CALLER:  Rush, thank you very much.  Third generation U.S. Navy dittos to you.  As a student of the EIB Network working on my continuing degree, I understand from my teacher that conservatism wins every time it’s tried.  And we know socialism fails every time it’s implemented.  I’m confused with what you said yesterday when you said we’ve had decades and generations, if you will, of us paying for everyone else’s stuff.  Isn’t that the point of all this, Rush?  When is it gonna stop?

RUSH:  Yeah.  But let me ask you a question, and I don’t mean to be picking a fight with you because you’re not doing that with me.  I really need to ask you a question.

CALLER:  Sure.

RUSH:  You also know I’m the mayor of Realville.  Okay.  That means that I deal with what “is,” not with what I wish was or not with what was or used to be. I deal with what “is.”  Let me ask you pointblank: Is conservatism on the ballot in this presidential election?

CALLER:  No, sir, it is not.

RUSH:  Okay.  Given that it’s not on the ballot, what, then, becomes the criterion for your vote?  You personally.  What? There’s no wrong answer here.  I am basically interviewing you.  If conservatism’s not on the ballot, then on what basis are you choosing to vote?

CALLER:  Well, if you give me just a second here, I base my vote on the Constitution of United States, which is being violated everywhere by all parties involved.  But, given that, the way I look at this election, Rush, there’s no way I can ever vote for Hillary Clinton.  I have extreme difficulty voting for Donald Trump because of the history that I know this man has.  I look at it this way: If Hillary wins, we know exactly where she’s going.

If Trump wins, he has a very, very small window to squeeze through to become a good president — or if he’s allowed to be just distracted by everything else, he can be just as much of a disaster.  So the only play truly is Trump.  My question is — as a student talking to the doctor — how do I rationalize what we learn from you and what I believe by knowing my history and the Constitution? What you came up with yesterday is nothing but more of the same, and that’s what’s killing this country.  I live in Illinois, Rush, the state that has mastered unfunded liabilities.  You put that on a national level with our unfunded liabilities? I guess we can just add more to it, but —

RUSH:  We already are.  Look, I’ve got a break here.  Hang on if you can, Scott.  We will continue this on the other side of our obscene profit time-out.  Don’t go away.

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RUSH:  And back we are with Scott in Rockford, Illinois.  Okay.  So you’re basically asking me how in the world we can support — anybody can support — what Ivanka Trump came up with, because it’s just more of the same. It’s another expansion of government, it’s just another entitlement, why are we getting all excited about it.  Is that essentially your question?

CALLER:  Yes, that’s essentially where my confusion comes from.

RUSH:  Okay.  Are you confused because you think I endorsed it?

CALLER:  No, sir.  No, I can understand exactly why you said that you said and you just gotta do it and why he’s gotta do it.

RUSH:  I was describing… What I have learned in the course of this program over the years is people — I’m a very highly opinionated person, and so people assume I’m opining on everything; when I open my mouth and say something, it’s an opinion.  Yesterday I was explaining.  And I said a couple things that probably could have — I don’t know that they did, but I’ll bet they might have — really enraged some conservatives.  Let me repeat those two things, and then we’ll get into them in even greater substance.  And don’t worry about time here, Scott.  We’re here for as long as time as you have.

CALLER:  Okay.

RUSH:  Now one of the aspects of Ivanka Trump’s plan was the equivalent of savings accounts, child care savings accounts.  And I made the point that when those have been proposed by conservative think tank members in the form of school vouchers or health care savings accounts or other similar proposals to give people control of the money that’s being spent for them — say on health care or education — those proposals have been greeted unanimously with support and applause on the basis that they are conservative

Because conservative think tanks created these ideas.  The health care savings accounts, school vouchers, any number of other similar proposals.  So here comes Ivanka Trump preparing it, and all of a sudden it’s an entitlement, they say, and it’s expansion of government.  I just asked the question:  Why, when conservative think tanks propose these things is it great conservatism and a great example of small the government or trying to make smaller government the reality, and when she proposes it, it becomes an automatic entitlement and expansion of government?

Seems to me to be a little hypocritical.  Now, there were parts of this proposal to do reek of entitlements like the Democrats come up with.  George W. Bush did one, too, Medicare Part B.  We’ve had to live through this for I don’t know how many years.  But for me, Scott, it doesn’t do any good to sit here and wring my hands and talk about what could have been — if somebody else had won the Republican primary, for example — or what has been.

