RUSH: And we have a call from Carson City, Nevada about this. This would be an apropos time to take it. This is Kate. Thank you for waiting, how you doing?
CALLER: I’m doing well, Rush. How are you doing?
RUSH: Super doper. Is this…
CALLER: This is Kate from Fairfield.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought it was. You got out before the fires.
CALLER: I did, I did.
RUSH: Long time ago. This woman used to call me regularly back in the late eighties in Sacramento, folks.
CALLER: Absolutely. Hey, listen, Rush, and like I say, after 32 years it never gets old listening to you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: And you’re just so plain speaking, I’m so appreciative. Anyway, I’m calling because I want to send a message to even the Drudge Report, Fox News, all of them. I’ve stopped checking them. They tried to get us is all wound up about this Florida recount and they wanted us to be worried, that maybe the Senate could flip back to the Democrats. You know, they’re building up all of this stuff, I don’t know if it’s click bait, I don’t know what it is, but I want to tell them, I’ve stopped checking you.
I decided I’m just gonna wait until I listen to Rush Monday morning and see what happens. Now I happened to get an email last night from one of them saying, you know, that the Senate and the gubernatorial races had both been decided and the Republicans won. But if I hadn’t seen that email, I wouldn’t have checked. I would have just waited to listen and find out from you what happened. Because I’m just so tired of them trying to get us all wound up. I’m just sick of it. Absolutely sick of it. So I wanted to call you and let you know that. Thank you. It’s a big thank-you.
RUSH: Kate, I have to tell you, I’m hearing a lot of people say one way or the other what you just said. I can’t tell you the number of people who have stopped checking the internet or watching cable news simply because they just don’t want to be inundated with fatalistic pessimism every day, all day. And I think you’re right. I think it’s click bait.
CALLER: I do.
RUSH: You know, people that do financial newsletters, every subscription renewal period is a crisis. You never ask for renewals when everything’s great, you know, why do you need the newsletter? So the tendency, pessimism, this has been my point for the longest time, pessimism sells.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: Scaring people sells. It causes them to pay attention, breaking news. Why is every story breaking news on cable TV? Uh-oh, uh-oh, something out of the ordinary, when it isn’t! It’s not even new anymore! Breaking news is just a trick.
CALLER: It’s just a way of introducing the next story, Rush. And it’s gotten really, really old. And a lot of us are on to it. We’re on to it. And we’re not paying attention anymore.
RUSH: Were you less concerned that the Democrats were gonna succeed in this recount effort and that’s why you felt the luxury of not paying attention?
CALLER: No. I never assume that the Democrats are going to lose anything. I mean, like you say, the media, you know, if the Democrats think something’s fishy, then something’s fishy. But if the Republicans do, well, they’re just sore losers or whatever. No, I was concerned. But I was just not going to let them take control of my thoughts and my opinions and my worries. I just wasn’t gonna let them do it. I was just, like I said, I was just gonna wait to hear from you —
RUSH: Aren’t you sweet.
CALLER: — what’s going on. And every day I do that. You know, it’s the truth.
RUSH: I appreciate it. By the way, this is why I tell people, just do an experiment. You don’t have to commit to it. But try to go as many days as you can — minimum five — without turning on cable news, without watching any news on TV. Maybe check a website here or there, just keep tabs. But I guarantee you that your mood will improve. I don’t know to what extent. I mean, you’re not gonna go from utterly depressed and angry to orgasmically happy, but you’re gonna notice a lot less angst and a lot less tension. I’m not saying don’t stay informed, ’cause this isn’t being informed. The 24-hour news cycle, there’s not enough news to inform you every time you walk in. There’s more going on than just informing you.
And, by the way, the programs are formulaic. They introduce the subject, bring on a guest from one side, a guest from the other side, start the conversation, it descends into shouting at some point and at some point the time limit is hit. “Sorry. Great TV. Great conversation. We hope to have you both back. Up next the Australian rabid bat and extinction. Back after this.” And then they move to the next thing, and it’s the same.
And nothing ever gets solved, and nothing is ever proclaimed as that’s right and just and that’s wrong. It’s just the formula. And I’m telling you that you can spare yourself a lot of grief by pulling away from it. Just try it. It may not even take five days. You might be able to do it in two or three. Anyway, Kate, 32 years you’ve been out there, and I am so appreciative of that I don’t know how to tell you. So thank you very much. It’s always great when you get through here.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush.
RUSH: All right. Take care. She used to live in Fairfield, California, now moved over to Carson City. She was one of the early California evacuees. She saw the handwriting on the wall before there was the wall.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Quick question: How much time every day do you think it would take to report the genuine news of the day? How much time would it take anyone to tell you at any point in the day what had happened so far? I would maintain to you that you could do this in less than an hour. Not talking about commentary. Not talking about analysis. Just somebody telling you what happened, wherever it happened.
It could be sports, could be the news, could be politics, Capitol Hill, Supreme Court, how long would it take just to report the news? Let’s be generous and say an hour. Well, what happens the other 23 hours where there supposedly is the news? ‘Cause it’s the 24/7 news cycle. But if it would only take one hour, maximum, I should do a test on this. I should actually one day see how long it would take me just to tell you things that you don’t know so that you would be informed, how long would that take me to do? I could do this in less than an hour.
I could probably do this in 15 minutes, but let’s give it an hour. What do you do the other 23? And that is the rub. The other 23 hours are the equivalent of the Washington or New York or the media soap opera, the formula, the script, the programming that’s supposed to keep you glued that deals with your emotions, manipulating your emotions up, down, sideways, anger, happiness, what have you. And that’s where the frustration sets in, those 23 hours.