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RUSH: They say that The Squad’s under current death threat. Have you heard that? Okay. So who exposed Omar to danger by broadcasting when her flight was gonna arrive and at what gate? Folks, let me tell you what this is gonna come down to. And we had better decide how we’re gonna deal with this right now.

There are variations of this theme, variations of this fight. But it’s all contained right here — actually, it’s contained in many places, but its most recent focus is this Trump rally and a bunch of his people that are shouting “send her back.” We have a strategic decision to make.

Are we gonna double down against the left and really take them on and not take their guff, or are we gonna defer? Are we going to defer to their constant insults? Are we going to defer to their constant outrage? Because they’re always gonna be mad about something. They’re always gonna be calling us racists, sexists, bigots. They’re always going to be saying that we are mean-spirited extremists.

Now, we’ve got one or two things we can do. We can double down and tell them to take it where the sun doesn’t shine in our own way and beat them back, and literally beat them in election after election, or we can defer to them like the Never Trumpers want to do, and like a bunch of elected Republicans want.

We can defer to the media, we can defer to the outrage and sue for peace. “Please don’t think of us that way. We’re not mean. We’re not bigots. We’re not.” We got one of two ways here, and you can see the stark choice even now. We’ve got the ongoing battle, Never Trumpers in the so-called conservative movement who want to defer to the outrage. They don’t want anybody mad at them.

And they blame Trump for all of the outrage. They have forgotten that before they were mad at Trump, they were mad at George W. Bush. And before that, they were mad at Reagan. And throughout all of that, they’ve been mad at me. They’ve been mad at Fox News and talk radio. They are always gonna be mad. They cannot be deferred to. They cannot be mollified. They cannot be reasoned with. And the worst thing you can tried to do is sue for peace individually. You cannot, if you’re an elected Republican.

McCain tried it. Look what happened to him. McCain deferred to the outrage. McCain started sucking up to the media even before he ran for office. And it worked. He became, in his mind, the media was his base, until he got the nomination. And then they called him a racist because of Sarah Palin. They called him a racist because of some of the things his supporters were saying about Obama’s name.

This stuff never changes. If you want to know why I’m irritated by it is because it never changes and it’s not gonna change and deferring to it is not the solution. Deferring to it and accommodating it and asking them not to be mad at us, you’re wrong, trying to explain to them how they’re wrong and they’re misjudged, it’s a waste of time, because it’s not, this criticism at us, this anger at us is not rooted in any kind of substance.

It’s labeling. It’s strategic. It is part of destroying the conservative, slash, Republican brand. It’s not rooted in truth. We’re not really racists, sexists, or bigots. They just say so then they put everybody on our side that needs to defer to this on the defensive. And when you’re on the defense, you’re not advancing anything. You’re not advancing an agenda. You’re not advancing the ball. You’re not advancing your own beliefs. You’re not advancing yourself.

And every darn one of these Never Trumpers out there seems to believe that they can accommodate this anger and defer to it and at least try to convince the media that they, the Never Trumpers, are not reprobates. And if that happened, they’d be happy. The Republican Party could lose the White House, the Republican Party could lose this and that, but the Never Trumpers would be happy if the mainstream media stopped calling them names. And this is going to be the playing field that we’re on for the foreseeable future.

If it’s not a chant at a Trump rally, it’s gonna be something somebody says on Fox, something somebody says on talk radio. Or it’s going to be something a Trump supporter says while buying Skittles at a 7-Eleven. It’s gonna be something. It’s never going to end. Meanwhile, they are gonna be able to get away with real hate and real bigotry, and it’s gonna be promoted as new progressive values, because America is a sucky place that does need to be fixed, like we went to the Moon and there were no women involved, the Soviets really won the space race, America sucks. This is what we’re up against. Make up your mind.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I do want to expand on this point maybe later. I really… You know, I got a note from a very good friend. “Rush, I heard you on Fox & Friends while driving this morning, and variations of this fight — whether to double down against the left or to defer to their constant outrage — are going on everywhere.” My friend writing the email is exactly right. It’s happening within Republican circles, conservative publications and organizations.

