RUSH: The Democrat debate — and, as I say, studied it. It was painful. Folks, I’m not kidding. It was painful on so many levels. I literally felt like I was a visitor from someplace and was not at all living in the world they were talking about. These people sounded like they were in a foreign country. I mean, it was that striking. It was just beyond anything that happens in my day-to-day world, listening to these two. It was Grandma and Grandpa just arguing, and I suffered through this. And I’m gonna explain to you why.
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RUSH: The Democrat debate. Polling data, by the way: Bernie Sanders now leads Clinton by 20 points in New Hampshire. The Quinnipiac University poll out today says Bernie Sanders nearly tied with Hillary Clinton in a nationwide poll. Now, just for me, just a quick overview: I thought Hillary cleaned his clock last night, but that’s not what they think. What I think doesn’t matter. Folks, you and I have nothing in common with the people watching that debate last night. You have to watch this in order to be able to understand, it’s such a different world in which they’re all living and some working.
Many of their voters do not work. It’s key to understand this. But the thing that you have to be able to do to successfully empathize with the average Democrat voter — and I’m not talking about an elite, rich Wall Street Democrats or Hollywood Democrats. I’m talking about the Democrat middle class, lower middle class rank-and-file. You have to be able to watch this and understand the environment and attitudes they have watching it, which you and I do not have. We do not think like they do. We’re not fatalists. We’re not depressed. We’re not defeatists.
We’re not victims.
We don’t think everything that’s going wrong is somebody else’s fault because they’re specifically targeting us. The liberal mind-set, as it exists today, is absent happiness. There is none. Add to that, after seven years of what was to be the fix for everything wrong not just in America, but in the world, they’re even angrier. They live with the reality, probably subconsciously, that everything they voted for and believed was gonna happen — all these great things that were gonna get fixed — are worse. The first African-American president has made no positive difference whatsoever. They’re faced daily with the reality which they probably do not admit that everything they believe in tanks.
But that’s not even half of it.
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RUSH: Oh, look. There’s Obama out now, and he’s hailing these fraudulent unemployment numbers released today. He’s out there saying the first time unemployment rate is below 5% in eight years. It’s 4.9%, and 151,000 new jobs are created. This is just… It’s just a lie. It’s just total fraud. What is this “first time unemployment rate”? Well, we talk about first time so we don’t have to talk about the people who have been unemployed for five years, six years, seven years. So we don’t talk about them.
So, yeah, the number of people unemployed for the first time, is under 5%. Add those to the 94 million Americans who can’t find jobs, and it’s not a pretty picture. But there he is; he’s out there claiming credit for it, and he said in the State of the Union show that anybody who tells you that this economy is not good is crazy or lying or whatever. Hillary Clinton spent the whole debate last night telling everybody how the economy sucks. That’s one of the many things.
You watch this and you don’t get it. I mean, what is she complaining about? She and her party have been running this country for seven years, and she dares to detail all that’s gone wrong with it? But I’m getting ahead of myself here. To watch this debate last night, I tried to assume the attitude/mental psyche of your average middle class Democrat watching it. And the thing that you have to do doing that, is you have to understand who the Democrats are today. What is their base like? They are perpetual and constant victims, folks.
Many of them are poor, but even the ones what aren’t poor feel they are poor. They have invested their entire lives hoping others are gonna do things for them. And of course nobody gets anywhere doing that. So when it doesn’t work out, you feel like you’ve been victimized. You feel like you’ve been taken advantage of and forgotten. It’s never your fault. They think they’ve been victimized by all of them isms: sexism, racism, bigotry, homophobia, whatever it is.
There is some sort of explanation that is rooted in negative behavioral traits of others who are doing mean things to them or who are standing in their way of getting anywhere, or who are purposely targeting them and keeping them down. Their misery — and that’s what their lives are. Their misery, in their minds, is explained by all of these mean, powerful forces out to deny them: Big Oil, Big Pharmaceutical, Big Retail, the Republican Party, talk radio, you name it.
