RUSH: This is Madison Heights, Virginia, and Kim. You’re up first, and it’s great to have you here. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you. You know, I was listening to you, and a lot of the reasons why Virginia went Democrat with this election. Let me explain something. You know, I’m gonna put the blame solely on the GOP of Virginia. They did nothing. They did absolutely nothing. There were at least 30 districts in which Democrats ran unopposed. Unopposed.
RUSH: Thirty, did you say?
CALLER: I’m sorry?
RUSH: Thirty districts unopposed? Democrats had no opponent?
CALLER: No opponent. No opponent whatsoever. My thing here is — and this is what’s making me so angry — where is the GOP? For years, Democrats have defined who Republicans and conservatives are. They’re not vocal, the GOP. They’re not out there. They’re not going door-to-door. You know, I live in a very red district here. Who comes knocking on my door? A Democrat volunteer. No Republicans. The only thing I received from the Republicans were a few fliers in the mail. How do you expect to win if you’re not going into these districts?
RUSH: Well, now, wait, wait, wait! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Maybe they don’t expect to win. Maybe they have electorally tossed Virginia aside. Maybe they have concluded it’s a waste of money and a waste of time. The trend is established; they can’t stop it. So they’ll spend their time effort and elsewhere.
CALLER: Well, you know what? They need to stop that. You know, Virginia is changing, the nation is changing, and the GOP needs to change with it. They really do. If you’re gonna sit here and give up all the time, then what’s the point? Dissolve the party and hand it over to the Democrats.
RUSH: Well, I don’t know that that’s what happened. I’m just throwing it out there because —
CALLER: No, no. I’m just saying. I mean, they’re so good as losing. Here’s Trump out there fighting. He tells everybody… At any rally you go to, any press conference he does, he goes out there and he tells everybody what he’s done, what he’s accomplished, all of these things.
RUSH: Well, he’s also trying to help other Republicans out there, Kim, in addition to the self-serving thing.
CALLER: I understand that. But we need more than that. You can’t just ride on Trump’s coattails, okay? You can’t. We’re out there. Trump supporters are out there. Conservatives are out there. We get on social media. When we talk to people, we do our part. But the GOP wants —
RUSH: Yeah, but you get shadow banned on social media.
CALLER: Well, absolutely. Doesn’t mean that we stop. Doesn’t mean we stop, Rush. We’re still out there.
RUSH: I’m not advocating you stop. I just threw out the idea. I don’t understand it, either, so I’m just giving you an alternative explanation, ’cause it doesn’t make any sense unless they have just figured it’s impossible to win there and there’s better places to spend time and money.
CALLER: True. But here’s the thing. How do you know if you don’t go into these districts? How do you know?
RUSH: Well, you listen to your consultants who tell you. (Snort!)
CALLER: Consultants?
RUSH: (chuckling)
CALLER: I guarantee you they’re a bunch of old people.
RUSH: Like the guy that got Jeb Bush three delegates with a hundred million bucks.
CALLER: Listen, if the GOP wants to win… Look, Trump has shown you can win. You can!
RUSH: I agree with you.
CALLER: Republicans don’t go out!
RUSH: I agree. I think Trump is an excellent role model for all kinds of people that want to win things. I think there’s a… You know, in a sane world… In fact, let me pose a question. I’ve got 15 seconds before the break. Let me pose a question. After Trump, whenever it is, what kind of candidate will the next Republican nominee be? Let me hear what you think about that, in addition to whatever else that you want to talk about. Thank you, Kim.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Boy, I checked my email, and Kim calling from Virginia… Kim, you’ve got so many people echoing what you said. I’ve got people saying, “Rush, it’s happening in North Carolina. Everybody thinks North Carolina is red. It isn’t. We’re losing the state. The GOP isn’t anywhere to be found. The same thing is happening in North Carolina.” I heard this in three or four different emails here.
Somebody said, “People in Virginia said the same thing when Ken Cuccinelli lost when he ran for governor. They said the GOP did absolutely nothing to try to elect him.” Who was the last Republican governor of Virginia? Do you remember the guy’s name? (interruption) He was kicked out in a gigantic scandal for which the Clintons have been paid handsomely. He and his wife got caught up in something. Bob something. Not Bob. See? We don’t even remember his name.
It was just ten years ago, five years or so ago. It was a guy before The Punk. They had Terry McAuliffe and then Ralph Northam in blackface move into the statehouse. (interruption) Bob McDermott! That’s it. Is it McDer…? (interruption) Bob McDonnell. He was a Mc something, Bob McSomething. He got thrown out of there some sort of scandal involving him and his wife. Meanwhile, the king… (interruption) What? Taking…? (interruption) Oh, yeah, taking gifts.
