RUSH: El Rushbo, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have. However, always tempered with the stark reality in which we all find ourselves today. Can always count on me never to lose that perspective. And that will be to your benefit. It never is pessimism; it’s just reality. Sometimes people won’t want to hear it, such as what I have to say coming up here in just a moment. I think you’ll find it fascinating, but you might really not want to hear it, although I may be wrong about that. Anyway, phone number, 800-282-2882. Email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us. Now, the right Pelosi bite is number five, okay, so have that standing by here.
I checked the email during the break, and I have a lot of people thinking that I’m overly optimistic on the tactics the left employed all the time failing them because people get wise to it. And I understand. Look, we’ve had a lifetime of the left defining these narratives and getting away with it. And it’s become the way in which we function and operate, and we strategize. We know what the left’s gonna do, we have pretty good idea what they’re gonna get away with and thus what we have to push back on.
Here’s what’s different to me. And I admit that this is hopeful and not full-fledged confident. Whereas when Obama’s in the White House and the Republicans react to him or I say something or he nominates somebody, the Republicans react to it, the Democrats would go predictably bat excrement and they would start launching on how the nominee or the person in question or the target, whoever it was, racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, hateful, anti-American, out of the mainstream, extremist, whatever it is.
And over all these years, our side would never push back against it, the media would join the chorus, and that would become the narrative. Democrats mainstream, insane; Republicans, minority, extremist wackos and racist, sexist, bigots to boot. What’s changed now is the Democrats don’t control anything. We do. We control the White House. We control the House. We control the Senate.
They still have the embedded bureaucracy. And this why I was so frosted at Trump. It wasn’t the fact that Sessions hadn’t yet been confirmed and this renegade acting attorney general did what she did, this Sally what’s-her-face. It’s because Trump doesn’t realize yet what he’s up against. He knows he’s got opposition, but he doesn’t understand ideological opposition.
That woman was not just practicing or acting out some moral code. She was a political activist. She’s always been a political activist. She’s not a lawyer in that sense. She’s a political activist. She’s a leftist. She’s put in there to advance the leftist agenda and arrest anything else. She should not have been there. Trump should have broomed everybody of appointed nature out of the DOJ and every other one of these bureaucracies on day one.
I’m hopeful as this opposition continues that Trump becomes more — I don’t want say learned and aware, ’cause he’s not stupid by any stretch. It’s just he doesn’t think in ideological terms. He doesn’t see Pelosi as a ravaged, insane liberal. He just sees her as somebody that’s maybe anti-business who doesn’t know what she’s talking about and is wrong, but he doesn’t see her the way she sees him.
She sees him as an enemy that threatens everything she believes in that has to be destroyed. Trump does not see these people that way. But they’re out there trying to destroy him and everybody in his administration multiple times a day. Here is Pelosi. This is what she said on CNN when the nomination of Gorsuch had been made, and Jake Tapper is talking to her and asks her for a comment on the guy.
PELOSI: He comes down on the side of felons over gun safety, hostile to women’s reproductive rights, the Hobby Lobby case, for example. The list goes on and on. Criticized progressives for bringing cases that relate to LGBT progress, taking those cases to the court. So it’s a very hostile appointment. (unintelligible) fellow, well met, lovely family, I’m sure. But as far as your family is concerned and all the — if you breathe air, drink water, eat food, take medicine, or in any other way interact with the courts, this is a very bad decision.
RUSH: That’s insane. It’s just flat-out insane. If you breathe air — we all do — if you drink water — we all do and it’s not a choice. We have to. Some of you too much bourbon, but still, gotta have water. Eat food. No choice there! Have to do it or we die! If you take medicine — yeah, only those who can afford it, ’cause the pharmaceutical companies suck. Or if you in any other way interact with the courts, this is a very bad decision.
So just by your doing things you need to stay alive, this guy is gonna kill you! Just by you doing what you have to do to stay alive, this guy is your enemy. He comes down on the side of felons over gun safety. See, the effort to put Gorsuch on the defensive has already begun. Now, there are two factions on the left, one faction made up of the think tank, legal association left. They don’t want to go after this guy this way because they think it’s wasted ammunition. He’s gonna get confirmed, it doesn’t change the balance of the court.
People like Pelosi and Schumer cannot help themselves. This guy is an enemy of the state. He is an enemy who must not be — even though he has been approved previous times unanimously by voice vote, doesn’t matter, because Supreme Court is where the left advances their agenda. And there’s not gonna be anybody over their dead bodies that gets in there and can have a chance at stopping them implement their agenda.