All of these powerful forces are arrayed against them and keeping them pinned down to where they can’t accomplish anything. In their minds, they should have been great successes! They’re the smartest people in the world. They’re smarter than you, they’re smarter than people running the country, but they’ve never gotten a break. Everybody has given them the raw deal every day of their lives. It was either their teachers or their school or a coach or a parent. Somebody failed to see how brilliant they are, how great they are.
Then it was their boss (if they ever had a job), or their employer who didn’t make them company president, didn’t promote them, didn’t give them a raise, maybe fired them. And then you throw the cops in this! They hate the cops. The cops are out to get ’em. It’s hopeless. In their own environment — the people they live among, the places they go to school, the places they go shop — everywhere they go is aligned and arrayed against them. They are victims of this conspiracy, and I don’t mean tinfoil hat conspiracy.
They are victims of unseeable, invisible, powerful forces that are arrayed against them in so many ways, it’s impossible, don’t you know, to overcome. The only remedy, therefore, is the government to give them the things that they are being denied because of all of these mean, powerful forces that have stacked the deck against them. Everything that’s too expensive is because somebody is trying to screw them out of being unable to have it, be it higher education, be it a nice car, be it health care, be it child care.
All of that stuff should rightfully have been theirs, and it should have been easily acquired, but it’s being denied them — usually by the rich, who stole all of the stuff from them at one point. This is how they think. Now, you may say, “Rush, nobody thinks this way.” They do, folks. It is the only way a debate like last night makes any sense, where you have a battle between two old grandparent types arguing over who can give away the most, while punishing the most people at the same time.
The only way a debate like that makes sense is if I have nailed the attitudinal psychology of these average Democrat voters. “Housing? Who can afford that!” There ought to be subsidies or vouchers or giveaways of some kind, because they can’t afford these things, and it’s all because somebody else is making it impossible for them. The rich, however, they’ve got all this money. They ought to be paying for it, and the rich are the ones that are squeezing ’em to boot! So the rich ought to be paying for it. You’ve heard liberals talk about access.
Usually you hear them talk about how they’re being denied “access” to something. That is how the liberal mind, the middle class liberal mind thinks. Such as “access” to, shall we say, reproductive, what? Rights or reproductive health care, “reproductive health care”? They’re being denied “access.” Now, that phraseology makes it look like they’re being denied “rights,” like they’re being denied constitutional rights, human rights that are guaranteed to everybody. What “denied access” means when these people use it is, nobody’s giving it to them.
A little test: Going forward, when you listen to a liberal on TV talking about how they’re being denied “access” to this or that, what they mean is that nobody’s giving it to them. Now, the Democrat elite, the rich Democrats, they are in the same boat. But they’re unhappy for different reasons. I’m not gonna mess with them, not gonna bother with them right now because the focus here is the people that watched that debate last. The Democrat elites are the ones… You know, I had to laugh.
Just give an example, here’s Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and they’re both ragging on Wall Street last night. Wall Street pays for the Democrat Party, and both of them know it. I’ve got a list of all of the Wall Street… No, they’re ragging on Goldman Sachs last night and the Blankfeins. Lloyd Blankfein who runs the place and his wife are two of the biggest donors of the Democrat Party! Wall Street props up the modern day Democrat Party. Wall Street does not support Republicans. And yet here these two last night are ragging on Wall Street like nobody ever has before. The reason?
They know that people watching debate are blaming Wall Street and all the other “fat cats” for denying them what they should have had their entire lives and preventing them from ever having a hope of getting whatever they want or need in the future. Therefore, somebody better use government to get it to ’em. The liberal mind-set today has no happiness. There is no joy. They’re all victims. Somebody’s to blame for their misery and their lack of future. Add to it seven years of what they thought was going to be a socialist utopia.
Barack Hussein Obama! “No more war! We’re gonna fix global warming. We’re gonna close Guantanamo Bay. We’re not gonna do any more torture. We’re gonna put people at Wall Street away. We’re gonna put them in jail! We’re gonna finally get even with all of these people who’ve made life so miserable,” and instead what do they realize every day? They realize Obama’s in bed with these guys they think ought to be in jail. Subconsciously, they realize that everything they voted for — and they always vote for, but they voted for in 2008.