Yeah, we looked the other way at the Corvette. (I made that up. He didn’t get a Corvette. They were giving little chintzy little gifts out there. He was taking the things.) That’s the last Republican governor. But, anyway, my email’s being overrun with people echoing the last call. Here’s Anthony in Sarasota, Florida. Hi, Anthony. Great to have you with us, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, thank you, Mr. Limbaugh. Millennial Trump voter right here.
RUSH: Well, welcome. Great to have you here!
CALLER: Well, thank you for having me on. I’ve listened to you for nonstop for, I’d say, since a few days before Trump got elected and just haven’t stopped since. So —
RUSH: I really appreciate that. Thank you so much.
CALLER: Absolutely. So I don’t want the Republicans to panic, the people that listen to your show to panic, because you gotta… I was looking at the numbers, right? ‘Cause I’m, like… I’ve learned to think like you where you don’t just read something and then react. So Bevin was actually ranked the worst governor in the United States. Also, Daniel Cameron who was an African-American attorney general who just won, got 820,000 votes, compared to Bevin, 704,000 votes.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: That is a majorly flawed candidate for governor. So the Republicans are still there, but if they don’t like you, you’re not getting in.
RUSH: Okay. So how would you explain that Trump goes in there Monday — big rally, overflowing like every Trump rally. He brought Bevin up to the stage. Bevin had an, oh, five-minute appearance. They didn’t give him a whole lot of time, but he came up there and most of the time… I watched it. Most of the time Bevin was talking was in praise of Trump. Trump clearly went in there to help Bevin, and it got him, I’m sure, a lot more votes than he otherwise would have had, but it wasn’t enough to push him over the top. So what do you make of that?
CALLER: Well, I mean… So I’m not from Kentucky. I’m from Florida. But the guy just didn’t have the appeal. I think that he got in some issues with the teachers’ union who went after him, and then I think… I’ve heard a lot of things that you had said earlier about how he’s pretty arrogant and not a likable guy. If you have Trump come in and say, “Hey, we’re in a runoff. I mean, this is 5,000 votes apart,” you never know. The Democrats love to register dead people. So you don’t know how this is gonna end. But my last point that I want to make so I can continue to listen to you is that, man, us Republicans are so racist that we… I guess we voted for a black attorney general in Kentucky, right?
RUSH: You know, I’m glad you bring that up. You’re a Millennial so you’re in your early thirties, late twenties?
CALLER: I’m 30.
RUSH: It’s a frustrating thing, because despite all of the evidence that Republicans are not racist — and you just cited the attorney general winning by a tremendous number of votes in Kentucky, an African-American. How many Republicans voted for Obama in 2008? He wouldn’t have been elected president if a bunch of ’em hadn’t. But, anyway, the point is — and I’m sharing with you the benefit of 30 years of doing this program. I’m now 68, and there isn’t any evidence that will change their minds.
If you’re talking about Democrats and leftists — liberals — who think we’re racist, there’s nothing you can do to change their mind. You can show them however many black people that you’ve supported, how many you voted for, how much assistance you have given to legislation that would promote interests of African-Americans. Nothing, nothing, nothing will change their mind. People are actually starting to pull their hair out about it now — about why this is — because it’s irrational.
This is an irrational belief that every Republican is a Klansman, is a white supremacist — because that’s where we are right now. So you cite the example, “Well, look at Kentucky: Republicans just elected almost by record numbers an African-American attorney general first time,” and it won’t matter. It will not permeate. I’m just warning, be prepared to have your own common sense shocked repeatedly as you grow older because it’s gonna continue to mystify you.
CALLER: Well, thank you for having me.
RUSH: You bet. I’m glad you’re out there, and I want you to stay. I want to share with you a tweet I got last night. It was not a tweet. It was a copy-and-paste job of a tweet. Don’t mistake… I was not on Twitter. (interruption) Some…? (interruption) That’s right. No, no, no, I’m not on Twitter. We got a Twitter page and we post some things there, but I don’t do it. No. I am not a tweeter. But I did get a tweet that was copied to me, and I’m not gonna mention the name of who it is because I don’t have permission to do that.
I just want to read it to you in its entirety. “First, Bevin’s loss isn’t Trump’s fault or a GOP problem, it’s a Matt Bevin problem. Look at any of the downballot races. Bevin is the *only* Republican to lose. Cameron won AG by 16.” This is the African-American Republican. He won attorney general “by 16 [points] over a former Dem AG. Ball won by 20 points.” “But Bevin has always been an arrogant jerk who came from the Northeast and settled in Louisville.