So this guy is hostile to women’s reproductive. That’s the Hobby Lobby case. Look, I’m not gonna take the time at this moment to get into the minutia and details of all these cases. That’s gonna come later when the hearings begin. The timing to do these things will be right. I want to address something larger here, and it’s based on the emails I got during the break at the top of the hour. People thought that I’m being a little overly optimistic that the left is marginalizing itself by virtue of being who they are and that people will eventually see it for what it is and stop being affected by it.
People say, “Rush” — some of the emails — “all my life they’ve gotten away with it. I mean, if people were gonna see it for what it is, it would have happened by now. I’m sorry, Rush, but there’s no evidence the left doesn’t get away with this stuff.” Well, there is: the election. If the left got away with this stuff, Trump would not be president today. That’s just one example. But I understand your point.
Look, I’m not full-fledged confident that the libs are gonna marginalize themselves. What’s different is that they’re gonna do it all the time now. When Obama was president and they ran the Senate or were in charge of things, they weren’t reacting to every news story this way. But now they are, multiple times a day they are demonstrating their insanity and how unhinged and absent reality they are. Every day, multiple times.
They lost the election. Everybody knows they lost the election. But here’s the difference, folks, and this is why I have to understand the people who have emailed me who think that I’m being overly optimistic. There’s no question that a certain number of people, over time, are gonna tune out the Pelosis and the Schumers and the CNNs and all of the other leftist activists who are going bat excrement crazy. But the media never does tune them out, meaning you and me and a bunch of other citizens out there might begin to ignore the left and might think, “What a bunch of nutcases. Just stop paying attention to ’em.”
But the media never will, and that, I have to admit, is a fundamentally crucial point. The media will never get tired of them. In other words, they are always going to be the lead story for the media. Whatever extremism is happening, whatever reaction to whatever Trump’s doing, the more extreme, the more leftist it is, the media is going to top-line it, front-page it, lead with it. So the media will never tune it out. The media will always be using it and trying to capitalize on it.
So even while you’ve tuned it out, you’re not gonna be able to avoid it because the media’s gonna be all over it. And in this way, because of the media never tiring of it, because of the media actually living off of this insanity on the left, they figure that even when they lose, they win because they maintain control of the narrative. And it happens this way. Let me give you a demonstration or illustration of how it happens.
Let’s say Obama nominates a judge, he’s president, nominates Sotomayor or take your pick to be a federal court judge or Supreme Court justice. Those nominees, during their confirmation hearings, are free to say everything they believe. That they are committed to Roe v. Wade and abortion rights, that they would reverse Citizens United on the first day they were on the bench. That they would, if they could, limit the Second Amendment. They are permitted because of the media cover they get, to be up front and honest about every restrictive, anti-constitutional thing they would do, and there is never any criticism of it.
They can stand for every bit of anti-constitutionalism they want, and they are heralded and portrayed as heroic and eminently qualified. Our nominees, on the other hand, are never able to do the opposite. And you’re gonna see it here with Judge Gorsuch. Judge Gorsuch is gonna have to temper what he believes and temper what he says by, in fact, saying things like, “Yes, I am sometimes very disappointed with my own rulings.”
That’s the signaling to these nutcase Democrats that he’s not an ideologue. That he will find against his own beliefs by following the law. The leftist nominees never have to pledge following the law. Leftist nominees never have to promise to follow the law. In fact, they do the opposite. They not only get away with, they are required to explain how they’re going to set the law that has been made in mistake and in error correctly.
They’re gonna ensure Roe v. Wade. They’re gonna try to get rid of the Second Amendment, whatever the leftist agenda is. So our nominees, in the past, have even been chosen on their ability to be unspecific. Our nominees, some of them, previous Republican presidents have actually chosen for their ability to not tie themselves in knots and incriminate themselves in front of these Stalinists that are the Democrats on the judiciary committee.
So the way that the media and the Democrats have set up the game is, our nominees have to say, “My personal views are irrelevant,” and, “Of course I will enforce the settled law, and I will not overturn precedent, and I will respect everything you idiot leftists have done to transform this country, whether I agree with it or not.” Our nominees have to say a variation of that in their hearings. In other words, left-leaning decisions are sacrosanct and must be enforced. They are the “mainstream.” And if you, as a Republican nominee, do not signal that you’re okay with that, then you are going to be labeled as out of the mainstream and extreme.
So the left’s out of control, unhinged opposition is not just about knocking out one nominee or another. It’s about controlling the narrative. It’s about controlling the parameters, the boundaries in which nominations are considered. And this hopefully will change. But right now it is the way it is. Republican nominees have to be very guarded and cannot in any way betray what their ideological beliefs are, whereas Democrat nominees not only can, they’re required to. Anthony Kennedy? Roberts?
