RUSH: Here’s Leo in Minneapolis, as we go back to the phones. Hi, Leo. I’m glad you called. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I just wanted to get back to what you’re saying about how it’s dangerous and sad that people are cynical about these threats in the Middle East, and I think that that gets to a broader pessimism and cynicism in American life and culture today. Like in the economy, for instance, a lot of people either aren’t looking for jobs or think that the best job they can get is the new 30-hour workweek jobs, the temp jobs and I think that that broader pessimism is the thing that’s actually the greatest problem facing the country. I think people don’t believe that they can make it, and that’s sad, in my opinion, because America has been a great nation and can still be a great nation.
RUSH: (sigh) All right, now, this is interesting, despite the sigh, I only sighed there because of the breathing pattern, independent of your call. It was not a sigh of frustration. Actually I’m very excited about this. ‘Cause your point is that you think young people, and maybe a lot of people, have no optimism about their future in this country.
CALLER: Yeah, especially young people.
RUSH: Especially young people. Okay. Why? Now, we just had news last week, a record number of Millennials, that’s the age-group 18 to 28, I think it is, are living at home, 21.5 million of them are still living with their parents.
CALLER: I think that a lot of Millennials look at this economy and they are having trouble getting jobs either because they got a degree which is not necessarily useful in the real world or because just the economy’s tight or they are living at home with their parents and they don’t think that it’s possible for them to be able to do well and to be able to get a good paying job and to live the American dream, essentially.
RUSH: Okay, let’s examine this. Let’s take your premise. A lot of young people, and I’m not arguing with you here about the cynicism about government. I think that’s real, too, but I want to focus on your theory or your assertion that young people have no optimism about their future, about their success. Why is that? Because didn’t they get the president they voted for?
CALLER: Well, sometimes you get what you ask for and you don’t want it, but I think that a lot of them didn’t vote for Obama last year. Obama lost a lot of support from young people last year. A lot of people didn’t turn out to support him, and I think that as Republicans and conservatives, we need to be the party of optimism. We need to be the party of things can be better, we can make things better, and I think if we do that we’ll be able to help restore the economy and make America better because —
RUSH: I agree with you a hundred percent. It’s called conservatism.
CALLER: I agree.
RUSH: And there is a huge shortage of that in Washington.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Major shortage of it.
CALLER: But it needs to be articulated like that. It needs to be articulated, “We can make this economy better. We can make America great again. We can make your life –“
RUSH: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. But Obama said all of that. That was part of his campaign in ’08, and it was part of his campaign in 2012. Look, I’m not shouting at you.
CALLER: Sorry.
RUSH: But the Millennials voted for Obama like crazy. I don’t care what their turnout was in 2012, they, as much as anybody, young people for one of the first times in American electoral politics, a presidential race, young people did show up. They elected this guy. Now, if they’re sitting there all depressed over the fact that there’s no economic future, how in the world do they not associate him and his party with that?
CALLER: Because it’s the Limbaugh Theorem exactly as you say. The media doesn’t associate him with that, and young people, especially young people spend a lot of time on the Internet and they read various left-wing blogs and such —
RUSH: I understand that, but the guy’s been president — I know the Limbaugh Theorem. Just let me walk you through it. We’ve got five and a half years in, we’ve got people going to school coming out indebted for the rest of their lives for their education, and as you said, some of their degrees with worthless in terms of practical application. They were idealistic. Obama was it. He was the answer. They reelected him. I’m at a loss to intellectually understand. I know they go to the Internet and they see all this rampant liberalism everywhere, and I know what they think of Republicans, and I know what they probably think of conservatives, but despite that, how can they not be upset with the policy makers of the moment?
CALLER: I don’t think that they’re really paying attention. I think that a lot of young people don’t listen too much to what’s going on in politics, and they just hear someone say, “Oh, Republicans are horrible because they hate gay people” or something.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: God knows what.
RUSH: I know. Or they’re opposed to gay people getting married or —
CALLER: Yeah. Whatever the rhetoric of the day is. And I think that part of the reason Obama won is he said those things. He was lying, but he said that we can make the economy better and that he would able to be the great unifier and such, and I think that that’s part of the reason he won, is he said that and people believed him.
RUSH: Yeah. I’m gonna tell you something. They’re living in a reality. If you’re right, if they’re depressed because they’ve got no optimism about their economic future — I guess I’m putting myself in their situation — in the past, you know, I’ve maybe been more politically aware than people my age, particularly when I was younger, but I certainly did associate the policies coming out of Washington in the day with the economic circumstances of the country. I never thought that a president was trying real hard to fix something and it just wasn’t working. I always thought the president had the ability, because my formative president was Reagan. Look what Reagan was able to do. I’m bothered ’cause I know you’re right. I know you’re right, and yet these people that you’re talking about are angry at people who haven’t had a thing to do with their plight.
CALLER: I think that you especially probably paid lot better attention to this than most people of your age. I think there are people my age who I know who do pay attention to this and do understand. It’s just that unfortunately there are not enough of them.
