BRETT: You can’t go a couple of miles without looking at folks who are out there across this country desperately working hard and trying to make sure this country continues to succeed. I see so many people around my area — and, more broadly, this part of the country — who are busily going about their days.

Much of the lockdowns and the shutdowns where we are here have been lifted. But I know in many other places, it’s still sort of aspirational. We know that the intent is to lift the lockdowns — the covid lockdowns in New York — at some point so that people can get back to the business of being robbed and assaulted on the streets of Bill de Blasio’s metropolis.

But the reality is, people really do want to work, and why is it that people want to work? It’s because they feel called to do it, but they also feel this inner desire and burning and yearning to provide for their families. It’s why you get up every day with that alarm clock while it’s dark outside and you start working and providing for your family and for your loved ones.

Well, if you think about that piece that we were referencing in the beginning of the program — this piece out of Zero Hedge talking about 34% of all household income in the United States is now being derived from the government — you’d be right to be worried about whether or not that American dream is gonna go away. Is it in danger? In fact, Rush talked about this, asking the question, “Have liberals succeeded in replacing the American dream with class envy?”

RUSH: “To the extent that half the people of the country think the American dream is dead, that means half the American people are being told it’s dead.” That means — and this is very sad. It means that way too many people are not being reminded by leaders of the greatness of this country. Thomas Sowell. Where is this? He has a great, great quote. Let me see if I can paraphrase it.

Well, I’m going to botch it if I paraphrase it. But it’s essentially how much ahead of the game you are being born in America and what a crime it is that so many people in this country do not understand that. Our leaders today — and by that I mean the Democrat Party, the American left from Obama on down — do nothing but attack the American people.

They beat us up every day. We get nothing but criticism from this administration and from the Democrat Party. We’re greedy, selfish. We consume too much energy. We have more than our fair share of everything from salt to food to trans-fats. We drive the wrong cars, we use the wrong kind of light bulbs, we don’t pay enough in taxes, we use too much health care.

The people who lead this country are dumping on us, the achievers in this country, each and every day — and blaming us, blaming you, blaming the achievers for all the problems not only in this country but in the world. So it’s totally understandable to me, but unacceptable, that half the people in this country think the American dream is dead when we don’t have political leaders extolling the whole concept of American exceptionalism anymore.

You know what I remember about the ’80s and the Reagan years? There’s one thing that stands out. Everybody… You who weren’t alive or who are too young don’t realize the misery of the late Seventies. I mean, it was as bad as it is today. It was horrible. Add gasoline lines, add all kinds of skyrocketing energy prices to everything else that was going on, to the incompetence of a peanut farmer in the White House. I mean, it was…

There was a misery index to describe it! Even our own president described the country as being in a malaise. It was bad. And there were people talking about the end of America’s salad days even then. Then Reagan got elected and there was immediately, even in the midst of a recession, the ’81-’82 recession, an immediate transformation. People all of a sudden were up and happy and were saying, “You know what?

“We’ve got to go through this. This is a much needed corrective measure, this economic mess that we’re in. Because a bunch of stuff has been going on that was fraudulent and phony; this connection has to happen.” And I remember, maybe it was… I don’t remember where it was, some television show. I don’t even remember who it was. But some people were analyzing, “Well, what has Reagan done for the country?”

I mean, the tax cuts had happened but they really hadn’t kicked in. The Reagan economic boom was just beginning but it hadn’t started. “What has Reagan done?” And the very simple answer: “He’s made people feel good about the country again.” Ronald Reagan made people feel good about their country again, made them proud to feel Americans. Is Obama making you proud to feel American? Is anybody in the Democratic Party making you proud of being an American? No! They’re blaming you!

You’re destroying the climate. You’re destroying the polar bear habitat. You are doing this, you’re doing that. You’re eating too much! You’re too fat! You’re driving the wrong kind of car. You don’t care enough about the disadvantaged. You’re a racist, you’re a sexist, you’re a bigot and you’re a homophobe — and half the people who hear this happen to agree with it.

Half the people are already down on themselves anyway, and so when Obama says, “We’re no longer going to be a country that leads the world economically,” people say, “Thank God. Now I don’t have to work hard.” So to the extent that we have economic stagnation in this country, it’s not just because of the destructive policies of this regime.

