Rush: Finally, the Country Catches Up with Me: Open Up!

[mystery-ak]

Finally, the Country Catches Up with Me: Open Up!

May 21, 2020



RUSH: It’s so gratifying to see everybody come around to my way of thinking. Open up. Would it be safe to say that I have been one of the earliest clarion calls to open up? I know everybody’s on it now. But it was so necessary weeks, even months ago to do this, and all the evidence is coming in that these states that have opened up are doing far better than the states that remain on lockdown.

The states that remain on lockdown are obviously blue states, Democrat governors with a political objective behind it. And now there’s this big op-ed in the New York Post which just calls attention to the outright destruction that is done, that has been done to New York City. It is just incredible what has happened here and what’s ongoing. And now we’ve got the ability to make side-by-side comparison of things. Open up, let freedom ring, let people be responsible for themselves. And you see what happens. It all works out.

The idea that the American people are a bunch of children, cannot be protected from themselves, cannot be allowed to make their own minds up has been a classic element of American liberalism and the Democrat Party for who knows how long. And they’re eager to shovel more and more people into that category.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’m gonna tell you something else here, folks. I just was looking at the Drudge page, and there’s a graphic accompanying the story, and it’s all about doomsday forecasts for the next few months in America. The doomsday forecasts are the result of a model from the University Pennsylvania Wharton School. Now, this model, which is a relatively new model on the scene…

It’s been out there, but it’s not been in the top two models that are constantly cited — the one from the U.K. and the one from the state of Washington. But the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School — which, by the way, is Trump’s alma mater. (chuckles) A very big point here. The Wharton School model is predicting… Ready for this? Dadelut, dadelut, dadelut, dadelut, dadelut, dadelut!

COVID-19 cases are gonna reach 5.4 million and the death toll could be 290,000 by July 24th. That is if — if — there is reopening and if there is no social distancing. But don’t worry, because the Wharton model only predicts 4.3 million cases and 230,000 deaths, not 290,000 by July 24th if states reopen but continue social distancing. Now, what do you think the real purpose of this is?

Since everything is politicized, since everything has been corrupted that the left touches, what do you think this is? This is the new version of 2.2 million people could die if you don’t shut down, 2.2 million people do die if you don’t mitigate. This is all part of the relentless effort to prevent or to slow down the reopening of the U.S. economy. That’s all this is. Do not doubt me. It’s an attempt to scare everybody into resisting opening up.

Even if your state opens up, you’re supposed to stay scared and not participate.

That’s the objective here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Couple of sound bites. This is an ABC News report today, Good Morning America, and it’s the end of a report from correspondent Steve Osunsami reporting about the number of coronavirus cases in places that are reopening.

OSUNSAMI: Here in Georgia the numbers appear to be moving in the right direction. In fact, in the 21 states that have eased restrictions since May 4th or earlier, ABC News has found no major increase in hospitalizations, deaths, or percentage of people testing positive. George?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Boy, that is encouraging news, Steve. Okay, thanks very much.

RUSH: That’s Stephanopoulos. Boy, Steve, that’s really encouraging news. What about you people that keep getting it wrong? Where are the apologies? Where are the assurances to the American people? You got this whole Trump-Russia collusion thing wrong. Not a single apology. Nobody’s returned the Pulitzer prizes you got for the fake, phony reporting. You still accept as gospel whatever the lying sources then are telling you now.

You’ve scared the American people staying at home. You’ve scared ’em to death of their own shadows. Then you run the story saying, “Hey, not nearly as bad. Wow. Boy, that’s encouraging.” That’s all you’ve got to say about it? How about we were wrong? How about we were wrong on purpose? I don’t expect them to actually admit that. But I’m just telling you, folks, you gotta pay attention.

All of these horror stories about the predictions now since some states are opening up, got new models, the Wharton School, oh, my God, 290,000 new deaths. Oh, my God. Could only be 230,000, oh, my. It’s designed to get you not to open up, not to participate in the opening up.

I think the effort’s gonna fail. I think it’s already falling apart. I think the blue states are falling apart. I think the blue states and these blue state governors are under intense pressure like you and I can’t believe because it isn’t being reported. But who’s giving the standing orders to the blue state governors to stay locked down? Are they doing it on their own? Or is it coming from higher up? Is it coming from whoever’s running the DNC? Is it coming from Pelosi? Is it coming from Schumer? Or are they just doing it instinctively because this is what they do?

I mean, look at the Obama economy for eight years. You know, Obama’s out there talking about how incompetent Trump is. For crying out loud, Obama rewrote the book on presidential incompetence. And all you need to do is look at his economy for the evidence and what Trump was able to do to correct it in three years. And now look where we are, trending right back down to the Obama economy and lower. And who is it that’s happy about that and wants to keep us there? Your Democrat Party.

They don’t deserve your vote. They do not deserve your vote. I don’t care if you’re a lifelong Democrat, voting for a Democrat is voting for your economic death. Voting for a Democrat is voting for the transformation of America, which I doubt a lot of you Democrats are really all in with.

Here’s the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, last night CNN Situation Room with Wolf Blitzed. He said, “On Sunday you said it was too soon to tell if your concern over Governor Kemp’s decision was warranted to open the state. How do you feel about Georgia’s reopening today?”

BOTTOMS: We are about ten days in. Things are not as bad as I thought that they would be, yet. And I am very hopeful that they continue that way. But, as we know, with COVID-19, there’s often a lag in infections and when people begin to actually show symptoms and get sick. And so, right now, it appears that we’re doing better as a state, and I will keep watching and waiting.

