http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/09/14/pushback_is_popularPushback Is Popular
September 14, 2015
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RUSH: I've thought about whether or not to step in it, and I've decided to go ahead and step in it. I don't know if it's gonna actually be stepping in it, but if it sounds like it's stepping in it -- if it sounds like it is unfair, unwarranted criticism -- that's not the point. It's done to be helpful advice or suggestions or even analysis. I think one of the things that I've noticed, among many others (and discussed it in a number of different ways) about the inside-the-Beltway conservative/Republican establishment is a reluctance to fight for things.
It seems that there is a level of satisfaction reached with simply articulating or writing a position on something or a clever take on something. But to then advocate for it with an attempt to inspire others to action or take action yourself? That's what I see missing. Clearly that is the case in the Republican Party. I, frankly, think that this reluctance to fight... Well, I don't know what it is. Well, maybe I do. I think that there is a risk-averse attitude.
I frankly think that this is one of the things that makes the Republican establishment nervous about Trump, and that is he fights. He criticizes. He gets in there and starts throwing haymakers, and this is just considered unsophisticated and uncivilized. I mean, the Republican Party and certain of its advocates in the media, continue to talk about this silly "crossing the aisle" and proving that we can work with the other side.
"Yeah, I promise as president, if the other side has a good idea, I will listen to their idea! I will work with them. We will do everything we can for a sensible, bipartisan solution." Sorry, that's not going to resolve what's wrong in the country. You don't want to work with the people who are responsible for everything going wrong. You don't want to work with the people and help the people who are responsible for the deterioration, for the attacks on the institutions and traditions which have made the country great.
I think it makes 'em nervous to see Trump fight. They think it's gonna frighten off the electorate. They think it's gonna scare independents or whatever it is. It's unmanly now to get in and fight for what you believe in -- or if not unmanly, unsophisticated, and it threatens social standing. You can't ever discard that as a factor inside the Beltway. Look at Romney in the debates with Obama. On Benghazi, he would not fight, would not even go there. Hindsight's easy.
If I'm Romney in that debate and Candy Crowley pops up and starts defending Obama, I stop right there and say, "Wait a minute. When did we get a moderator on one side here? I thought you're supposed to moderate." I would have commented on it. I would have done something. We just don't have that. You know we don't. There seems to be a risk aversion to it from top to bottom, and here comes Trump doing the exact opposite, and I think it's one of the many things that makes people nervous about him.
Look, it is great to be conservative, and it's great to go on TV and articulate it or have a blog and write it and so forth, but if all it is is talk and published words -- if there's no action behind it, if there's no concomitant desire to spread it, to try to influence people to believe it and so forth rather than just get yourself on record with it -- then half the job is not done. I've been amazed (this is not new) at the lack of push-back from the Republican Party on you name it. Obamacare, Iran, any of these illegal immigration moves.
Take your pick, there's not just not push-back, it's joint effort. All of this is to explain of course why Trump is succeeding. It's not... It really isn't that hard. Look at... I know it's anecdotal, but look at the cross-section of calls we've had today, African-American calls, and even from people who don't support Trump, who are supporting Cruz, understand why.
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RUSH: Saturday in Boone, Iowa, campaign event, after it, reporter says to Trump, "You said you didn't really prepare for the debate last time. Are you doing anything different for this debate?"
TRUMP: My whole life is preparation for a debate. You know, if you think about it, what's preparing for a debate? There are a million different things. My whole life is preparation. I'll be intact. I guess I'm going into a lion's den. I don't know if they're... Some people say I will be, some people say I won't. Somebody will attack, you know, somebody like a Rand Paul, who's down to 2%. He'll maybe attack. He's been very nasty lately. He's been very nice, very nice. And all of a sudden about a week ago he started attacking because his poll numbers are down.
RUSH: Okay, so Trump is hyping the debate. That's what this is. Trump is promoting it, he's hyping it, he's revving up the audience and so forth. Now, he's also gonna be attacked by moderators. There is no question, and I hope he knows that. I'm sure he does. But, "My whole life is preparation for the debate." That... Folks, people ask me about this here. How do I appropriate the show? I say, "Life is show prep," and it really is. So that kind of resonated with me, and I'll analyze that even further when we get back.
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RUSH: I just got a funny note from a friend. In fact, he's an elected member of Congress. I'll just go ahead and step in it and say who it is, Louie Gohmert. Louie Gohmert just sent me a note and said, "Rush, any time you are thinking of stepping in it, I find myself more interested. But, hell, you may as well go ahead and step in it, because we're all already up to our eyeballs in it anyway. So go ahead." Thank you, Louie.
Greetings. Welcome back. Rush Limbaugh, great to have you here, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. The telephone number is 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
Folks, it's a serious problem, and this is stepping in it, or in the vein of stepping in it. And by stepping in it, what I mean is, I'm not trying to openly criticize my friends. I mean people on the same side of the aisle as I am. All I ever am trying to do is be helpful. If I were trying to criticize I would name names here and call people out and that's not my point. Fighting for what you believe is a mandatory thing in politics. It's required. It's not enough just to tell people what you think and get kudos for that.
But in all too many cases, it seems to be totally satisfactory. The satisfaction comes from writing something or saying something, have other people say, "Man, that's right on. Man, that's so right, oh, God, are you so smart," and that's where it stops. We see the manifestation here of not fighting back in the Republican Party. How many of you have gone to the polls in 2008, 2010, 2012, '14, thinking you're electing people that are gonna stop what's going on, or at least try to? I know every damn one of you. And you haven't seen an effort to stop it, much less reverse it. All you've gotten are excuses or quasi-support for the status quo.
