you’re looking at this with a degree of hope as am I.  But let me tell you what I think.  But before I tell you that, what kind of iPhone do you want, a 7 or 7 Plus?

CALLER:  7 Plus.  Thank you.  That’s very generous of you.

RUSH:  You’re more than welcome.  And your carrier is — and I only ask the carrier ’cause it’s gonna determine color availability, folks.

CALLER:  It’s AT&T.

RUSH:  AT&T.  So every color except — I think I don’t have any rose gold.  I might have one back there, but I don’t think so.  I think the rose gold in the Plus are all gone.  Other than that, take your pick.

CALLER:  For my wife.  Do you have white, then?

RUSH:  Well, everything but black is white.  Let me send you a gold one.  I think I’ve got a bunch of gold ones back there.

CALLER:  If you have one, that would be great.

RUSH:  All right.

CALLER:  If you don’t, you know, the shiny black would be good.

RUSH:  Okay, but I think I’ll be able to satisfy the gold.  It may have either an AT&T or a T-Mobile SIM card in it and it’ll work.  One of the things I alert you to, by the time you get that phone you’re gonna know more about it than most people who sell them know.  I’m telling you, the phone is unlocked, it may have, like you take it to an AT&T store if it has a T-Mobile SIM card you tell them it will work on AT&T. The clerk may not think so, but it will, and if he says no keep taking it to AT&T stores ’til you get one that knows what they’re doing because it’s a GSM phone, it’s unlocked, so it will work on any carrier that uses the GSM network, and T-Mobile and AT&T do, so this will work no matter what.  What kind of phone does she have now?

CALLER:  Well, she has a 6 Plus.

RUSH:  Well, just swap the SIM cards and you’re in there, you don’t even need to go to the store.

CALLER:  Yeah, that’s what we’ll do.

RUSH:  All right.

CALLER:  We got it covered.  Like I say, I’m a software guy.

RUSH:  Cool.  Okay.  Yes.  You know.  Right.  So don’t hang up, give Mr. Snerdley your address. 

Here’s what I think is going on.  I’ve been thinking about this for a while.  The American political system is a giant bureaucracy and I think that the simplest — and I want to avoid being simplistic here, but I really think what’s happening to the American political system is that it has been reduced to a system of self-perpetuation for the people in it.  And they view security for themselves as always needing things to be done. 

Solving problems thus eliminates problems which has fallen by the wayside in terms of objective, always having something that needs to be done has been translated into, “You need us.  You can’t get along without us.”  And I think we’re paralyzed by the virtues of a combination of liberalism and bureaucracy.  And Trump doesn’t know any of that.  All he knows, and he’s like every other citizen, fed up with it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to finish what I was talking about to our caller.  This is a tough thing to — it’s not a tough thing to explain.  It’s a tough thing to make — well, to tighten it down, to compress it here into something sensible because, let me give you an example.  Mitch McConnell and the House of Representatives during Obama’s presidency.  Obama passes Obamacare, the Tea Party comes into existence over two things:  this out of control Obama spending. 

And don’t forget — this is key, too — the first gigantic expenditure of Obama’s was this stimulus bill that was for what?  Infrastructure.  It was gonna rebuild roads and bridges and schools and all of that, and everybody knows it didn’t.  And a lot of people voted for Obama believing that it was gonna be used for that purpose, and it wasn’t.  It was used for purely political purposes.  The money was given to Obama donors so they could open fraudulent businesses like Solyndra and all this new green energy crap that’s not even a business.  They went out of business, but they were given some of their donor money back. 

The other money went to unions and union members so they were employed and paying dues, and their dues got collected and sent back to the Democrat Party in the form of campaign contributions.  So it’s a money-laundering operation.  There wasn’t one new school built or remodeled with stimulus money.  Ditto roads and bridges.  Okay, put that over there. 

Then they pass Obamacare and it’s an absolute disaster!  And half the country knows it’s a disaster because the alternative media read the bill and told you what’s in it and gave you the absolute anti-American contents to this piece-of-garbage bill.  Half of the country doesn’t know what’s in it.  They think it’s free health care because that’s what Obama’s been out lying to people, you keep your doctor, keep your plan and your premium’s coming down $2,500.  People were lied to through his teeth.  And they believed him. 

On our side we’re fit to be tied.  This is outrageous.  We’re being insulted.  Our budget’s gone to hell.  Our kids’ future is being spent away.  In the meantime, Obama’s trying to enhance this cultural rot that’s going on, and we’re losing our country.  Our elected officials, when we want them to stop Obamacare, “Well, you know what?  We don’t have the votes in the Senate.”  In 2010, the midterms, the Republicans won the House because the voters knew Republicans didn’t have votes prior to then to stop Obama so the House clear and away went Republican. 

