Rush: Too Many Republicans Failed to Heed O’Sullivan’s Law

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Too Many Republicans Failed to Heed O’Sullivan’s Law

Dec 10, 2020



RUSH: I have lamented countless times, you’ve heard me say it, the political class, the elected political class of Republicans, the RINOs, the Never Trumpers, they don’t think there’s a crisis at all, folks. They don’t think the country’s in crisis. They didn’t think that the attempt to get rid of Trump with a coup, a literal coup based on nothing, the entire made-up-out-of-nothing Russian collusion story? “There’s nothing to see here. There’s no crisis. There’s no danger.”

Meanwhile, their voters, the American people, think that there is a major threat. And they’re right. And the threat is to the country at large and to our culture, to Western civilization, to the kind of country we’re going to be. Are we going to continue to be the country of the founding? Or are the communists gonna succeed? Make no mistake, the left, however you wish to define it, but they’re not just the Democrats, and they’re not just a bunch of sixties hippies anymore.

This has become a full-fledged battle between socialists and communists on one side and us on the other. And the fact that Republicans don’t see it, the fact that elected Republicans — I’m talking about establishment Republican, call ’em RINOs or whatever, they don’t see it. I don’t know how you miss it. But I think it boils down to the fact that they don’t want to see it. They don’t want to think the country is in crisis. They don’t want to think the country is threatened. They don’t want to believe any of this.

So they just chalk it up to us being a bunch of kooks, a bunch of scaremongers. We don’t really know what’s going on. Because of people like us, the civility is gone from our politics and we don’t speak politely to each other anymore. We’re not respectful of our opponents anymore, and it’s just so sad, and we must fix it. There’s no time for any of these niceties. There’s an ongoing threat. And it’s been out there for a while. A threat to this country and what kind of country it’s going to be. Will it remain the country of our founding? Because if it doesn’t, let me tell you what’s gonna happen.

You remember the name John O’Sullivan? John O’Sullivan is former aide to Lady Thatcher in the U.K. He was editor at National Review under William F. Buckley for the longest time. I’m looking for the quote that I want to attribute to him. I can do it myself, but I want to find the exact quote, but it’s buried here somewhere.

Bottom line is this. He came up with the O’Sullivan Theorem. And it is this. Any organization, any group of people that is not exclusively, explicitly conservative every day will eventually become liberal. That’s the natural flow. That’s the natural tendency. Conservatism, in other words, is a daily commitment. Conservatism is a daily commitment to its principles and ideals. It’s a commitment every day to make as much of your life and your business and whatever conservative in values as you can.

Because if that doesn’t happen, you or your organization, you know, company, your club, whatever, will eventually become liberal. And it’s true. And that’s where we are. Now we have the Republican Party in significant membership, significant parts of it, not seeing the threat, or if they see it, not wishing to acknowledge it. And if they do not actively support, advance, explain, promote conservatism on a daily basis, then they will become liberal, they will gradually lose whatever it is about them that are conservative or that is conservative, and many of them are not that conservative anymore anyway.

But it doesn’t matter because they are being replaced. There’s massive numbers of young conservatives out there. Turning Point USA is one such organization, but there are countless organizations and groups and rallying efforts out there. Young conservatives are getting involved ’cause they understand the threat. They believe in the founding of the country. They know American history. They want to maintain it. They do not want to see their futures destroyed with the communists effectively winning control of the country, which is what we’re up against.

And the reason that we are here, the reason we’ve gotten to this point is because over a number of years, even decades, not enough Republicans understood the threat, not enough Republicans understood who the left really was and what their objectives have always been. When they were told that this is what the left is, they make fun of people who believe, “You gotta shut up, Rush, you’re sounding like a kook. That’s not what the left is about. Come on. Don’t join that wacko bunch.”

But that’s exactly why we’re where we are, because not enough people on our side have understood the threat. And O’Sullivan’s law is in the process of demonstrating itself each and every day here. As days go by and conservative organizations fail to be conservative day in and day out, they lose their conservatism and gradually evolve, or devolve, actually, toward liberalism.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, a great illustration of the application of O’Sullivan’s law is the fact that how in the hell did we lose Christmas in our country? How did that happen? It’s because not enough people stood up for conservatism and conservative values. Now, I know you’re saying, “Wait a minute, Rush. Christmas isn’t conservative.” It ended up being. Who was it that tried to throw Christmas out of our culture? The left. The Democrats. Who was it who tried to save it? It was us. It was conservatives.

Conservatives are trying to save virtually every institution and tradition that have defined this country’s greatness. The left is who was trying to abolish all of them. So that’s how they become ideological. So O’Sullivan’s law: if you do not actively support, enforce, implement, whatever, conservatism on a daily basis, you will eventually lose your organization to liberalism. It’s the natural flow. You can see it with your kids. You can see it happen.

You raise them as conservatives, right? How many of you have raised your kids as rock-ribbed conservatives and you’re very proud the way they turned out? The day comes they have to go away to an institution of higher learning, and within six months they come home, and all of what you taught them is out the window and they think you’re a fool. It’s all it’s taken, six months. They’ve gone to a university where conservatism is mocked, laughed at, made fun of. It certainly isn’t reinforced. It’s not taught.