And it gets worse than that. Then, when there are people who fight back -- and I count myself as one of those, and there are many others -- we end up being criticized as troublemakers. We're causing a bad image or reputation to descend on everybody, a black eye on the movement or what have you. And, as such, there's no defense of any of the people that do fight back. So the people that fight back are marginalized and considered, I don't know, fringe or what have you. The Democrats are fighting every day for what they believe no matter what. The left is constantly in a never-ending fight for what they want, as you know, and the aggressor in any conflict always sets the rules.
The left is not satisfied with getting kudos from each other on how smart they are. They really are not happy until they skunk us. And that's what they live for. We are their biggest enemy. We're a bigger threat than ISIS. We're a bigger threat than Al-Qaeda. We're a bigger threat than any real enemy, in their minds, because we're the ones that threaten their power. We're the ones that seek to defeat them at the polls. We're the most direct threat to their power and security that they know.
So we are their number one enemy, conservatism. We are their number one threat. It's relentless. Our side doesn't even fight back. But there's another manifestation of it, and that is that young people on our side never learn to fight. They don't learn it and in fact they come to think of it as sort of dirty, it's unseemly, it's ungentlemanly, it's unsophisticated, and they end up being risk averse. And so you have to try to implement what you believe.
It's great to have all these great policy objectives, but then what? I mean, you have to fight to get them implemented. It means you have to defeat somebody. I really think this is one of the things that makes a lot of people nervous about Trump, and that is the perception that he's a brawler or a fighter and that this is just unseemly. So I think it is a factor, and it does matter, and it explains quite a bit, too.
There's also social status involved in all of this, and perceptions from people that are desired on the other side, be perceived as a reasonable guy by the left as opposed to one of these shouting Cro-Magnons or Neanderthals or what have you. But it is clear to me that the American people, at least the voting public supporting Trump and that is in opposition to what's coming out of Washington from the establishment, clearly wants to fight themselves. They think the country's worth it, and they think they've been voting for people who've been telling them they will push back and stop. And there just hasn't been any. So we'll see if it changes. Hope it does. But, as I say, only time will tell.
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RUSH: Here's Donna in Syracuse, in New York. Hi, Donna, I'm glad you called. Nice to have you here.
CALLER: Hey, Rushie.
RUSH: Hey, how are you?
CALLER: Good. How are you?
RUSH: Good, good. Thank you.
CALLER: I wanted to... I'm not a big Trump supporter, but I could kiss his feet for what he has shown the Republicans that they have to do. I remember Osama Bin Laden saying, "When there's two horses to be chosen, the horse that will be chosen is the strong steed," and it's so true. I'm fed up with the Republicans. I'm fed up with their mush. Hello to the gentleman on the other side of the aisle, Tom Cotton. The kid that stutters a little bit, I think he's great. He's a representative, and I can't remember what his name is. But, you know, they're tough. And people don't respect people that are mushy.
RUSH: Well, who do you support, if you don't support Trump?
CALLER: Who do I support?
RUSH: Yeah. Just curious.
CALLER: I love Ben Carson.
RUSH: You like Ben Carson. So --
CALLER: I do. I think he's tough.
RUSH: Okay, so --
CALLER: If he was in charge of a hospital full of neurosurgeons, you have to deal with those kinds of egos every single day of your life.
RUSH: Well, you know, let me... (sigh) Darn it, you had to go and ask a question. I ought to suspend my answer to that question. I will suspend my answer to the question. What she said here... Do you know what she said? She said here she's not a Trump supporter but she thanks God what he's doing. You know what that means? What it means is, she wishes the Republican Party would notice and start emulating. She wishes they would notice that there's no reason to be afraid of violating political correctness.
There's no reason to be afraid of criticizing people who Americans believe are doing great damage to the country. There is no reason not to fight for what you believe in! There's nothing that's gonna come back and hurt you. You can even survive media attacks if you build up a bond of support with your audience or with your voters, that will protect you from whatever the media does to you. And, boy, is that ever right!
All these people on our side inside the Beltway are scared to death of the media. If they had a deep connection with voters, it wouldn't matter, because the media would not be able to break that bond. The media wouldn't be able to destroy that bond. If the voters actually love somebody and respect them, there's nothing the media can do to tear 'em apart. The candidate can. The candidate can screw it up, but they media can't. But if you're gonna sit there and be defensive all day...
"Well, the media will call me a racist! The media will do this, and that means I can't really say what I really believe," then you're not gonna establish a bond. You're not gonna build a connection with an audience (voters, in their case), and that's what can protect you against media assaults. I happen to know this. There are a lot of people who are hoping that the real value of Trump would be to demonstrate to other Republicans that it's okay to take on what you oppose. It's okay to criticize what you oppose.
It's okay to tick off the media.
It's okay to violate political correctness.
You can live.
You can live, and you will survive, and you can thrive by doing it. The lesson may be obvious, but others are not taking it. So as such, Trump owns that particular niche. If none of the other Republicans learn from this, Trump's gonna continue to own this niche. He's not gonna have any opposition, folks. If Trump's opposition continues to say, "I just don't think it's appropriate to speak that way about Carly Fiorina, a brilliant executive at Hewlett-Packard. I just think it's inappropriate, and that's not what I approve of," then, fine.
You can do that all day long, but Trump's gonna continue to own the competitive position. He's gonna continue to dominate and win. It's not complicated at all. But, boy, it must be hard for these people to do it. It must be hard. There's gotta be some sort of inside-the-Beltway influence or training that is so complete that these people that live there just cannot come out of the shell that you're required to live in when you're there.
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