They can’t portray what they’re really gonna do once they get on the bench. They have to keep that a secret if what they’re gonna do is actually interpret the law. It’s a real… Now, all that’s reversed here. The Democrats don’t have the votes to stop these nominees, especially if the nuclear option is enacted. But still, you watch; the hearings will take place much as I have described them here. Gorsuch is gonna show up, presumed to be out of the mainstream.
He’s gonna be presumed to be an extremist ’cause of the Hobby Lobby case and because he defends the Second Amendment and all this. And in order to get through this he’s gonna have to show his respects the lunatic leftist extremists that are the Democrats on the committee. And these parameters have to change. So whereas, yeah, the left does have a chance of causing people to tune out because they just are gonna be going crazy 24/7, there still is the success that they have had in defining, setting the terms under which judicial confirmation hearings take place.
The intent here is to fully limit the options Republican presidents have in choosing Supreme Court or federal district court nominees. As I say, presidents have to pick people that are gonna be able to go up there and walk this tightrope, whereas liberal nominees have to worry about any of this. The more liberalism they say they’re for, the better it is. But they are scared to death of Gorsuch because he’s so smart; he has impeccable credentials.
Folks, this guy, his educational credentials, his resume, his CV is unassailable. This guy, they would kill if he were on their side. They… I mean, they would be having orgasms if they could get this guy on their side. That’s how brilliant he is, and now he’s backed by Trump, who is fearless and is out to blow this whole system up. And it may change the rules, the way the game is played. That’s what we’re keeping an eye on and hoping happens.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here is John in Port Huron, Michigan. You’re next, and it’s great to have you, sir. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you. If I may for a minute be your unpaid spokesperson and talk directly to the emailers who don’t buy your take so much that things are different now and the voting public, the people that put Trump in there aren’t just gonna buy into the Democrats. May I do that for a moment?
RUSH: Sure. Have at it.
CALLER: Because I was one of the weak-in-the-knee people, you propped me up many times when I was thinking this was over, it’s gone. And this is where I’m actually going to use your arguments over 30 years, or at least 20 years, to talk to these folks, ’cause I was one of them. Things are totally different now. For 20 years you’ve been begging, clamoring, prodding Republicans, particularly in Congress, to fight back, to stand up, to make some points, not just back down, go-along-to-get-along and take the high road. And, of course, to the Democrats, the high road for Republicans simply means don’t defend yourself. Would you agree with that?
RUSH: Yeah. Yeah.
CALLER: And you have been saying this forever. And you look what the, quote, unquote, high road has gotten the Republican Party, it got George H. W. Bush from 90% approval after Desert Storm to being beaten by an unknown, you know, governor from Arkansas. It got his son to go from 90% approval after 9/11 to 30% approval when he left office. And the most recent example of taking the high road, being classy, just figuring people will figure it out without responding, was Mitt Romney, you know, up by seven or eight going into the thing and then beaten.
RUSH: I can’t object to much of this, I must tell you.
CALLER: Well, I appreciate that, because I am your unpaid spokesperson talking directly to these people, who I once was one. In fact, probably the day before the election I was still one of them. But here’s the thing; here’s what’s different. You know where this is going. You have a guy who doesn’t only defend himself, he fights back. He says stuff to them, to the Democrats, to his opposition, that you would want said.
You cringed a little. You were so not used to a guy — and I’ll give you specific examples — taking on the Clintons, both in Bill Clinton’s personal behaviors while in office and of course their thievery with the Clinton Foundation over the years, you almost, even though you wanted it for years, you got so trained as a Republican to not hear that, you almost cringed at first and then went, “Oh, my God, it’s about time.” Once you got over the cringe factor because we were so trained not to do that, then it’s just started rolling and rolling and rolling. And that’s different now. And he is not stopping. He is gonna continue to do this.
Now, the second leg to this, what’s different, and you brought this up, is the media will be out there selling it for Pelosi and Schumer. Their voices, you know, people like us may get sick of it, but they can pick it up. Here’s what Trump has done, which is genius. They are the only group that has a lower approval rate than Congress. And he has taken them on head on with the same type of results for people like me and probably some middle-of-the-road Democrats and some nonpartisans, people that never voted, and —
RUSH: Yeah, but don’t forget the low-information crowd out there. They’re always a factor.
CALLER: They’re always a factor, but that bubble group — me, the people who may have voted, the Reagan Democrats, the labor Democrats, the same ones who voted for him in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, who never would have done that, they get it now. And when he keeps doing this and pointing it out, saying, “Hey, aren’t you the network whose former anchor gave talking points, after she became the DNC chairman, questions in the debate,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, he’s kept it up and kept it up.