It’s because of their attitudes. It is their purpose. They are seeking to create this defeatist attitude. And the Democrats hated Reagan: “Oh, yeah. Reagan sees everything through rose-colored glasses. What Reagan sees is unreal. That’s not an America that can exist anymore.” Frankly, I’m fed up with this view of America that they have.

BRETT: It’s incredible. Point for point, it applies to where we are right now. After a year in this pandemic and in this government-created catastrophe of shutdown and lockdown, did you ever think…? Be honest, regardless of your political orientation. You can be a liberal; you can be conservative. Did you ever think there would be a time where people would be paid not to work to such an extent that they would refuse to then go to work?

I mean, we’ve been through disasters before. We’ve been through 9/11. We’ve been through the Great Depression. We’ve been through the malaise of the seventies, as Rush talked about. But, I mean, did you ever think the people would say, “You know what? I’m not going to work, ’cause I’m getting a really good check here from the government. I’m gonna take my stimulus money and I’m gonna take some time off and spend some time at home.”

What? And the people who are gonna save this country, you and me — and it’s gonna be some of the Millennials, a good portion of the Millennials. I don’t think they’re lost. Well, they have been certainly demoralized by a couple of meltdowns. It’s gonna be Gen Z, those kids born in ’95 and after into the early 2010s, because those are the kids that are college and high school kids that saw up close and personal the ravages of the post-economic meltdown collapse in 2008.

They saw the very good years, the four years of Trump, where the economy was on fire. The unemployment was 3%. You did not imagine that. I did not imagine that. The money in your pocket, you did not imagine that. The pride you felt, you did not imagine that. Across the spectrum, you did not imagine that. This was not a dream. What this was, was a catastrophe that struck our nation.

Now you have a person in the White House who is saying, “The only way forward is for me to open the Treasury to save you,” when the fundamentals of the businesses that were out there (that certainly suffered in the shutdown) are still there. People still know how to run businesses. People still know how to adapt. People still understand all of that. The American dream isn’t dead.

Joe Biden is attempting to push it into hiding, but it’s there. It’s there. I have a couple of young teenagers and child in college, and the two of them have found employment. When they went in for their interviews, what they effectively heard was, “We’re so glad you’re here. We’ve been desperate to hire. People don’t want to come out and work.”

Those kids, those teenagers, those young people, those are gonna be the people who are gonna be the next generation of capitalism. We need to support that. We need to encourage that. They have a sense of duty and a sense of worth, and they have a burning desire. You should remember that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

BRETT: Do you remember the good old days — well, not really the good old days. But do you remember during the Obama administration, the news media got creative with negative branding and oftentimes would call unemployment “fun-employment”? Do you remember this? This is incredible.

Fun-employment!

It would extol the virtues of being able to pick up that hobby you love or gonna spend more time with the family. Then when no one had any money, they praised “staycations.” No money to go to the amusement park or to go camping? Ah, just stay home and enjoy the peace and tranquility of your home!

Now the media is acknowledging what we all know, right? That Biden is a dinosaur. But that’s a good thing! You know, because he’s not, he’s not dram or scary or dangerous or any of that. This is an opinion piece over at CNN. “The best thing about President Joe Biden is that he’s old. And that means he can remember a time before — and not just before the rightward swing of former President Donald Trump or even the centrism of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.”

Ah, you know what I can tell from the writer of this? Who is this? This is Meg Jacobs, who teaches history at Princeton. It means she’s like a late-stage Millennial, because her grasp of history begins with Bill Clinton or maybe Ronald Reagan at best. I mean, this is what is so absurd, when you think about this.

Ah, you know, he can remember… He doesn’t just remember Donald Trump. He can remember other another time, a different time. That’s right. “He remembers a time before small-government proponent former President Ronald Reagan, when Democrats stood before the country and said unabashedly that a big and bold government was exactly what the country needed. And that makes Biden an old-fashioned, New Deal liberal in all of the best ways.”

You know, Rush remembered when we had “fun” unemployment.

RUSH: Back to the phones, Denville, New Jersey. This is Alan. Thank you for waiting, and welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Before when you were reading how Trump when he was encouraging people, you know, to pursue their interests, follow your dreams, do what interests you.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: It’s so selfish. Now it’s very selfish. It’s not proper to do. It made me recall years back under Obama’s presidency when there’s high unemployment, we were told… I don’t remember which person had said it. It might have been Pelosi. I’m not sure. But how it’s really good to be unemployed because people now have time to pursue their interests and the things they really like and it’s really good. It just made me think of that, and it just shot right back to my mind.