“He clearly has a savior complex, imagining he’s the man sent to save the beknighted hillbillies” of Kentucky. “Other than having a Democrat as governor, no one in the Kentucky GOP is going to be sorry to see Bevin go. Certainly not [The Turtle] who Bevin once primaried and would never endorse [The Turtle] after losing to him. Matt Bevin will be a friendless man.” “I’m sorry to see Andy Beshear,” the Democrat, become the governor, “but if that’s the price to pay to rid the Kentucky GOP of Matt Bevin it may be worth it.”
I got this last night around 10 o’clock when it was — 9:41 when this thing came in last night. (interruption) That’s pretty –(interruption) No, no, no. It doesn’t explain — (interruption) Well, that was Virginia. This is Kentucky. Thirty seats unopposed in Virginia. This is Kentucky. Kentucky was a Republican sweep, but don’t turn on CNN. You will not see that. You’ll see Kentucky as a Trump loss and as an indicator that Trump is gonna lose the presidency. That’s what Kentucky is today. Virginia is more of the same.
Since I brought it up, let me find this piece. I’ve quoted it three or four times. I told you I wasn’t gonna get into it ’cause it’s four pages, but now I’ve kind of obligated myself to since I’ve referenced it so many times here. Let me take a break. I gotta do that now. It’s this piece by Karin, K-a-r-i-n, Karin McQuillan, American Greatness, “How Did Democrats Get Here?” You’ll find it interesting.
You’ll find it interesting.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So I have this here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, and it does print out to four pages. I’m not gonna read the whole thing, don’t worry. American Greatness. “Democrats’ Embrace of Thuggery Over Democracy is Not Normal.” That’s the subhead. The title of the column is, “How Did Democrats Get Here?” It’s by Karin McQuillan.
And what this piece is — and it’s very good. It is a good recitation of all the reasons Donald Trump is not to blame for the left derangement. This piece proves and demonstrates that the left has been deranged long before Trump showed up. And then she finds what she thinks is the real reason the left has gone literally thug crazy, and it’s Charlottesville with Trump saying they think that there were good people on both sides. They literally believed, because the media lied about it, that Trump says Nazis and white supremacists are good people.
He didn’t say it. He didn’t even come close to saying it. It’s akin to “hands up, don’t shoot.” That was a totally made up meme or narrative. But you’ll notice that Plugs does bring up Charlottesville constantly on the campaign trail. And now we may know why. Years and years of calling Republicans racist hit the mark with the distortion of the Charlottesville story.
Now, the author here believes that moderate Democrats, moderate Democrats think that you and I and Trump, of course, are white supremacists, racist Klan members, and nothing will convince them it isn’t true. That’s her belief. She arrives at that with some anecdotal, talking to neighbors of hers, talking to Democrats, and this is what they’re telling her. Here’s a series of pull quotes from the piece.
“There is nothing so terrible about President Trump that he can’t be treated fairly and rationally by the press and his opponents. Derangement is a choice. It is a strategy. It is true that President Trump often breaks norms of how politicians talk. He is rude. He does troll his opponents and purposely make them lose control. At the same time, his policies and his achievements are centrist; they would have been acceptable if a President Clinton proposed them.”
This is a point that needs to made over and over again. It applies not only to moderate Democrats, it applies particularly to the Never Trumper conservatives. Never Trump conservative intellectuals are watching pretty much everything they have believed in their whole lives be implemented, and they can’t stand it because it’s Trump doing it. So tell me how important has this stuff actually been to them?
Everything they’ve devoted their lives to is being implemented, and they hate it, and they’re miserable, and they’re deranged and angry. These are conservatives. We move over and talk about leftist Democrats, and it’s psychological.
“Trump is obnoxious to his political opponents, but he is also warm, charming, and funny. He is loving and protective towards ordinary Americans of all colors, genders and sexual preferences, new citizens and old. He has off-the-charts common sense and patriotism, and plain speaking. … The Democrat Party has veered far left very fast, without any pushback from within the party.”
This is another interesting thing to me that as the Democrats have moved radical thug left, there hasn’t been anybody in that party, maybe with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, speak out against it. Nobody. “Their voters have turned, seemingly overnight, from normal American citizens to a deranged mob after Trump’s blood. This weird transformation is normalized by blaming it on Trump.”
In other words, deranged, delusional, insane behavior is said to be normal because Trump is causing it. The shock of his victory sent people over the edge. It’s totally understandable why they’re losing their minds, it’s because of Trump. “A moment’s reflection shows how superficial that derangement explanation is.”