Everything they voted for has made things worse. The country’s getting worse. Even they admit it’s on the wrong track. They have different reasons from you and I, but the point is they had their people in power the last seven years. They’ve had people in power the other party never even tried to stop. Now, these people I’m talking about think the Republican Party is stopping The Great Obama each and every day. They think Obama’s still an outsider doing his best to overcome these powerful forces.
All of these powerful forces of denial, by the way, happen to be Republicans, in your average, warped liberal mind. Not only is there no happiness in the liberal mind-set, if you watch that debate last night, there’s no pursuit of happiness. Neither Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton are about happiness. They’re not about finding it. They’re not about promoting it. They are not about ensuring it. They’re not even cognizant of it. Happiness did not even show up, either in terms of how Bernie and Hillary portrayed themselves, or in terms of what they talked about.
What they talked about last night was anger and how people are getting shafted, how people are getting screwed. Hillary is progressively angrier and louder as every day goes by because there is more racism, there is more bigotry, there’s more inequality; there’s more denial of rights for women, for Hispanics within for African-Americans. It never ends. It only gets worse. And the free market is to blame! Bernie Sanders talks about this sustained “rigged economy.” That’s how he opened last night. “The economy… This economy is rigged! It’s rigged by the people on Wall Street and whoever else!”
I’m saying, “Who rigged the economy? Who possibly can rig the economy? If you have on one hand a free market, a regulated free market, how in the world do you rig it?” There’s only one place. There’s only one entity that can rig the market, folks. It’s called Uncle Sam. The United States government is who rigs the economy. The tax code is a way to rig the economy. It’s a government creation. Regulations. That’s how you rig the economy. It’s how you pick winners and pick losers. The market doesn’t pick winners and losers. You have to win or lose. It’s up to you in the market.
The government coming in, picking winners and losers is rigging the market. And the government has been rigging the market for as long as there have been liberals in it. Free markets, by definition, rig nothing. Free markets reward smart. Free markets reward entrepreneurism. Free markets reward hard work. And not all the time, by the way. It’s another thing these people think. They think we’re full of it because we believe these “old bromides,” hard work and all that and devotion and ambition pays off.
It’s a lot more than that. It doesn’t work for everybody, of course. Not everybody’s a multimillionaire. Not everybody. Never has been; never will be. And because of that they’re able to universally criticize it and claim it’s illegitimate and so forth. The government’s the biggest risk to our economy. And it isn’t even close. There’s nothing that comes even close. You can’t even see something else in the binoculars when you’re looking out there to find out the possible things could rig, damage US economy.
The US government’s it, and there’s nothing else that you are going to see. It isn’t Wall Street rigging the economy. It’s Pennsylvania Avenue. “But, wait, Rush! But wait! What about quantitative easing? I’ve heard you say…” Right, right, right. But Wall Street, they just had their hands open. It was Washington that decided to print all that money; it was Washington decided to give it to ’em. By the way, here’s Bernie and these guys ragging on Goldman Sachs and so forth.
Have you ever found it strange that practically every former CEO of Goldman Sachs becomes Treasury secretary, in Democrat administrations? And a Democrat Treasury secretary comes up with QE3, the Federal Reserve, so forth. They’re taking the money that’s coming in to Washington and giving it to their friends. They’re all Democrats doing this! Wall Street funds the Democrat Party. Hillary said she’s never been influenced by megadonations? (laughing) Then why are you accepting them?
They’re not giving you money ’cause you’re pretty. They’re not giving ’em money ’cause they like having you come by, have a drink with ’em, ’cause you’re dull and boring. They’re not giving you money ’cause they want to pal around with Bill and maybe get some of the action he rejects. (I’m talking about babes.) They’re giving you money, Hillary, because — exactly right — you are gonna pay ’em back with influence in kind if you ever get elected. It was just full of crap.