I deal with what “is,” and here’s how I see things.  Hillary Clinton has promised to expand the number of illegal immigrants and refugees pouring into this country in the hundreds of thousands.  It is my belief that immigration of all the issues that are destroying or wreaking great damage in this country, immigration is number one, not because of who, not because of anything to do with race, simply because we are flouting the law.

We are flooding the country with people who are not educated, who are not able to speak the language, and who are not capable of providing for themselves, and that’s exactly what the Democrat Party wants.  They are not becoming Americans; they’re not assimilating; there’s no effort to assimilate them.  Look at California.  If you want to find out what the future of the Republican Party is if Hillary Clinton wins, take a look at California.

California is, as we speak, proposing to pass a law to grant national Obamacare or whatever replaces it to illegal aliens, just by showing up.  The price for settling a refugee that enters the country under Obama or Hillary is $67,000!  This stuff has to stop — and, in this election, there is a candidate saying that he’s going to stop it.

We don’t know if he really will, but we do know that Hillary won’t.  We do know the Democrat Party won’t.  For me, Scott, we’re beyond ideology at this point because it isn’t on the ballot.  I regret that, I wish it weren’t the case, but that doesn’t accomplish anything by wishing something was that isn’t.  I just —

CALLER:  I agree with you, sir, 100% on what you just said. Although I will take a sidestep from one thing, and that is: I’m more worried about the future of the republic instead of the Republican Party.  And I understand exactly what you’re saying, and it makes all the sense in the world.  We know what Hillary’s going to do.  Donald Trump, you just said it.

He has a small window.  He could actually be a good president but he has a tendency to be distracted in the subterfuge, and what concerns me the most is almost like what Chuck Schumer said the other day.  The man openly just said I’m going to, if I become the Senate majority leader, we’re gonna put people on the court that won’t follow the Constitution.  This thing’s gonna self-destruct if we don’t correct it.

RUSH:  Right.  Wait a second, now.  Don’t misunderstand something.  This is a classic example.  I wasn’t advocating for the Republican Party.  That’s not my motivation here.  I’m simply telling you. Think of the Republican Party as the opposition to the Democrats.  It doesn’t exist in California!  I’m not… Whatever I believe here and whatever you think I’m advocating, it’s not because I care what happens to the Republican Party.  I care about what happens to America!

And I know that any more of what we’ve had the last eight years, it’s gonna be America, but it’s not gonna be the America you and I know.  It isn’t gonna be the America that was founded, and Chuck Schumer has just admitted that that’s their objective.  But they don’t have to admit it.  All we have to do is watch what they’re doing.  So the Trump proposal, whether it’s an expansion of government, whether it’s another entitlement and how conservatives been snookered again? (sigh) If you really don’t want Hillary, I don’t know what to tell you to do.  I — I — (sigh)

CALLER:  Well, there’s nothing really to be said to do.  I just have to, once again — catchphrase — follow my conscience, and it’s probably gonna lead me as hard as it is to the polls for Donald Trump. (garbled)

RUSH:  Well, but, no. I want to circle back to something you said.  You called me under the premise that I am Mr. Conservative, and you want to know. You’re attending the Limbaugh Institute, you think you’re close to getting a degree, even though there aren’t any here.

CALLER: (chuckles)

RUSH: You want to know what the professor really thinks about this in terms of whether this proposal that Ivanka put forth is actually conservative or not and are we making a mistake by not opposing it.  That’s what you’re really asking. For the sake of conservatism, you want to know, if we keep biting the bullet and supporting and electing these things that we disagree with, what’s it gonna do to us as a movement or what is it gonna do to conservatism? Is that close to one of the questions that you had?

CALLER:  True, but I think the hardest part but that — if you expand on that, Rush — is the fact that even if we — even if we went through what you were explaining about the vouchers and things of that nature. Every single program that has been put out there immediately gets expanded and the doors are open and all of a sudden it’s accumulating and everybody from everywhere instead of the intended target.  And that’s where all of these things go off the rails.