I don’t know. I’m just gonna take a wild guess. I could be dead wrong. But even within the EIB Network — and there are lots of people here at the EIB Network. We don’t talk about this. This is a major, major corporate enterprise. We’ve got the EIB Network (the fulfillment staff alone up there) and, by the way, we’re up to over 20,000 orders today, folks, which is wonderful, and it’s fabulous. But it is a fulfillment challenge. We got people standing knee-deep in boxes up there in our warehouse, and they’re all smiling, and they’re all happy, and they’re all chomping down on doughnuts for energy between sessions.

The experience here has been and continues to be incredible. But I would imagine even within the EIB Network organization… We’ve got salespeople all over the country. (chuckles) We have the website staff. We have the engineering staff. I imagine, somewhere — somewhere within this intricate web of employees — there are probably some people who wish I would dial it back a little bit, because they have friends who know where they work and they have to go home and they have to listen to, “Boy, the guy you work for, (sputtering) he really yells at people!”

(impression) “Weeeell, no.”

I’m just saying, in every organization, you’ve got… Take your average conservative magazine. I will guarantee you there’s a group of ’em in there that will do anything to stop the media from being mean to conservatives, and others who say, “Screw them,” and want to fight them. But it really is the question, and it’s been the question for years. It’s not new! I use McCain as an example, but it really is maybe one of the best recent examples of how it’s a no-win. John McCain, for a couple of years, became the favorite Republican of the media.

Consequentially, a lot of us were made very angry by it, because we knew what he had to do to do it! You know what he was doing? He was ripping Republicans. He was on MSNBC with Chris Matthews every night, and he was ripping Republicans. So it’s no question he’s gonna become a big star within the Drive-By Media. Because if you’re Republican/conservative and if you want to get favorable media treatment, you rip your own. You go criticize your own. You criticize your president, criticize policies, and the media will love you.

McCain thought that this would carry him to the presidency. Then McCain gets the nomination, and he’s running against Obama, and it’s hopeless. He doesn’t have a prayer, and they didn’t take but a week and they started calling McCain a racist! Because there were people on his staff and members of the audience at his rallies that were making fun of Obama’s name by pronouncing his middle name. Do you remember that? You couldn’t even say “Barack Hussein Obama” without the media calling you a bigot and a racist and an anti-whatever.

Anti-terrorist, whatever they said we were — just by pronouncing his name! There was one guy in Cincinnati who introduced McCain at a rally and used “Hussein” in naming Obama, and McCain publicly berated the guy on stage! (impression) “You know, this is not a feature of my campaign. We’re not gonna make fun of our opponent this way. We’re not gonna be critical. We’re not gonna… We’re not gonna… We’re just not gonna do it!” All that happened was somebody pronounced Obama’s full name! But even that did not win McCain renewed favor with the media.

McCain’s out there; he doesn’t understand what’s hit him. They’re calling him a racist? He just spent two years cultivating and sucking up to these people, and they turned on him on a dime. John McCain is the greatest illustration of how it cannot be done. You cannot win by deferring. You cannot even win perpetually by ripping your own side. They’ll eventually come back and get you, because you’re not gonna rip your own side all the time. So it’s a really salient question, and all of this talk on our side about, “We need to return to civility!

“We need to return to the days where our people are sophisticated and polite and have the breeding and the mannerisms in order to behave properly. And in this, we will show the American people that we’re not what the media says.” I’ve been hearing this for as long as I’ve been able to pay attention to people. “Rush, the way through this abyss is character.” “What do you mean?” “We must be exemplary in our character. We cannot have anybody engaging in adultery. We can’t have anybody have any kind of abuse problems — substances, alcoholism, drugs. None of that.

“We have to be clean and pure as the wind-driven snow, Rush. Only in that way, can we rise above the criticism from the left. Only in that way, can we reach the American people and assure them that we are not that which we are said to be.” I can’t tell you how many people that told me this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this over how many years, that the way to beat the media is to become Jesus Christ. Well, the problem is there isn’t a human being alive that can do that. There isn’t a human being alive, by definition, who could become Jesus Christ.