RUSH: How old are you?
CALLER: I’m 18 years old.
RUSH: I’m sorry. I thought you were in your forties.
CALLER: No, I’m a young person. I’ve been listening to your show for a while.
RUSH: Okay. All right. For some reason, I just assumed you were a dad, I don’t know why, it’s the sound of your voice, it’s nothing more than that.
CALLER: Oh.
RUSH: Okay, so you’re actually speaking for yourself and for others —
CALLER: Yeah, I’m speaking for what I see among my peers.
RUSH: Yeah. Well, don’t you just feel like wringing their necks when they start talking this way?
CALLER: Yeah, it just bothers me, and no matter how much I try and explain it to them, I often feel I just can’t get through, they don’t seem to understand.
RUSH: What kinds of things you tell ’em?
CALLER: I try and explain to them how the economy in the past has always been grown by capitalists, essentially, by people who had a great idea and didn’t listen to people saying they couldn’t do it.
RUSH: Have you ever told ’em, “Hey, there’s a recession, but you don’t have to participate. You can go out there and make anything you want, hard work, get out there and try”?
CALLER: Yes, I have said that. I didn’t necessarily use those words, but I have said that hard work and effort —
RUSH: What kind of reaction you get? They’re cynical about it, right?
CALLER: A lot of people agree with me. Some of them say no, it’s pointless, because I think they’re cynical about everything and —
RUSH: Look, I gotta take a break. I want you to hang on, Leo, because I’ve gotta take a break. It’s frustrating because these people are voting for the people that are doing this to ’em.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back with Leo in Minneapolis. Leo is 18, and I didn’t know that when we started the call. You’re very articulate, Leo, and the quality of your voice sounds to me like you were a father talking about your impression of young people rather than one of ’em. I’ll tell you what I think just in a really distilled way to explain this. I think the young people you’re talking about who are depressed, have no optimism about their economic future, I think they hate the Republican brand more than they might blame Democrats for whatever’s happening.
CALLER: I agree with you on that.
RUSH: That’s what you’re talking about when they read the blogs and they read everything on the Internet and all this leftist, never-ending assault on what they think Republicans are. Republicans are anti-woman, they’re anti-gay, they’re anti-gay marriage. They’re anti-young people doing what they want to do. They’re anti-marijuana legalization. They’re no fun. They’re a bunch of stuffed shirts, fuddy-duddies, you know, old-fashioned, rich white guy racists.
CALLER: I agree with you. That’s exactly what I see. And I think getting back to what you said earlier, when I tell people or when someone tells someone that they can in fact make it, I think it’s easy for them to listen to that and say, “Oh, yeah, that might be right.” But when it comes down to doing it, I think that hearing it and doing it are two entirely different things for them.
RUSH: That is such a key. I don’t know who these people are because we’re talking about them in a very broad generic sense —
CALLER: Yeah, I don’t want to use any names, but —
RUSH: No, no. Not asking you to. I just think that these people that you’re talking about, many of them have been propagandized or brainwashed, whatever term you want to use, toward liberalism for most of their lives and really in their classrooms beginning in, oh, probably elementary school, all the way up to junior high, middle school, high school, and certainly into college, and they’ve had all of this propaganda thrown at them, and they’re living under people they voted for, but they do not associate the people that they voted for as the problem. It boggles my mind intellectually. But then when you tell ’em hard work, see, I think some of them have been conditioned against even that.
I don’t know what percentage it is, but it’s fairly large, young people have an awfully high expectation of having what they want really soon in life, and if they don’t see it happening, then they get a little down in the dumps over that. And your notion about the concept of hard work and fighting against the odds and not depending on others, plus these people have been drilled through their whole lives with this conflict resolution stuff, being nice, don’t be aggressive, always be tolerant and understanding of the failures around you, and don’t try to be better than anybody else, don’t keep score in softball or baseball, whatever, it’s a whole collection of things that has ’em beat down.
CALLER: I know. And that just seems so foreign to me personally. I look at life and I say, “I can do something. I can do something great because I have skills and I can learn things and I can work and I can be successful.”
RUSH: And you’ve got passion, and you have a positive attitude about your future.
CALLER: Yes. And I think that — just getting back to the thing about the Internet, I wish that more Republicans would be able to figure out how to more effectively message on the Internet, because I know a lot of conservatives look at the Internet and say, “Oh, all these things going on on the Internet are stupid.” I think that it really just reflects the user base so much as — I think if Republicans could use the Internet more effectively to communicate their message, that it would work. And I think that a lot of Republicans aren’t doing that.
RUSH: Well, I know how you feel. It’s almost analogous to the — let’s say in your case the Republicans are your team, you want ’em to win, and you want to be proud of ’em, and you want to see them doing things that you would do, and you don’t. You don’t see any of that coming out.
CALLER: I want to see that because it’s good for America. It’s not just I want to see Republicans win ’cause they’re Republicans. I want to see Republicans win because that’s good for America.