“There is nothing in what Trump has done as president that explains the unconstitutional attacks against him. It is the reverse — the attempt to frame and entrap President Trump and his team as traitors with Russia, was begun by the Obama DOJ, FBI, CIA and White House before his inauguration. It was the Obama Administration’s actions that necessitated the all-out attempt to delegitimize President Trump before he could expose them. President Trump did nothing to provoke the Obama intelligence community framing him as a Russian traitor.”
No, in the real world, Trump did nothing. What he did was win. And he did say that he didn’t think he needed to meet with the intel guys every day because he’s smart and has a good memory. “Ordinary Democrats’ extreme hatred of Trump and his supporters is far from normal.
“Insisting we enforce immigration laws on the books is not the second coming of Hitler. Democrats genuinely believe it is. They talk themselves into nonsense, while Trump is gains popularity among Hispanic voters (who made up 30 percent of the audience at his rally in New Mexico).”
So this guy who is the reenactment of Adolf Hitler is making his victims his biggest fans? It doesn’t make any sense. “The fact that Presidents Clinton and Obama both urged securing our borders makes no difference. When Trump obeys American law, he is evil.”
You know what this means? Really she’s amazed that the hypocrisy of the Democrats does not stick to them. She says, “I asked a neighbor, a Democrat moderate, why he hated President Trump. His answer: Charlottesville. The idea that Trump praised neo-Nazis after Charlottesville is an outright lie about what the president said. It is easily rebutted by the videos and transcripts. … My neighbor ‘knows’ Republicans are racists and nothing will shake that belief.”
And yet they criticize Trump voters as claiming nothing will ever convince them to abandon him.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Jamestown, Tennessee. Robert, great to have you. I’m glad you’re patient. Hello.
CALLER: Good afternoon, Mr. Limbaugh, and thank you for taking my call. I think at this point from watching all these impeachment proceedings, we have to say to ourselves and be honest with ourselves that the Republican Party are the reason Mr. Trump’s in this position. I mean, they basically surrendered the House of Representatives to the Democrats in order to get these proceedings underway and not take blame for it.
You see them today where everybody’s saying how they’ve surrendered Virginia, and we both know that they pretty much surrender Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, and those 53 electoral votes by allowing illegals to enter the country illegally. So how we can sit and say they’re not complicit any longer… I mean, there aren’t any hearings any longer where any of us can see where they’re looking into any of the collusion and stuff that went on with the —
RUSH: That’s right. The Senate is not conducting one hearing about any of that. Lindsey Graham promised he was gonna have some hearings; they have yet to happen. So let me just make sure I understand. You think that there were 55 Republicans that announced their retirements prior to the 18 midterms, and it was largely (they said) because they were committee chairmen. They were losing them, being term limited out of their chairmanships and they didn’t want to go back to being a backbencher so they just quit. You think that some of this might have been the Republicans purposely losing the House, knowing the Democrats would impeach because that’s what they — the Republicans — wanted to happen?
RUSH: Beyond any shadow of a doubt. How else…? I mean, they can’t stand Trump. What’s the better way to undermine the American people than take out guy that they voted for? They’re not on our side, Mr. Limbaugh, at all. So this way they can claim, “Hey, we had no responsibility for that.” I mean, why would somebody give up a $200,000 job where they do nothing? They only report to work once a month!
RUSH: Well, because the $200,000 job becomes a $2 million endowment when you retire.
CALLER: I just see them surrendering states. Once they… My concern is Texas, and they surrendered Texas, Mr. Limbaugh. You know the answer to that one. You’ve taught me this.
RUSH: Well, I know. Texas is turning. On the border counties, it’s turning purple. I sounded the warning bells, and there are Republicans in Texas — there’s a bunch of ’em — that have announced they are retiring and not running again in 2020. So you think this is purposeful? You think this is Republicans who hate Trump?
CALLER: There is no difference, sir! You taught me how to read the grain in this green, and that ball is breaking to the left, man.
RUSH: Well (laughing), it is breaking to the left. That’s an interesting theory, Robert. I don’t know how we would ever establish it, short of actual (sigh) admissions of such things by people. Look, we do know that Paul Ryan was not the only Republican member of Congress that didn’t like Trump. We know that Paul Ryan was not the only one who regretted Trump winning. We also know… Well, let’s remember.
Let me remind you: In 2016, the Republicans didn’t think Trump was gonna win. They were all prepared to lose with honor and dignity. They were prepared to be the minority. They were prepared to continue to provide whatever opposition to Hillary — just enough to keep the campaign donations coming in — and everybody was turned upside down when Trump won.