Not so the Senate.  What did Senators say?  “Well, yeah, but there’s nothing we can do.  Obama’s still president.  We need 60 votes, and there’s nothing that we can do.”  So in the 2012 election, the Republicans win the Senate!  So in 2010 and 2012 we give the Republicans the House and the Senate, and, “Well, there’s not much we can do.  We don’t have the White House.  Obama’s still in the White House.” 

Well, everybody says to hell with this!  And one of the people saying it is Donald Trump.  And, to me, that’s an example of the political system doing nothing more than perpetuating itself and its existence, not solving problems, not trying to win reelection on the basis of actually fixing things and being praised for it, because they weren’t. 

We were being told, “Well, we can’t do this, we can’t do that.”  And, meanwhile, despite the fact that the country was electing Republicans, Obama wasn’t being stopped, and it’s because of the political system.  The political system has evolved into a giant bureaucracy, the primary purpose of which is self-preservation, not fixing anything.  And I can give you even more examples if I wanted to take the time. 

Well, this simply won’t do.  The idea that we can’t deal with these problems, which is what we’re told, “Well, we don’t have 60 votes. Well, there are too many regulators that are writing regulations outside of Congress and we don’t –”  Too many excuses why we can’t do this, why we can’t do that.  Or, “Well, you know, the House has got a different fundamental build than the Senate does and the Senate’s where things go to slow down.  We gotta slow things.”  To hell with slowing things down!  We have got to stop this.  There didn’t seem to be any interest in stopping it.  There didn’t even seem to be any interest in opposing it! 

And people are getting increasingly infuriated over this because what we were essentially being told is that our political system can’t stop this.  Our political system cannot stop the degradation of our culture.  Our political system cannot stop a president who’s governing against the will of the people.  Our political system cannot stop a president ignoring immigration law.  This is what we were told.  Well, if it can’t stop it then it’s time to throw it out.  And it doesn’t matter, conservatism, liberalism, doesn’t seem like whoever’s up there is able to stop anything that is truly damaging, and I’m sure Trump is one of these people.

So he comes in, and I think, folks, he’s just gonna ignore all this.  “Well, we can’t do it that way, we’ve gotta do it this way.”  Like the caller said, he’s oriented toward achievement and getting things done, especially when people say you can’t do it.  And that’s what I was trying to say yesterday, we had two different callers on this.  We were talking about how Trump is gonna — everybody thinks you can’t do a trillion-dollar stimulus because the only way they’re thinking about it is the way it’s always been done. 

“If you want to spend a trillion dollars, well, you gotta raise taxes, you gotta borrow money, already $20 billion in debt, $20 trillion, there’s no way to do it.”  Who says there’s no way to do it?  There obviously isn’t a way to do it in our current political system.  But Trump has a bunch of people who have been able to find the money they need for projects that they wanted to do and succeed at them and show a profit at the same time, and everybody involved wins. 

The idea that there’s only way to raise a trillion dollars, there’s only one way to fix the infrastructure.  If there’s only one way there isn’t any way because whatever that one way is isn’t working!  And Donald Trump is not an animal of this system.  He’s not from it, he’s not part of it, he resents it, he doesn’t ever want to be part of it.  I think part and parcel of Trump is a lot of frustration, like everybody else. 

Now, his frustration differs from mine in that I’m frustrated that I know why this damage is being done and isn’t being fixed, and I could trace it right to liberalism and liberals.  Trump doesn’t see it that way.  He just sees a bunch of stupid people who are unable to get anything done.  I also see that, but I’m able to attach the ideological reason why they fail, the ideological reason why they’re not opposed, the ideological reason why people aren’t interested in fixing this stuff. 

Trump just sees stupidity and whatever else he sees, but he doesn’t see the ideology of it, which is fine, I don’t care.  We are at a point here where the people who voted in this election elected Trump also I think have had it with whatever “the system” is.  The system happens to be Washington and the way politics works, because whatever it is, it isn’t working.  It defies common sense.  And part and parcel of this, right in the middle of it is the media and their lying and their distorting and their favoritism and their efforts to impugn and destroy people like us who want to stop this mess that’s been progressing in a deteriorating way for way too many years. 

And then to be told, “Well, we don’t have the votes, or we don’t have 60 votes, or we don’t have the White House, well, there’s no way of getting the money, we gotta pay for the tax cut.”  Screw that.  What do you mean pay for the tax cut.  Who says government can’t get smaller, for crying out loud?  Who says government can’t do without for a couple of years?  Why does everybody else have to do without while government bloats and gets bigger? 

