RUSH: Why are the Democrats imploding? I was watching today before the busy broadcast began, and I was watching some people literally surprised that Joe Biden has crashed and burned in New Hampshire.
I said, “Where have you been?” How can anybody be surprised that Biden was not gonna be the nominee? How can anybody be surprised that Biden was gonna — he’s been collapsed. He’s been “stick a fork in him” for months now. “But, Rush, the poll data.” Screw that. The polls were for another reason. Plugs, what, fifth place in Iowa if anybody even knows. He’s pulled up stakes. The bus broke down yesterday!
You want a microcosm? The Plugs bus broke down! It was a symbol. The Plugs campaign was never going to get to the nomination. But because these people live and die by their own polls, they believed Plugs was the guy, Plugs was the leader, Plugs was leading the pack, and Crazy Bernie was having trouble making up ground. So now people are expressing surprise at the total collapse of the Biden campaign. He’s pulled up stakes and is already on the way to South Carolina.
Plugs’ problem… The same thing happened to Plugs that happened to Howard Dean. These guys need to stop talking about me. They think when they talk about me that it’s gonna ignite their audiences and get all kinds of support, and it ends up wiping them out. I have proof of this coming up. Audio sound bites. You’ll see what I’m talking about in just a second. But it’s not just Plugs. Why are the Democrats imploding?”
Here is a headline from the Daily Beast, and the writer is Michael Tomasky or Tomasky. I’m not sure how he pronounces it. He’s a well-known leftist writer, highly respected. Headline: “They’re Voting in New Hampshire, But This Democrat,” meaning himself, Tomasky, “Just Wants to Jump Off a Bridge — New Hampshire is voting.
“I remember when this used to be an exciting day. Even if my candidate didn’t win, which he … usually didn’t, I loved both the reliable rituals and the unexpected little accidents. … Well, it’s not exciting now. It’s depressing. I’m depressed. Almost everybody I know, every Democrat anyway, is depressed. It’s a mess. Iowa was a [crap]show and shouldn’t be first anyway.”
Don’t you love that, by the way, now? (chuckling) These people hate the Midwest anyway but have always fallen in for the Hawkeye Cauci. Now the Democrats can’t even run their own caucus without the Russians coming in and screwing that up. So now they want to cancel the Hawkeye Cauci. So now they’re even being honest about how they feel. They don’t like you in Iowa and they never really have. “New Hampshire shouldn’t be second,” said Mr. Tomasky, “it’s totally preposterous.”
Iowa? New Hampshire?
The first two states?
What are we doing?
“[Y]et the party lacks the stones to tell these self-important, second-tier states to go stuff it.” So now because there’s not a single Democrat lighting it up aside from Crazy Bernie and maybe Mayor Pete — but more on him in a moment, too. Now all of a sudden with the frustration… These people… You gotta understand, they’ve been lying to themselves for going on four years now that everybody hated Trump, that Trump somehow got elected with a quirk of fate that did not include a genuine Electoral College majority.
The Russians or something! But everybody hates Trump. Trump was going down. Trump was gonna lose in a landslide. They had themselves convinced even before they started the Russia business and then the impeachment business, they were convinced folks. I’ve told you: They were lying to themselves through and through. The reality is hitting them. That’s what this Tomasky piece is about and all these others.
The reality is hitting them that they can’t beat Trump. Not as things look at this moment, in a snapshot today, with their candidates and with their campaign. So now, everything in the system…. This is typical of the left. Since they’re not gonna win, all of a sudden, the Hawkeye Cauci suck — and New Hampshire? What the hell is New Hampshire doing being number two? That shouldn’t happen, either!
So all of this frustration is now boiling over and effervescing out of the pot. This guy says here, “The candidates don’t look like winners. The party looks like it might be headed toward a face-off between a billionaire and a man who wants to ban billionaires, neither of them really Democrats.” That’d be Crazy Bernie and Doomberg. His last line here: “And Donald Trump is going to be reelected.” So why are they imploding?
They are imploding for a host of reasons, but among them is they are offering solutions to problems that don’t exist. They’re trying to create problems that we don’t have anymore because we’ve got Trump, because we’ve instituted market economics, because we have a foundation of conservatism here that is being implemented, policy after policy after policy. So they’re having to invent these problems that they have, in fact, created over the years so that they can offer solutions to them.
The Democrats do not offer solutions to the people who make the country work. The Democrats offer solutions for authoritarian, elected Democrats and unelected bureaucrats and themselves. The Democrats are all about establishing a way of life for themselves, not for the people, not for the country. I mean, Democrats right now want to dump a phenomenal economic model. They want to destroy the engine that has produced the strongest economy in 50 years and maybe longer than that.