RUSH: Well, see, that’s the thing about conservatism. Every speech I make, and so often on this program, every opportunity I get when it comes up, I do my best to explain conservatism at a base root level. We love everybody. We want a great nation. We want everybody to do well. We don’t see “black female” when we look at people. We don’t see groups. We don’t see victims. We don’t judge people by the color of their skin. We don’t make judgments on them on that basis. We see people. We see human beings. We want to see people, as many as possible, pursuing excellence.
We believe, conservatives believe — and this is gonna be laughed at. You wait, you’re gonna see this quote on the Internet, Leo, it’s gonna be laughed out of the ballpark. But we conservatives think these Norman Rockwell portraits are possible and that there’s nothing wrong with ’em. We want solid neighborhoods. We want solid community, and we want people working together in them. That’s how it all works. We want a strong moral fiber. We want an emphasis on right and wrong because it’s the best for people. It’s really a frustrating thing to see it mischaracterized.
While I’ve got you, go back and grab sound bite number one ’cause I want to play this sound bite of Dr. Benjamin Carson ’cause this is what the Republicans are up against, Leo. He was on C-SPAN yesterday, and the caller called and asked him his opinion of me, and then he asked Dr. Carson whether he thought I was a positive or negative impact on society. And he said something that is really insightful. Here it is again.
CARSON: I think Rush Limbaugh serves a very useful purpose in our society because he breaks things down. He looks at things, he analyzes it. You know, some of his analysis, you know, I might not agree with, but a lot of them I do agree with, and because a lot of people have tried to demonize him, people look at what he says in light of that demonization as opposed to the merits of what it is.
RUSH: Now, that’s what we’re up against, Leo. What he’s saying is, I can come out and I could have the most brilliant, correct, a thousand percent correct analysis of something, but the left would say, “Well, Limbaugh, he’s a racist, he’s a sexist,” and would discount everything I said because I don’t have the credibility to say it. Whether it’s right or not doesn’t matter. I’ve been demonized and my credibility has been destroyed among the media and the Democrats and the people that see this and think I can’t be right. It’s not possible because I’m such an evil person. And this is what they’ve done. This is what the left does to any credible conservative — Marco Rubio, you name it, Ted Cruz. I mean, the names never end. Sarah Palin, they pop up. The left, anybody they think is effective, they will set out to destroy. And this in turn makes Republicans afraid to pop up, get their necks chopped off, their heads chopped off. So the Democrats have perfected this thing and the Republicans don’t know how to deal with it, Leo.
CALLER: You can have the best rational and successful argument, but if there’s a good emotional argument to counter that, people would be more persuaded by the emotional argument because a lot of people have strong emotions. I think that that’s part of the problem, is the left primarily uses emotional arguments, which work.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And conservatism is based on intellectual and rational arguments.
RUSH: Exactly right.
CALLER: And people are less willing to listen to that.
RUSH: As I’ve always said, conservatism is an intellectual pursuit, and liberalism is the easiest choice you can make. I use this example. You’re walking down the street and there’s a homeless guy pushing a shopping cart. And the liberal goes, “Oh, that’s so horrible. We’ve got to do something!” Wonderful person, compassionate, caring. Conservative sees that person and says, “Hmm. We’ve gotta find a way to get that person working.” And that’s considered mean.
CALLER: It’s considered mean to say that people can do things for themselves.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: And that’s really sad. I want to be able to do things for myself, personally. I don’t want to have to be dependent. I want to be able to be successful and wealthy on my own. I don’t want to have to depend on government for my prosperity.
RUSH: Well, Leo, hang in there. Whatever you do, don’t let ’em — you don’t sound like you’re the kind that will, but don’t let ’em intimidate you into being silent, because you’re 18. It’s gonna be people like you that are going to be the hooks for turning this around. I don’t mean to put pressure on you, but people like you are going to be crucially important in helping others who don’t to see the light. I’m really glad you called. I thank you a lot.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Oh, no, I think kids today have very good reason to be depressed, given who they voted for. The amount of the national debt that they owe, given how few of them are supposed to support as many who are gonna be retired. Wait ’til these young people, they’re already depressed, wait ’til they find out what their health care costs are gonna be and why. Wait ’til they figure that out. And then watch ’em try to blame that on Republicans, too. I know about the Republican brand and all that stuff, but they still voted for this. They voted for it. You know, so dig in.
You know, Steven Rattner the other day was talking about Detroit, the guy said (paraphrasing), “Aside from voting in elections, the people in Detroit had nothing to do with –” BS! Precisely because of voting in elections Detroit is the way it is. Rattner was trying to exempt the population of Detroit of having any responsibility of what happened. They own it! They voted for the people that destroyed that town. And it’s the same thing here. My sympathy level is not all that high. The little twerps voted for this stuff. Okay, learn it, love it, live it. But Rattner said, “Aside from voting in elections, the people of Detroit have no responsibility or culpability –” That’s 90% of it! They got exactly what they voted for. Liberals always do. They get exactly what they vote for.