There is nobody who is perfect. There is nobody who can behave with perfect character and perfect manners and perfect speech — and even if there was, I doubt that it would permeate the bulk of the American population which thinks we’re racists and sexists. This is not the way to do it. Okay, so what is? Well, it’s not easy. But we have to throw out this idea that there is any kind of positive return by deferring — and by deferring, accepting their premise. “Okay, I know some of us are racists and sexists — you’re right about that — but not me!

“And I’m gonna condemn those on our side. You — you can respect me for that.” That’s not gonna get anybody anywhere. Romney! Romney thought he could do the same thing. Look at Romney. As far as most people know, Romney let an employee’s wife die of cancer because he didn’t care enough to give health care to the employee. Romney hated animals because he put the dog on the roof of the family station wagon during a vacation. Harry Reid comes out and says a friend of his told him that Mitt Romney hadn’t paid taxes in 10 years.

The press said, “Where’s your proof?” and Harry Reid says, “You’re asking the wrong person. I don’t need proof. Go ask Romney why he hasn’t paid his taxes.” What’d the media do? They went off and asked Romney why he hadn’t paid his taxes. Romney said, “I have. I paid my taxes. Here are my tax returns. Here’s binders filled with women’s names that I might hire.” That even became a problem! (sinister voice) “Romney has the names of women in binders.” The Democrats have Jeffrey Epstein!

The Democrats are running around with a pedophile! The Democrats are running around partying with a pedophile, participating in that! None of it ever gets mentioned! The Democrats never think they have to excuse themselves for it. The media never harps on it. (sinister voice) “Romney had women’s names in a binder! Romney had the family dog on the roof of the station wagon during the family vacation.” What did they do? McCain and Romney both continued to seek respect and fair treatment from the Democrats and the Drive-By Media.

(impression) “We are going to behave with character and respect, and we are… We are going to show the way! We’re going to thereby inform the American people that what is being said of us is — is wrong.” Right? Well, how has that worked out? What needs to happen instead, is there needs to be payback. There needs to be a price. The left needs to pay a price for this slander, for this character assassination, for this libel, for the outright lies about us and about our country and about our heritage.

At some point there has to be enough payback that the left becomes afraid to smear people. Right now they have no fear. They’re not afraid to smear us. They’re not afraid to slander us. They’re not afraid to libel us. In fact, they do it with glee. They look forward to doing it. If they have to lie, which, of course, they do, they can’t wait to do it. And then they love it when the attacked victim tries to be defensive about it. And we’ll ask the question for the next week, which got the original politician in trouble.

And, of course, who is it that does not play by these rules of deference? Donald J. Trump. Trump is the subtext of all of these psychodramas, and they are occurring everywhere. You could say that throughout the political spectrum, Donald Trump is driving certain people crazy. He’s driving them batty.

I think that we are winning. But we’re not gonna keep winning if the theme remains apologize, reach out, and don’t offend. If that becomes the guidelines for our going forward, we can forget winning. Apologize, reach out, don’t offend. Do you realize how none of those are possible when people are lying about you to begin with?

When people are accusing you of things that you haven’t done and accusing you of being things that you aren’t, why would you apologize for that? Why would you apologize for people who do things you had nothing to do with? Just because the media’s demanding you apologize? The way of the current thinking is, “Well, we apologize to make it go away. We’ll defer to make it go away. Rush, we have to stop the bleeding. You’re got to apologize.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Rush, you have to apologize. It won’t go away if you don’t. You’ve gotta apologize.” I said, “It’s not gonna go away if I do apologize. It will make you feel better, but it isn’t gonna go away.” “It will, Rush, it will go away.” Has it ever gone away? We’re still dealing with it, are we not? That’s one of the reasons I’m so frustrated about this. Because it’s been going on so long, we should have learned by now.

Having fun with these people and tweaking them, like today, John King at CNN.

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