RUSH: For what? What are you gonna wait for? To get worse? Is that the objective? So Governor Kemp is wrong? What about your concern for the people? What about your concern that your city not become a ghost town? What about your concern for the people that live in your city? It’s good news, you haven’t seen any bad news, yet, from the reopening of the state of Georgia.

Contrast this with the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio. This is Monday, his daily coronavirus briefing, he said this about prohibited activity at the New York City beaches for Memorial Day weekend and beyond.

DE BLASIO: No swimming, no sports, no gatherings. NYPD will be out, parks department will be out. Don’t go in the water. It’s a dangerous situation to ever go in the water when there’s not lifeguards present. Anyone tries to get in the water they’ll be taken right out of the water.

RUSH: There you go. So there’s your contrast. New York can’t do this, don’t do that. If you do that, we’re gonna come get you. If you do that, if you go there, we’re gonna come get you. The authorities, the police force are gonna come get you if you do that, if you don’t do that. If you don’t listen to us, we’re gonna come get you and who knows what. You might join Lori Loughlin in jail. You heard about that? Lori Loughlin and her husband accepted a plea deal of two months in jail, $150,000 fine for the fraud in getting their daughters into USC.

It’s about the same deal that what’s-her-face, Felicity Huffman got, except Felicity Huffman didn’t fight it. These two did. And as they fought it, they kept adding on charges. You don’t fight us. We are the same bunch of people that went after Donald Trump. You don’t fight us. We’re gonna keep adding charges. You ever heard of Michael Flynn? You do not take us on. They finally reached the settlement.

Here’s Phil Murphy. Here’s the governor of New Jersey this morning on CNBC Squawk Box. Joe Kernen says, “Bring us up to speed what stage we’re in right now and whether [New Jersey] is within all the guidelines,” to start opening up.

MURPHY: We’ve begun to take what I would call baby steps. Admittedly beaches is a big step in that list, but we’ve had a bias toward opening things up first that are outdoors and loosening that. We’re as moneyball as we can be, and we say all the time that data determines dates and then more broadly public health creates economic health. Trust me, I want to get folks back to work as fast as possible, but if we screw up the public health piece, none of that will happen and that’s really the side that we need to err on.

RUSH: Yeah. Well, the question, how are these other states doing it then? You think they’re not concerned with the public health aspect? Is it that the state of New Jersey is much more dense than the state of Florida? I mean, what is it? “We say all the time data determines dates. More broadly, public health creates economic health. Trust me, I want to get folks back to work as fast as possible, but if we screw up the public health piece, none of that will happen, and that’s really the side we need to err on.” Meaning, we can’t open up if it’s gonna increase the number of cases.

Well, I’m sorry, then you’re never opening up, Governor. That’s what you’re saying. You know something else DeSantis said? He studied the Spanish flu pandemic in 1917 and 1918, which was worldwide deadly. And one of the things DeSantis, the governor of Florida, one of the things he said he learned is there wasn’t even a focus — because World War I was raging — there wasn’t even a focus on shutting anything down. It was a pandemic. It came along, it did what it did, the country did what it could to protect people and to help those who came down with the flu get over it, get better, but still it was massively deadly. But there wasn’t anything of the sort like what we’re doing now.

In fact, Woodrow Wilson was president of the United States during the Spanish flu which had two big waves, 1917-1918, and there wasn’t even an Oval Office address about it. Not just Oval Office, there wasn’t even a White House presidential address about it. It was just something that happened. “Oh, there’s a pandemic out there.” “Okay, we deal with it.”

It didn’t stop the presses on anything.

It was just another event like an airplane crashed today or a car didn’t crash today or whatever. It was not… It’s like, do you remember the Donner party? They had to turn to cannibalism to survive their trip over the Sierra Nevada Mountains as they’re going into California. The Donner party had to resort to cannibalism. If you read the diaries written by the members of the Donner party and survival, you know the only reference you’ll find to the weather, which is what forced them to cannibalism?

The only reference you’ll find is, “It was a particularly cold winter.” There wasn’t any complaining about it. There wasn’t any whining and moaning or, “Oh, my God! What are we gonna do about the children?” They just endured it. Yeah, they had to resort to cannibalism and that’s how we know about the Donner party — and, no, nobody’s advocating that. I’m just talking about the fact that what we’re going through here is not unprecedented.

There have been pandemics. This isn’t even as deadly as AIDS, and we didn’t shut anything down for AIDS. Not a single thing. And there were people who made allusions to maybe we might want to quarantine…? “No, you don’t! You’re not quarantining anybody.” So there were all kinds of mitigation efforts that were proposed during AIDS. It’s just back in the 1980s. They were all summarily rejected by the group of people suffering from HIV.

Do you know there was no antibiotic of any kind in 1917? The solution for Spanish flu…? You know what the treatment for Spanish flu was in 1917-1918? (interruption) Exactly. Get out in the sunshine and fresh air. Vitamin D, although they didn’t know what vitamin D was. They might have known. I don’t know. But sunshine and fresh air is what they said.

If you go back and look at the historical record, that’s what helped in the days of the Spanish flu. Now we have this thing running around, “You better not go onto the beach. If you do, we’re gonna drag you home. If you get in the water, we may drown you right there or we may take you home. It doesn’t matter to us. How do you want to die?”