Your lifetime, your 16, 18 years of raising them out the window. That’s how rapidly it vanishes. That’s how you lose Christmas. That’s how you lose Thanksgiving. Now look what’s happening. Now we’ve got COVID-19, and these left-wing communist governors and mayors are succeeding in telling people they can’t celebrate Thanksgiving, otherwise they might spread the virus, can’t celebrate Christmas, can’t travel. You can’t have more than one household, maybe two at home at the same time during the holidays. Who the hell says? It’s right in front of us what they’re attempting to do.

Now, there’s utter defiance of this too. There are people — have you noticed? — that are telling people to go to (raspberry). They’re not putting up with this at all. There are sheriffs out in California refusing to enforce these ridiculous requirements. That’s why we’re running the very special program we’ve got, RushLimbaugh.com at the Rush Limbaugh Store, honoring America’s police, law enforcement. They’re under the gun. But they are refusing to enforce some of these anti-American orders. To tell people they can’t go to church on Christmas, to tell people that assembling in a house of worship is the greatest way to spread death? How utterly offensive.

I’m happy to see that there are conservatives all over the country beginning to push back and stand up to this stuff. It’s happening. You don’t see news stories about it, but it is happening. Look at this: Newsom bans indoor services, multi-household gatherings through Christmas in most of California. Just amazing. And if you’re not gonna stand up for it, if you’re not gonna defend it, they’re gonna take it away, which is exactly where we are.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’ll tell you where else O’Sullivan’s law is happening, ladies and gentlemen. None other than at Fox News. Now, I happen to have here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, I have a piece here from the American Spectator. It is written by Lou Aguilar. I’m not sure how he pronounces it. And the headline of the piece is: “Like the other networks, they were broken by Trump, who understands the TV business better than any of them.”

Now, I want to read to you O’Sullivan’s law, because it is found in this story. To cite, to constantly correct O’Sullivan’s first law, which was written by John O’Sullivan, all entities that are not explicitly right wing will become left wing over time. It’s true. Conservatism is a daily thing. It’s a daily application. It is a daily commitment.

That’s why I’ve always said, liberalism is the most gutless choice you can make. It’s the easiest thing in the world. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to solve anything. You don’t have to fix anything. You just have to see suffering. “Oh, my God.” And you’re a good liberal. You don’t have to fix it. All you have to do is make people think you care.

But you haven’t done diddly-squat other than notice it. And everybody notices suffering, but the people that actually come up with ways to resolve it, to solve it, to fix it, to make people better, why, that requires a daily application of a set of beliefs. So let me share with you some pull quotes from this story, because many of you are going to agree with this. I’ll get back to the phones here in just a minute. I know I was gonna do that after the break, but it is the Fox News story where I found the O’Sullivan law.

“Let me start with the most astonishing example of media suicide in my lifetime,” writes Mr. Aguilar. “That of the Fox News corporation. Trump broke every other news entity even before he took office in 2017. CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the rest have always been left-wing, only with an illusory veneer of neutrality. Trump smashed the veneer, accurately calling them ‘fake news’ amid their swirl of lies about him: Russian campaign collusion, the neo-Nazis ‘fine people’ hoax, the impeachment-unworthy phone call to Ukraine, the ‘botched handling of COVID’ that killed 200,000 people, and more.

“The visionary Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch built FNC as the singular center-right alternative to the mainstream vortex, an oasis for discouraged conservatives. The creation paid off when Fox won higher ratings and greater profit than its cable news rivals combined. … Ironically, they also made the same hubristic mistake the other media sources did before FNC went live in 1996 — the belief that people had nowhere else to go.” And that belief overtook Fox, and they are governed by it today.

“From their height of success, they dismissed the once-weak competition of mini-network Newsmax. Now they’re finding out the hard way that the house that Roger built is full of drafts, and abandoners are taking shelter elsewhere. Newsmax ratings have skyrocketed since August.” They’re up to 800,000 at last check. And this past Monday Newsmax Greg Kelly Reports outdrew the Fox News Channel at the same hour, 7 p.m., in the prized demographic of 25-54.

So the bottom line is this author, Mr. Aguilar, believes that from the moment Fox hired Donna Brazile to the moment they kept giving Juan Williams more prominence and these Washington Post reporters show up and so forth and so on, that it was only a matter of time before O’Sullivan’s law settled in. Here. See if this paragraph is something you agree with.

“Like a million loyal former viewers, I disgustedly watched Fox install disgraced Democrat hack Donna Brazile as their new liberal commentator (to back up the insufferable Juan Williams). Watched them boost the China virus doomsday panic. Watched fake objective anchor Chris Wallace transform into a rabid Trump-sniping chipmunk.” This is Lou Aguilar. Reading this to you. See how many of you agree with this.

“Watched normally staid anchor Melissa Francis block Newt Gingrich from linking George Soros to riot-supportive blue state AGs. Watched business anchor Neil Cavuto cut off a White House press conference because he disapproved of Kayleigh McEnany’s address. Watched them call Arizona for Biden on Election Night before anyone else did.

“Watched them call the election for Biden and refer to him as president-elect minus any official recognition. Watched them ridicule the Trump campaign’s perfectly valid remedial fight, with reporter Kristin Fisher openly insulting the Trump legal team’s press conference.” He goes on and on here. It’s an illustration of the application of O’Sullivan’s law.