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RUSH: And, by the way, folks, this is why I cringe when I hear Republicans talking about the need to cross the aisle. Like I heard Lindsey Grahamnesty say, “We need to go out and the get the Hispanic vote. We need to get more of this vote and that vote.” It’s not possible. It’s not possible to “get” them. When you understand who they are, they’re not reasonable. They’re not gonna be able to listen to a pitch from Lindsey Graham or anybody else saying, “No, we’re not who you think we are. We’re nice and so forth.” You’re not even gonna get close.
These people are alien to us, folks.
The average middle class, lower middle class Democrat voter is so victimized. They’re not angry at us because they think we’re racists. They’re angry at us because we’re the reason they are failures! We’re the reason they never amounted to anything. We’re the reason they don’t have anything. There’s no amount of “reaching out” to them. That’s their safety blanket, to be victims, to have us to blame for their failure. They’re never gonna admit that we all of a sudden are nice guys and worthy of their vote. That would destroy the entire foundation they’ve created in order to stay alive, even though it’s miserable.
Here’s Leslie in Lafayette, Indiana, as we head to the phones. Great to have you up first today Open Line Friday. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush.
RUSH: Hey.
CALLER: Love your show.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Hey, you’re talking about a section of society that constantly, you know, is being victimized, they think. They don’t have enough. They don’t have what everybody else has. Now, you know, most of them, of course, are being housed, they’re being fed, they’re given phones. I’m not really sure you can be a victim when you’re being given everything. But in my opinion, it’s the working class that is being victimized by our government. We right now in our family, we farm —
RUSH: No, no. I understand. I hate to interrupt, but I know where you’re going and I’ve only got 30 seconds. Let me explain this. You’re saying, “Hey, we’re victims too; so are they.” Different ball of wax. Even though they’re getting all the free stuff, that’s not making them happy. That’s the point. The more of it they get the more miserable they are. The more success their party has at the polls, the more in debt we go into, the more angry they are. You don’t want that. You want government out of your way so that you and your farm can prosper as a result of your ingenuity, your hard work, your devotion. They’re not like that. They want you punished with higher taxes or whatever else.
They’re not wanting government out of their lives.
They want more of it.
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RUSH: I want to back up some of what I have said so far with some sound bites from this thing last night, because if had to watch this thing, you people are going to have to put up with some of it, too. This was the first one (I must be honest) I actually sat down and watched, and I tried to look at it as if I were a Democrat voter. And it takes a lot of effort, folks, because we are not who they are. I am not kidding. Watching this thing last night was an out-of-body experience.
I really felt like I was in a foreign country listening to a foreign language. Obviously it was English, but it was so alien from the beginning to the end — from the attitudes of the moderators, the questions, the answers — just the whole atmosphere. It didn’t feel like my country. It was, obviously, but it didn’t feel like it. When it was over, Rachel Maddow gets up and starts hugging. She got up, walked over, hugged Hillary, hugged Bernie. She got up and hugged her grandparents. It was really, really striking.
It was just too grumpy old white people, like… I know everybody loves their grandparents, but there are times, you know, your grandparents… These people were just, “Get off my lawn” miserable kind of people. Dour. Hillary tried to jazz it up with a lot of makeup and smiles. And, look, speaking objectively, Bernie Sanders can’t hold a candle to her. I don’t care what you all think. And if you’ve heard any discussion today about how Hillary was weak here or weak there, she stomped all over the guy last night.
From my perspective. Not, probably, from theirs. That’s the key. Bernie’s rising in the polls. They’re really worried. The Democrat establishment is gonna do to Bernie what they’ve been trying to do to Trump and trying to do to Cruz. They are scared to death, on the Democrat side, of Bernie Sanders. Because, in their own odd way, they don’t understand it. Even though they, just like our establishment, are the sole reason why there is a Bernie Sanders on their side. From TheHill.com: “Sanders Nearly Tied with Clinton, Nationwide Poll.”