RUSH: What a great memory. What a great recall that is! You’re exactly right. Pelosi said that. It was Pelosi. She said something else. She said two things. They had a name for people losing their jobs rapidly, in the Obama administration: It was called “fun-employment.” Do you remember this?

CALLER: Yes. (groans)

RUSH: Pelosi and the Democrats said, “It’s a great opportunity to get back together with family, to reconnect with people you haven’t seen in a while. It’s a wonderful opportunity. You now have time to explore things that you haven’t had time for; it’s a great thing. With unemployment insurance, it’s a golden opportunity.”

You’re right, and then the next thing they said was (and it was specifically Pelosi), “Now you don’t have to do that job that you’ve hated all along. If you want to go out and paint watercolors in Golden Gate Park and try to sell ’em down in the Tenderloin, you can do it. You no longer have to be a prisoner, to a job that you don’t like.” You’re exactly right about that. What a great recall.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: It was all a way to mitigate the negative aspects of losing your gig.

CALLER: Right. Right. Yep. It’s funny how things change. The perspective changes; it depends on who’s in office.

RUSH: Right. Exactly. So now somebody at TheHill.com is saying it’s big mistake to follow your passions. Don’t do it! It’s selfish. When planning a career, plan a career of service. Plan a career of giving back to others. Following your passion is a very selfish thing to do, according to a liberal sociologist.

BRETT: Of course it is. Absolutely. Happiness is anathema to Big Government. If you’re happy, Big Government has to jump in there and figure out a way to make you less happy. You’re driving around, smiling, happy about your job, you like what you’re doing, you like your life, you like going to church, you like all that kind of stuff, and you run across… In all seriousness, if you run across a bureaucrat of any kind, they will immediately begin scowling at you.

“What are you happy about?” But my gosh. Could you imagine had the pendulum gone in a different way? Had we not had President Trump in office starting in 2017, had we had President Hillary Clinton in office in 2017 and for the four years? If you had had Hillary Clinton in there and the pandemic had hit?

She would have probably tried to use that same sales pitch that Pelosi used about the idea of, “Well, you know, I know the economy’s shut down. We’re gonna take care of you. We got checks going out. Make some smores. Make some mores in your apartment! It’s totally good. Have you thought about getting involved in whittling or Scrimshaw?

“Have you thought about scrapbooking? You know, this is a real opportunity to get involved.” Oh, wait, wait. What I am I saying? No. That’s not how she would have said it. She would have said, “Well, since you’re getting money from the government during this terrible, terrible time of covid, here’s a great opportunity for you.

“You can go and volunteer with Planned Parenthood. You can go and volunteer with Occupy Wall Street or whatever the latest iteration of that is. You can go join some of the PIRGs, those public interest research groups who like to collect petition signatures down in Tompkins Square Park or Washington Square Park or the Rambles up in Central Park.

“This is a really great opportunity to travel the rails, collecting your check, seeing America, like something in a Simon and Garfunkel video.” People would go crazy! They couldn’t have said this. See, Pelosi could never have said this after you had the sort of economy that Donald Trump had, because people liked having coin in their pocket.

People wanted to go back to work. The economy had gone so well that they knew if they had offered up fun-employment, they would have absolutely had marches in the streets. No, it’s gonna be good. So what did they have to do? They had to scare you within an inch of your life to you didn’t feel compelled to demand going back to work.

That’s what they did. “No, no, it’s dangerous to go out. You gotta wear your mask and you gotta triple mask and you gotta quadruple mask. You can’t go back to work. Nooo, you can’t go to work. You gotta stay home. Look, you’ve we’ve Zoom for you. You’ve got Zoom. You’ve got Google Hangouts. You’ve got Microsoft Meetings.

“This is just like going in. You can work from home. It’s gonna be wonderful. We don’t want to reopen yet. Is the election done? Here’s the deal. We’ll look to be reopening, say, third week of February. That’s right. We’ll be looking to reopen then. That’s when you can go back to work. But in the meantime, just enjoy your time watching Joe Biden car rallies.”