RUSH:  Okay.  So just make sure I understand.  So if this proposal, as written and submitted, ends up being enacted, then, in your view, it’s a creation — it’s the establishment — of a new entitlement, and it’s only going to expand every other entitlement, because it’s gonna continue the premise that government will pay people for their behavior?

CALLER:  And it’s gonna be another electron in the magnet of drawing people here illegally, period.

RUSH:  This proposal… Give me the specifics.  How does this act as a magnet to illegal immigrants?

CALLER:  Well, we already have this fictitious number of 11 million in the shadows. How they come up with that when they’re this the shadows I don’t know.  I’ve heard that (garblved).

RUSH:  That figure is also a bunch of years old.  It’s gotta be more than 11 million by now.

CALLER:  Right.  Right.  It’s gotta be way over that.  But we just saw that.  They’re allowing them to come in now. Regardless of where they’re from.  It’s not even a nation or an origin or a race or anything.  It’s just people that aren’t supposed to be here are coming across in droves.  Once they’re in here (garbled).

RUSH:  Well, actually the actually —

CALLER:  There’s no plan to find them and stop them.

RUSH:  Wait a second, now.  It’s not quite as… What’s the word?  The number, if we can trust anything that’s reported, the numbers are actually what is it down because of the status of the U.S. economy is not that strong.  The people that are coming here to find work aren’t coming, and some people are leaving because of that.  So you combine these two numbers and there’s some question over if the rate of illegal immigration is down or is the same or is up.

But the point is… You know, we’re getting off track again.  The point is that there’s a political party that wants to expand it; in fact, there may be two political parties that want to expand it!  You know what a big danger is? Let’s say Trump wins.  Let’s say Trump wins and let’s say he’s being honest about everything he’s proposing.  Let’s say he’s serious about building the wall, he’s serious about deporting these people, he’s serious about trying to keep corporate manufacturing here.  Let’s say all of this is true.  Do you know what the Democrats in Congress are gonna do?

CALLER:  Oh, yeah, I do — and the Republicans will probably cave to it.

RUSH:  Cave; try join.  Because even if Trump wins, the establishment’s not gonna go down a hole.  The establishment’s not gonna slink away in defeat.  The establishment is gonna look at this as one inexperienced buffoon who happened to get elected versus all of them who know the ropes inside and out of Washington, and they’re gonna make it their objective to deny this guy anything and everything that represents anything he campaigned on.

CALLER:  Oh, I agree with that completely.  And then here comes the executive order thing.  I’ll leave the professor with this one thing, Rush, and that is this.  If you can, sometime after this is all over with, answer how do we…? Forget liberal-conservatism, Republican-Democrat.  How do we save the Constitution and the republic?  Because, if we lose that, there’s nowhere to go.  Our U.S. Constitution is the stumbling block to anyone that wants to take over control of all of it.

RUSH:  Well, I mean, the answer to this requires the correct starting point — and by that I mean, well, how did we get to this point where so few Americans have been taught about the Constitution?

CALLER:  Oh, I agree with that 100%.

RUSH:  Okay.  So, well, follow me on this, now.  So few Americans have been taught the miracle that is the founding of this country, literal miracle after miracle after miracle that came together for this country to be founded as it was. It’s the first and only time in human history this has ever happened.

CALLER:  Agreed.

RUSH:  And that special exceptionalism is not taught any longer.  It’s being lied about and distorted.  So when you say, “When are we gonna get back to constitutionalism?” Well, do you start with education at kindergarten level? Do you start at elementary school?  And if you do, you’re talking, “Okay, 25 years to stop the direction we’re going and reverse the ship.” If you think we don’t have 25 years, how do we get back to constitutionalism?  Well, when’s the last time…? Honestly, now, Scott. When’s the last time you think we had — for president — a genuine conservative on the ballot?

CALLER: Um, I would have to say everyone goes to Ronald Reagan, but he was the last one that was even close to conservatism, and we had to go through (garbled) personally.

RUSH:  So that would be 1984.

CALLER:  Yes, sir.

RUSH:  So what does that alone tell you?

CALLER:  That tells me that the education system at all levels has been infiltrated — and trust me, I ran into a newly accredited teacher that didn’t even understand or couldn’t even list the Bill of Rights, and she’s a teacher.

RUSH:  I’m not surprised.  But if you maintain that the last genuine conservative candidate for president we had was 1984, Ronaldus Magnus, what does that tell you about the Republican Party?