And this was known last night. I think this is another reason why Hillary was even more hostile, and she was generally a raging mess last night, but that’s to us. She was far more professional at the same time, far more seasoned. She was clearly… So many times Bernie turned to her and talked of his respect and admiration. It was clear to me that when this is all over, Bernie Sanders has been a placeholder, from the Democrat establishment point of view.
They may be in the process of having screwed themselves because:
“Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has dramatically cut into the nationwide lead of primary rival Hillary Clinton, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. The poll released Friday finds Clinton leading the race with 44% support, compared to 42% support for Sanders, within the survey’s margin of error.” So you could say that they’re tied. The last Quinnipiac “poll in December had Clinton leading Sanders nationwide 61-30.” That’s a 29-point margin that has been reduced to a two-point margin since December.
Now, what has happened? What has gone on over there in that party to bring this about? My contention is that none of us know. These two people to us are the same as they’ve always been: Odd, dangerous, genuine weirdos. But for the people in the Democrat Party — the middle class, lower middle class — Bernie Sanders has become a hero. And once again what’s being demonstrated (something that you’ll never get a picture of in the Drive-By Media) is that Hillary Clinton is not highly admired, revered, loved, and adored by the Democrat Party base.
We’re seeing it again just like we saw it in 2008. “‘Democrats nationwide are feeling the Bern as Sen. Bernie Sanders closes a 31-point gap to tie Secretary Hillary Clinton,’ said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. The poll also finds that Sanders matches up better with top Republican primary candidates than Clinton. … The poll also finds that Clinton has a net favorability rating of negative 17, only besting Trump in that category, who has a negative-25 favorability rating.
“Sanders has a 9-point favorability rating nationwide, only trailing Rubio, at 14 points. The poll surveyed 484 Democrats and has a margin of error of 4.5%.” Now, Hillary and Bernie both last night started dumpin’ on Wall Street and Goldman Sachs and any other big-bank name they could think of. And yet Goldman lobbyists, Goldman vice presidents, the Goldman CEO and the CEO’s wife are all Hillary donors, and they prop up the Democrat Party. Hillary Clinton said Wednesday night of Goldman Sachs, “I mean they’re not giving me very much money now. I can tell you that much.”
No, no, they just paid her $685,000 to speak! When she was asked about that, she said, “Well, that’s what they offered.” It turns out, no, that wasn’t true. These people lie all the time. Their base doesn’t care, folks. To their base, Hillary or Bernie lying, if that’s what it takes to beat us back, is okay. We are the focus of evil, and therefore there are no rules limiting what they can do to beat us. So if they have to lie, all the better; and if they’re good at it, that’s even better. They’re not worried about the morality of their leaders, obviously.
They’re not worried about the character. All they want is somebody who is going to say things to let them know that they agree that these people have been shafted. They’ve been shafted by an unfair, unjust America with powerful forces that are denying them everything in life. And Hillary and Bernie come along and promise to make up for it by giving them what they have been denied by these powerful forces. And if they have to lie in order to get there, that’s fine. It turns out that this $685,000 fee, it’s not “what they offered.”
Her speaking agency… She’s got a speaking agency, the the Harry Walker Agency. Everybody that does public speeches has an agent that goes out and gets these things. I, of course, have never had an agent ’cause my phone rings, but I don’t do any that I charge for. Never have. That’s something that burns me about Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton. She took $685,000 for a speech? Her normal price, the normal cost to get Hillary Clinton is $200,000 to $250,000. And I run around and I do these things for nothing, when I used to do them, or maybe for a little take on whatever ticket action there was.