And with what? They want to replace it with an economic model that fails every time it’s tried. So that they can have problems that they claim only they have the solutions to. Well, that’s their problem, not ours. They are unhappy with a Constitution that has created the greatest country that has ever existed. That’s their problem, not ours. “Ninety Percent of Americans Are Satisfied with Their Lives.” Ninety percent!” That’s an unheard of number in a record high.
For a couple of generations. Ninety percent of Americans are very satisfied with their lives, and you’re trying to get rid of the administration and the policies that have created this? So what would you do? If you wanted to replace all this, what would you do? I don’t know what, but it certainly wouldn’t be the way the Democrats are going about it. It makes perfect sense they are imploding.
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RUSH: Look at the Democrats’ pattern. They don’t win the Electoral College in Trump versus Hillary, so what? Ban the Electoral College. Now they don’t like the Hawkeye Cauci ’cause they couldn’t even count the votes. Gonna ban the Hawkeye Cauci. And now they don’t like the fact that nobody’s looking good in New Hampshire, so let’s ban New Hampshire.
It’s never them. It’s always the system. It’s always the plan, it’s always the mechanism that is at fault. It’s never them. It couldn’t be that they’ve nominated in what they thought was the most fertile ground to win the White House ever: universal hatred of Donald Trump. This is what they’ve believed. And they can’t find anybody to capitalize on that. Nobody to capitalize. They thought they could, but they can’t find anybody.
Why can’t they? Because Donald Trump is not universally hated. They continue to live this illusion, and to me it’s humorous to watch. We’ve got a montage here. It’s not just me saying this. Last week, the Friday debate, the Drive-By Media becoming more and more convinced the Democrats cannot beat Trump.
JONATHAN KARL: I don’t think there was anybody, based on tonight’s performance, that has the Trump campaign quaking in their boots.
MARTHA RADDATZ: Did anyone prove they could beat Donald Trump tonight?
BYRON PITTS: Frankly, I don’t think anyone did a great job of it.
CECILIA VEGA: The Democrats are still struggling.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Among the current crop of candidates there’s a fear that there may not be the ability to take down Donald Trump.
WILLIE GEIST: Yeah, you hear it time and again.
DAVID AXELROD: If you were Donald Trump and watching this debate, how would you feel about it? Because my guess is, he would feel fine about it.
JEN PSAKI: It’s a little scary. Democrats should be a little frightened after this.
BILL MAHER: If they can’t get their act together, soon, it’s going to be over before it begins.
JAMES CARVILLE: If we go the way of the British Labor Party, if we nominate Jeremy Corbyn, it’s going to be the end of days. I am scared to death, I really am.
RUSH: That was James Carville there. He’s going on 75 years of age, and he said, “If we go the way of the Labor Party, if we nominate Jeremy Corbyn, it’s gonna be the end of days,” I’d be out of my gumbo. And he’s scared to death. He’s scared to death. He thinks the party is on the way to becoming a cult. He doesn’t like Crazy Bernie. He just has no use for – James, you know I know you, buddy, known you and your wife a long time. James is one of these Democrats who’s living in a bygone era. He thinks this is still the Democrat Party of the Clinton era, and it isn’t.
This is a far-left-wing, radical, revolution-based party. That is the base of the Democrat Party. I think he knows it. I think it’s what actually scares him. It is trending here for a secure minority position.
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RUSH: Let’s get started on the phones. We always try to do that in the first hour. Loves Park, Illinois. Rich. Where is Loves Park, Illinois?
CALLER: So it’s located about 90 miles west of Chicago, north of Rockford, Illinois.
RUSH: I wonder… I never knew. I missed this. I can’t believe it.
CALLER: It’s very small.
RUSH: Okay. It’s great to know where it is. What’s up? What’s happening?
CALLER: So my thought is, Rush, I think at this point the Democrats have realized they don’t have a candidate that can beat Trump. So I think they’re gonna get behind Buttigieg with the idea that, if he loses, when he loses (’cause he will), that they can then have a built-in excuse that the country’s not ready for an openly gay candidate and the Republicans are homophobes. So they can’t get behind him because of that. So I think they’re going to push for him because of the built-in excuse when they lose — ’cause all the candidates will lose against Trump — that we’re not ready for an openly gay president.
RUSH: Well, I can understand your thinking. That’s, in fact — based on history and the study of Democrats — a very sensible, logical theory to explain why they might nominate somebody who could lose. Like in 1984, they nominated Walter Mondale. They knew Reagan was gonna win a landslide reelection. So they didn’t want to sacrifice somebody they really thought could win the presidency someday. So they let Mondull have it. Mondull had been a loyal war horse for all of his life, Minnesota DFL, and he had been vice president of Jimmy Carter. So if any Democrat was gonna get shellacked and have their career ended, let it be Mondull.