Here’s my analogy. The Democrat Party itself is like white-collar criminals who ripped off a local group of people in a small community. That person then goes out and hires an attorney. Okay, they hire an attorney who has a stellar reputation who everyone respects to give them — what’s that word they used to use, gravitas? In this scenario, in this analogy, what they’ve done is they’ve gone out and hired an attorney who just got out of prison for stealing money from the trust fund of their clients.
So they’re gonna rely on a group of people now that were going down the drain credibility-wise anyway, and Trump is just hitting the accelerator. He is just putting the pedal-to-the-metal —
RUSH: Okay. One quick question before I move on, ’cause this has been an excellent message to the emailers, and I will explain that when the call’s completed. Do you have any fear, is there any part of you at any time worried that Trump is going to, not cave, but react in a bad way to something you wouldn’t like, to, say, take a pick, the reaction to his executive order on vetting immigrants. It’s so outrageous, it’s so intense, Apple is threatening to sue Trump, all these other groups out there are going bonkers. The whole state of California says, “Screw you, Trump, we’re going all sanctuary, not just city, the whole state,” are you worried at some point that Trump’s gonna back down a little bit to try to appease these people?
CALLER: I’m not afraid he’s gonna back down. My fear used to be that, “Oh, he better –” you know, the old training, it’s like Pavlov’s dog; we’re not used to getting what we want so much and over the top, we’re thinking, “Oh, calm it down.” I’m not in either one of those camps anymore. Because what he knows is 55, 60, 65, 70% of the people agree with these things.
RUSH: Let me tell you what I’m running into, though. Let me ask you if you’ve run into this. I’m running into some citizens, not people in politics, they’re voters. They’re disappointed, even though everything you describe is happening. And they love it. They love the push-back, they love the defiance, they love Trump in their face; but they’re disappointed that the media isn’t changing.
They’re disappointed that seemingly not enough members of the public are getting it. In other words, they’re sitting up there waiting for a vast majority of people to go with Trump, to abandon the Democrats, and they’re including some media in that. I’ve been up against this my whole career. And it’s frustrated me to no end that people are not willing to pronounce success until the media agrees with us, and I’m still hearing it out there among people.
CALLER: Okay. Can I respond to that?
RUSH: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That’s why I asked you the question. But I just got a minute here. You gotta do it quick. Brevity is the soul of wit.
CALLER: I can do 30 seconds. We’re a church, not a cult. We want as many people to keep us going, but if you don’t want to join us, go ahead; do whatever you want to do. We just proved in November that we don’t need them. It’s upsetting; it’s irritating. I tell my mother, “Don’t watch CNN. Don’t watch the protests. It’s like putting your tongue in a canker sore. What’s the point? We won.” The polls of the people that put him in power are still there, and it’s growing. And the more foolish they look… As you’re saying, Rush, don’t get upset like I used to that they look foolish and idiotic and they don’t understand logic. Be happy.
RUSH: Look, I hear you. I just… I see some people that are disappointed. They think with this big a slam-dunk win by Trump and this overwhelming demonstration of success that people would wake up and join us, and they see all this opposition on TV and they see the evidence of the country being divided, and they think, “Oh, my God, it isn’t working.” They probably have, you know, an 85-year-old mother or mother-in-law living with ’em.
Who’s done nothing but watch MacNeil/Lehrer every night followed by Walter Cronkite and then Dan Rather and that’s all the old woman’s exposed to and is sitting at home complaining and whining and moaning about this Trump guy. So there may be some explanations for it. But, look, I appreciate the caller out there, John. Port Huron, Michigan, is where you’re from. I’ll explain what he was doing talking to the emailers in case you weren’t here at the top of the hour.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I’ll tell you what, old John out there from Port Huron, Michigan, is a pretty good spokesman. Did you hear his description of watching CNN? Like putting your tongue on a canker sore. (laughing) That was good. What he was talking about, I expressed an opinion previous hour that I think, because the left lost and because they’re going bat excrement crazy all the time, I mean multiple times — in fact, it’s their normal state, at some point people are gonna tire of it. They’re gonna see it for what it is.
They’re gonna shoot their emotional ammo, gonna be out of it, and people are gonna just tire of it. And after awhile, all of their allegations about Trump are gonna cease to have much impact. And I got some emails during the break at the top of the hour, people who thought I was being overly optimistic about this and wanted me to temper my thoughts on that with some reality. And their basic point was, “Yeah, well, they may slink away, but the media never. The media’s gonna constantly be using the left for the lead items on the news.”
And that’s true. I mean, the left can be as bat excrement crazy as they want, and they’re still gonna be the fodder for what the lead items television news are above the fold on newspapers, covers of magazines, and the blogs and everything. So the media is still going to be portraying this extreme, wacko, insane liberalism as the mainstream order of the day, in terms of the narrative. No matter how crazy it gets, no matter how insane, no matter how lunatic it is. And that happens to be true.