But nothing like this. It turns out that the $685,000 is not what Goldman Sachs offered; it’s what the Harry Walker Agency negotiated. Now, in the debate last night, it came up that Hillary was asked if she would release the transcripts of some of these speeches that she’s made, and she wouldn’t do it. Let me find the audio sound bite here. Grab number 13 from the debate last night. F. Chuck Todd… Have you noticed the comb-over there? I haven’t seen Chuck Todd in a while. It must be getting bad up there. (interruption)
Well, I know. It’s not… It doesn’t matter. I just… I hadn’t seen Chuck in a long time. And it looked like a Chia Pet growing. Well, anyway, Chuck Todd moderating the debate said, “Madam Secretary, are you willing to release the transcripts of all of your paid speeches? We do know through reporting that there were transcription services for all of those paid speeches. In full disclosure, would you release all of them?”
HILLARY: I will look into it. I don’t know the status, but I will certainly look into it. But I can only repeat what is the fact, that I spoke to a lot of different groups with a lot of different constituents, a lot of different kinds of members about issues that had to do with world affairs. I probably described more times than I can remember how stressful it was advising the president about going after bin Laden.
RUSH: Oh. Oh. We can just imagine the stress. Oh, my. Can you imagine? Oh! What’s a stress reliever? What do people take to get rid of stress? There probably had five bottles of the stuff, whatever it was. The stress of advising Obama! Now, on the one hand, I might be able to be convinced that there was stress getting Obama to go get Osama because Obama would rather play golf. In fact, didn’t they have to drag him off the golf course to get him there to watch the actual raid? Anyway, she won’t release the transcripts of her paid speeches.
Can you imagine that question even coming up? Now, why do you think she won’t release the transcripts of paid speeches? I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you exactly why. It’s not ’cause there’s anything classified in them. It’s not because there’s anything embarrassing like giving out phone numbers to women to get to Bill. There’s nothing like that in there. The reason she won’t release the transcripts is because the speeches are so damn bad, because they’re probably so boring. They’re probably so suck-up.
Those speeches are probably boring. If they released the transcripts, it would be obvious why she’s going out and speaking to these groups. She’s sucking up. She’s promising them things. They’ve just paid her a lot of money to show up and speak. I’m sure she’s telling them what all they can expect for it, in a disguised way, things that she wants to do policy-wise if she’s elected. She doesn’t want to give away the transcripts here because it would indicate there’s a quid pro quo going on.
It would be an incredible embarrassment to boot to see how dull they are, just like a Hillary book signing is, or your average Hillary speech. See, Hillary says that when she goes out and speaks to these groups, that she is showering them with invaluable wisdom, like this reference to all the stress that there was advising Obama on getting bin Laden. What she can’t afford is for the transcripts to be released and for people to find out what snoozers her speeches are ’cause then it’s gonna look like they’re no-show speeches, just showing up maybe.
They might find out the speeches go 10 minutes and she’s still getting all of the money. They’re not gonna release transcripts of speeches with Hillary lecturing Wall Street companies on stuff because she doesn’t go lecture Wall Street companies on stuff. She doesn’t talk to the Wall Street companies in these speeches like she talks about them in those debates, and that’s why they will not release the transcripts — ’cause if they did these Democrat voters would find out who she’s in bed with.
Figuratively speaking of course.
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RUSH: Here is Sean in Laconia, New Hampshire. Great to have you, sir. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How you doing?
RUSH: Very well. Thanks much.
CALLER: Yeah. I’m calling about you talking recently about the people who are collecting benefits and carrying on and not working a whole heck of a lot for it. I’m a contractor up here, and it seems like the general consensus is we can’t find help. And in our area, there’s a large number of people who aren’t working. It makes it awfully hard to get a job done when —
RUSH: Wait a minute. If there’s a lot of people not working, how come you can’t find any to work?
CALLER: Well, what it is is that they’re… Basically I’ve figured out that they’re making enough to survive but not making enough, you know, to be able to take a job. So once they take the job, they have to give up their benefits. So I’ve had multiple occasions —
RUSH: I don’t think there’s any doubt about that with a certain subset of people you’re talking about. If you’re talking about a difference of four or five thousand, maybe even $10,000 a year, it may be easier to get it sitting on your butt than to go out and work for an additional 10, especially with the mind-set these people have that the deck’s stacked against them anyway. You’re not the first guy, by the way, I’ve heard with this problem.