CALLER: Mmm.
RUSH: Now, in this you’re thinking — you’re your stated theory is — that the Democrats would love to be able to win by losing, by claiming they only lost because America is homophobic. Republican voters are still anti-gay, anti-tranny, what have you, and so forth. (sigh) I’m not… I don’t know that this is what is the active thinking.
There might be some Democrats thinking this. But Mayor Pete is not gonna allow himself to be used this way. Mayor Pete is not gonna say, “You want me to lose on purpose so you guys can claim that the country hates people like me?” He’s gonna have play along with this, and the problem with this theory is… I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, folks, but I have because I see the stitches on the fastball.
The thing you gotta remember here, whether you can see it for yourself or not, is this party and whoever it is running it — take your pick — they do not want Bernie Sanders anywhere near this nomination. And it’s not because they’re afraid he’s gonna win. It’s because they’re afraid he’s going to lose and redefine the party as a cult and end its dominance forever. They’re looking for anybody to take this away.
It was gonna be Fauxcahontas, and she’s fading away. I mean, she ought to be mopping the floor in New Hampshire. I mean, that’s just, you know, a couple tepees away from where she was teaching as a phony Indian at Harvard. No, I’m telling you, the savior, the one… If you read between the lines, the one they’re now claiming could be the answer to all their problems is Amy Klobuchar. Don’t doubt me.
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RUSH: Now, let me expand on this Klobuchar business, ’cause I didn’t mean to leave a hanging chad there. Jim Geraghty, who writes for National Review Online, had an interesting piece recently. He made the point — it’s a piece that attempts to illustrate the similarities in the 2016 Republican primaries and the 2020 Democrat primaries.
And his point about the 2016 primaries was that all of the Republicans hated Trump. There were 16 candidates, 15 of them plus Trump. They all hated Trump, they all thought they could beat Trump. Nobody thought Trump could win. And yet Trump wins. Geraghty’s point is, if they had coalesced behind just one of them, if 14 of those Republicans had agreed to coalesce behind just one Republican so that it was Trump versus one — whoever — Jeb, Ted Cruz, take your pick — that Trump might have been beatable in the nomination.
But as it was, none of these Republicans cared enough about beating Trump to give up their own quest. And so the anti-Trump vote remained divided. Now, there’s nothing unique about it. This happens in every primary. But it still is an interesting phenomenon to discuss because there were so many Republicans running in 2016.
They thought after two years of Obama, it’s wide open for us, and anybody who ever dreamed of being president on the Republican side thought they had a chance. And not one of them ever stopped to think somebody like Donald Trump was gonna get in. When Trump did, it just blew everything up.
And it illustrated that, despite everybody talking about how bad Trump was and how necessary it was to stop Trump, they really didn’t do what was necessary to stop Trump. They didn’t pick one of them and unite behind that person and then go defeat Trump.
By the same token, that’s practically the same thing happening here in 2020 with the Democrats. They all hate Trump. Trump’s gotta be stopped. But none of them are giving up the individual quest. And if they did, if, for example, it could be done, if they could persuade a bunch of these Democrats to give up and coalesce behind one nominee, then maybe that could present some sort of face of unity and definition of the party and so forth. But it isn’t gonna happen.
But I think this is what the Klobuchar — I don’t want to say candidate — I think an attempt is gonna be made to make this happen or effectively happen with Klobuchar, but it isn’t gonna work simply because nobody’s gonna talk Mayor Pete into quitting and uniting behind her. Nobody’s gonna talk about Crazy Bernie into it. Nobody’s gonna talk Fauxcahontas into it and Biden, of course.
It still is an interesting point to make, that Klobuchar is now seen in this sea of whatever as the one who is reasonable and representative of mainstream American values with the best shot, according to her supporters, of defeating Trump. I think that’s a long shot. I think people on the left and the Democrat Party are caught in so many illusions and delusions, and they’re so divorced from reality that I don’t think they have the ability to actively strategize victory.
I’m not saying victory can’t happen to them because, folks, anything can happen tomorrow or the next day that can totally upend what everybody thinks is gonna happen. And predictions are made without factoring those things, because you can’t. And that’s why polling data this far out really doesn’t tell you anything about the end result, and it doesn’t tell you anything really about the current day thinking ’cause you don’t know how true it is.