Now, Trump may not mind Big Government.  I don’t know.  There’s a lot we have yet to learn and see.  But I’m like the caller, and I think a lot of you, too, are optimistic because obviously he’s assembled a group of people who know how to, quote, get it done, whatever it is.  Now, the left is not gonna be happy with the things they want to get done.  And they’re gonna continue to oppose it even when they benefit from it, they are going to continue to oppose it, unless Trump comes in with massive tax increases when of course the Democrats will sign on for that. 

But I don’t hear anything from Trump about tax increases.  I hear tax cuts from him.  I hear tax reform from him.  We’ll just have to wait and see.  But I think I know what the last caller meant.  The political system just is paralyzed for whatever reason.  Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong, in that it’s just become this giant blob bureaucracy, the primary objective is self-preservation, and the definition of self-preservation is don’t do anything because then you continue to illustrate where you’re needed. 

I mean, the great illustration of that, the government comes up with a program, whatever it is, to fix something, and it breaks.  No.  Let me word this more properly.  Problem A, whatever it is, people say, “Government, we need a program, we need a bill.”  Government to the rescue, government comes in and fixes it.  They don’t fix it, it gets worse.  What do people do?  Demand the government fix it.  Demand the people that broke it fix it, and the cycle repeats, and the incompetent people that break it the first time keep breaking it again as they keep fixing it. 

How do you explain so much of the idiotic things happening that cannot be justified with common sense?  A lot of people are probably to the point now where they’re intrigued and excited to see what a genuine outsider, who is not a prisoner of this system, which is primarily known for saying, “Can’t do it that way.  Can’t do it that way.  Or can’t do it.  Well, we can do it, but, man, I don’t know if the American people –” 

People are fed up with negativism, the pessimism and the fact that Trump — you know, he hasn’t been wrong yet, in a lot of people’s eyes.  I must take a brief time-out.  Look at this number here, U.K. Daily Mail:  Almost 40% of all young adults are living with their parents.  This is a 75-year high in America.  Forty percent of young adults are living with their parents.  I see stuff like this, and I think it’s a good thing I didn’t become a parent, because if that were happening to me, you wouldn’t want to be my kid.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Bill in Green Bay.  Bill, great to have you on the program.  How you doing?

CALLER:  Hi.  Hi, Rush.  Merry Christmas to you and your staff.  It’s a pleasure talking with you, sir.

RUSH:  Thank you.

CALLER:  I have a question about sanctuary cities.  What do you think Trump will do with these people in the sanctuary cities and how do you think Obama and surrogates and the liberals will respond?

RUSH:  Stop and think about this for a second.  We have laws that prevent, that allow illegal immigration.

CALLER:  Yes.

RUSH:  And these sanctuary cities, these mayors, like in Chicago, San Francisco, even governors —

CALLER:  Yeah, Emanuel. 

RUSH:  — they are making a pitch for these illegals to come to their cities. While people in their cities are homeless and people in their cities are being gunned down, like in Chicago, they’re spending money on these illegals.

CALLER:  Horrible.

RUSH:  And they’re choosing illegal citizens, illegal aliens over their own citizens in terms of public expenditure. 

CALLER:  I like the way you said illegal aliens.  Not undocumented immigrants.  They are illegal the instant they cross the border.

RUSH:  That’s right.  That’s right.  If I said illegal aliens, don’t worry, I’m not growing soft.

CALLER:  They shouldn’t be protected.

RUSH:  Well, they’re human beings.  Look, that’s a one of the problems, we’re compassionate society.  But what can Trump do about it?  Your question is can he defund? Can he withhold federal money from these cities?  They depend on it.  I think there’s any number of things.  But this again, the political system, “There’s nothing we can do about it.”  BS there’s nothing we can do about it! 

It’s against the law.  We can put these people in jail. We can charge ’em with a crime, these mayors, these governors, what do you mean we can’t do anything about it?  That’s exactly what’s wrong here.  Okay, look, I’m sorry, Bill, what kind of iPhone would you like, iPhone 7 or —

CALLER:  Yes, sir.  An iPhone 7 Plus in rose gold is number one choice, gold would be second choice, and unlocked because my wife is from China, and we go to China, so we put in the SIM card from China, can talk all over China —

RUSH:  All right.  I’ve got an unlocked SIM-free. I think I got a gold one back there.  Hang on.  We’ll get your address and we’ll get it right out to you.