CALLER:  It tells me that —

RUSH:  They don’t want a conservative!  They don’t want one. That’s why they didn’t… They didn’t want Ted Cruz.  You know, people blame the media for Ted Cruz bombing out? (scoffs)  The Republican Party didn’t want Ted Cruz. The Republican Party… All of this, we’ve discussed ever since this whole primary season began.  At what point do you…? How do we get back to constitutionalism? How do we get back to conservatism?

I mean, conservatism better exist outside talk radio and Fox News.  How does conservatism find its way into the body politic?  I think most people actually live their lives that way, but they have been poisoned into not voting that way because the brand — conservatism brand, Republican brand — has been summarily destroyed over the years.  These are very tough questions and really, really difficult answers to deal with honestly.

Just espousing theory, conservative theory and trying to have it take/settle in with people? Well, it’s not working.  And so how do we…? If you accept that conservatism equals constitutionalism — and I do — well, then, where do we start?  We do we start reinstituting all of these values, the morality in the culture, in our society; the respect for rule of law.  And then you look at what we’re up against, an entire Democrat Party

This is not even Bill Clinton’s Democrat Party, anymore.  This party, the Democrat Party of today, is so off the rails and so radical, we had a poll yesterday that whites and Christians and Catholics are leaving the Democrat Party.  Now, I thought that should have been happening for 20 years, but they’re finally waking up.  I don’t have any more detail on that than that at this moment.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, as I said yesterday — and I guess it enraged many — there’s politics and there’s ideology, and I guess what enraged people was, “Who the hell…? What? Politics is ideology, you doofus!” I imagine some people said that. Well, not this year.  Can somebody point to me the conservative on the ballot?  “What do you mean, Rush? Are you admitting Trump’s not a conservative?”

(snorts) Damn right I am! Folks, when did I ever say that he was?  Look, I don’t know how to tell you this.  Conservatism lost, in the primary, if that’s how you want to look at it. We had Cruz; we had Rubio.  By the way, I’m the guy… I got in trouble for this, too.  You remember when the conservative movement was disavowing Marco Rubio early on in the primaries?  The same conservatives, many of the same who are now and have been trying to disavow Trump.

They wanted to throw Rubio overboard because of his Gang of Eight heresy.  And I remember, I’d had my fill of it, and I remember saying on this program… I came to his defense.  I said, “I’m getting sick and tired of hearing how Marco Rubio is not a conservative.  He is.  All you have to do is listen to him,” and I got grief for that, too.  It really is… I made the point yesterday that at election time the left, no matter how much they hate each other, they hate us more, and they unify.

They come together when it’s time to win.  When it’s time to beat us, they come together.  We haven’t figured that out, and I don’t know. A lot of people say, “Well, yeah, Rush, that’s because we got a lot of highly principled people who are not gonna sell out the just for the sake of winning.” Okay.  To each his own.  But I don’t know what… What do you want to do? Trump and his daughter propose this thing, it had conservative elements in it like the savings account option.

I was not surprised by caller reaction to it.  “Hey, Rush, if the federal government’s passing out money, it’s about time those of us who’ve been paying for it for 20 years got some of it back!”  What are you gonna do?  Tell ’em, “You’re wrong. You’re betraying conservatism! I think you should die!” (choking back laughter) What are you gonna tell ’em?  Is that their… (laughing) Is that what they want me to say?

Well, look, it’s the eternal question.  We had a guy earlier, “When is this going to stop?”  It’s gonna stop when you nominate a conservative.  It’s gonna stop when there’s a conservative that can win elections.  That’s when it’s gonna stop.  But it isn’t gonna stop then because when that happens, you better be prepared for more hate and more opposition than you’ve ever seen.  If a conservative was elected president — and I wish it would happen.

I’ve wished it would happen for 25 years.  You know what the left and the media would mobilize to do to deny this conservative?  That’s why whoever the eventual conservative winner is had better be charismatic, had better be loved, had better be able to directly communicate with the American people — and I’m not saying being Ronald Reagan Jr., anything of the sort.  I’m saying what it’s gonna take.

Because the degree of opposition is… Even what we’ve seen now, we haven’t seen anything.  But the establishment’s gonna come together to protect themselves regardless of ideology.  I wish conservatism was on the ballot.