So it becomes the equivalent of watching a horse race and trying to pick the winner after the first turn. You just can’t do it. Let me give you an example. Let me give you an example of the delusion. Here is Chuck You Schumer. Guess what? You know, Trump’s announced the FY ’21 budget, fiscal year ’21 budget. So right on time Pelosi and Schumer had a press conference today to do what? To say they don’t like it, to say they disagree with it. Pro forma, nothing new, nothing shocking. But here is what Chuck Schumer said at that press conference.
SCHUMER: Primaries are primaries and there’re always lots of sturm and drang. You will see in a few months Democrats will be strongly united together, and we will be focused like a laser on beating Donald Trump. The enthusiasm that you last saw in 2008 to elect Barack Obama, you will see among Democrats this summer and fall to get Donald Trump out of office.
RUSH: Okay. On what basis, Chuck You, are you making this prediction? Because I hate to tell you, there isn’t an Obama equivalent on your roster right now. And what was it about Obama that led to this magical turnout? It was race, combined with media success in driving up hatred for the Iraq war and hatred for the Bush administration and hatred for everything – an imaginary recession that had not happened.
But the magic of the first African-American president, what are we gonna do to recreate that? You can’t. I mean, been there, done that. So are we gonna have the first Hispanic? No. We gonna have the first female? That was gonna be Hillary. You have to kind of say that that kind of has been lost since she blew it. I will guarantee you this, had Hillary Clinton been president, the reaction, “Oh, my God. First female president.” If Klobuchar would ever be elected president, she’s gonna get nowhere near the acclaim as the first female President Hillary Clinton would have got. So that’s even been lost.
So where is this magical, Obama-like turnout gonna come from? Well, according to Schumer, it’s gonna come from Trump hatred. All right. So where was it in Iowa last week? Where was it? Do you know how disappointing the Hawkeye Cauci turnout was? Forget the fact they can’t count the votes. Forget the fact that they don’t even know how to caucus anymore and how to count ’em. The turnout was dismal.
And I watched it. I watched all the Drive-By Media go to all the diners — by the way, have you seen enough interviews of people eating pancakes and French fries at diners? I don’t know. The Drive-Bys have picked these people out and they hate Trump. Oh, they gotta get rid of Trump, we just hate him. So we were told, we were prepped for massive enthusiasm on the Democrat side, massive, bursting at the seams can’t wait to get out there and vote to get rid of Trump. And then what happened on caucus night? Crickets.
Meanwhile, Trump’s got his own caucuses going for the fun of it. He’s not even contested, doesn’t even have to do it, draws more people to his caucuses than the Democrats. So now, Mr. Snerdley, are you paying attention? Are we getting any reports of turnout yet in New Hampshire today? (interruption) Really? What is it now — don’t you think that if the turnout in New Hampshire was in fact overwhelming, we would have gotten little hints about it? Don’t you know the Drive-Bys can’t wait to tell that story?
Meanwhile, Trump goes to New Hampshire, draws a bigger crowd than all the Democrat rallies combined, and here’s Chuck You Schumer saying, “Doesn’t matter what’s happening now. You wait ’til the convention. You wait ’til November. We’re gonna have a bigger turnout than we had in 2008.” If you’re counting on Trump hatred to propel that turnout, you haven’t learned a thing.
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RUSH: Well, I don’t know what the exit poll data is, meaning I don’t know what the release schedule is on the exit poll data from New Hampshire. But it must already be out, Mr. Snerdley, because depending on which network you tune to, it doesn’t matter. The winner tonight, Bernie Sanders. The big loser tonight, Joe Biden. That’s the takeaway. Big winner tonight, Crazy Bernie.
Some people are saying the reason Crazy Bernie’s gonna win is cause he had a rally that drew 7,500 people last night. He had Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and he also had some musical group and probably some free hemp being passed around. But whatever, now all of a sudden crowd size matters at Democrat events. (interruption) Oh, well, if Crazy Bernie wins the nomination – they are not going to let it happen. This is the thing.
He could have. If the DNC had stayed out of it in 2016, I’m convinced he would have beaten her. She was never the preferred candidate of that party. She never had any enthusiasm. That whole thing was a setup. It was baked in. It was supposed to be her in 2008, then Obama decides he wants it and they couldn’t say “no.” So she got shoved aside. She’s the most cheated-on woman in America.
The Democrats blew her off and then said, “We’ll give it to you back in 2016.” And they said, “You could really have it now because anybody can beat Trump, even you. We’re gonna give it to you the year you can’t possibly lose, Hillary,” and yet she managed to lose. (interruption) What do you mean, if they can’t rig it so that he loses this time? (interruption) Ah, you’re forgetting the Russians. You’re forgetting that the Democrats have an in with the Russians. It isn’t Trump. Democrats can call on the Russians to do anything they need to do to sabotage the Crazy Bernie campaign.
I just don’t think that they’re gonna let Crazy Bernie win this. And either way, if he does or if they succeed in sabotaging him again, either way it’s just going to be one of the best shows on earth to sit here and watch.
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RUSH: This is Tanya. Tanya is in Atlanta. It’s great to have you. I’m glad you waited. Hi.
CALLER: Rush, how are you?
RUSH: Good. Thank you.
CALLER: Thank you for taking my call. First thing is congrats on the Medal of Freedom. Well deserved. My comment is, you know, I watched these debates just to see how bad they’re gonna be, and I can’t figure out how people would actually vote for Bernie Sanders, how he could be the leading candidate for the Democrat Party. And then I’m thinking, “Well, I should know why, because I’ve seen what’s taught to my daughter in school: A progressive, anti-American, untrue history, socialist mind-set.” So now they’re creating, you know, generations of this kind of mind-set.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: How does the Democratic Party merge back together? I don’t even know if they can at this point. That’s my question.
RUSH: Oh, who was it? When they asked, is anybody afraid of socialism, wasn’t Klobuchar the only one who raised her hand?
CALLER: Right. She’s the only one, and I thought to myself, “I know somebody else wants to raise their hand, but they won’t do it. They just won’t do it. I thought, “Biden’s gotta want to raise his hand,” but he didn’t do it.
RUSH: I’m not… Look, you couldn’t even convince me that Biden understood the question.
CALLER: True. (laughing)
RUSH: I’m not even trying to be snarky or funny. I just don’t think Joe Biden has belonged in this thing since the beginning, and whoever decided… I know he did, in part, but it’s really been a disservice to him, and it’s for somebody else’s agenda or reason that they put him up there, and I think part of it is this quest to stop Bernie Sanders. Look, make no mistake.
I don’t care what you hear out of James Carville. He’s 75, and he isn’t the Democrat Party anymore. The Democrat Party is a socialist leftist party, because that’s what their base is. That’s what they must be to hold their base. A party is what its base is. This is what Carville knows. This is what Chris Matthews knows. This is what bugs ’em. They have lost their old party.
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CNN — I was talking about this just today. The man-on-the-street interviews trying to gauge public opinion, yada yada yada. They went out, they talked to 100 New Hampshire Democrats. They couldn’t find a single Biden voter.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ: So we are at ward one in Dover. They’re averaging about 150 voters an hour here. That would put them at about 2016 level, but not 2008 when Barack Obama was running and there was great Democratic enthusiasm.
RUSH: Uh-oh.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ: I’ve been doing my own sort of unofficial exit poll as voters leave here. This is a very liberal area of New Hampshire, most people supporting Bernie Sanders. A lot of people, number two, saying Pete Buttigieg they like. Amy Klobuchar, interestingly enough, a lot of people say they’ve come around to her since her performance in the debate last week. And then Elizabeth Warren rounding all that out. Most surprising here is that of all the voters I’ve talked to, and we’re talking probably upwards of 100 right now, not a single one saying they support Joe Biden
RUSH: Not a single one in 100 interviews say they are supporting Joe Biden. So Snerdley, we’ll concede here that the big winner tonight’s gonna be Crazy Bernie. Who’s gonna come in number 2, do you think? (interruption) You think Buttigieg is gonna come in number second, Mr. Pete gonna come in, Mayor Pete gonna come in number 2? Okay, we’ll see. You know what? Just to be different, just to be unique, I’ll say that Klobuchar will come in second. We’ll just see. We’ll find out.
Here’s Todd in Herriman, Utah. You’re next, sir. Great to have you with us. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Good day, sir. I’m a first-time caller. My wife and I love you very much, and we love your show.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I’ve had a question for a long time that I’ve never heard anybody ask and I’ve never heard an answer to, but it’s been something I wondered. Back when Obama was president, we would get and hear the jobs numbers come through and then shortly thereafter we would hear those numbers rounded down or changed dramatically. We haven’t heard that — or I haven’t heard that with President Trump either way, up or down. We just hear the job numbers and they seem to stay where they were. Why does that happen, and is it happening now?
RUSH: Well, it’s because of the way the reporting agencies report. In the Obama administration they’d report the original numbers and have to revise them down because they always inflated ’em. It’s just who they were. Trump unemployment numbers, they don’t have to be revised. They’re solid and good. They continue to shock people.
What is subject to revision are the Trump GDP numbers. Those numbers have been revised downwards slightly. But Trump’s unemployment numbers have been pretty solid, and it’s interesting, nobody’s arguing about them even on the left.