RUSH: Have you seen, ladies and gentlemen, the new Cadillac commercial for their new electric car? (interruption) You haven’t? It features the actor Neal McDonough. Do you watch Justified? (interruption) Well, Neal McDonough was in Justified two years ago. He’s got this baby-shaped head, blue eyes, short, blond hair. He can play the nicest next-door neighbor or the evilest villain you’ve ever found.
He is the actor in this commercial. The left hates this commercial. There are caustic posts on leftist websites, and even mainstream news sites, Huffing and Puffington Post. They’re outraged over the Cadillac ad! If you’ve seen it, you might know why.
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RUSH: Let’s get to the Cadillac commercial. There’s a headline here at the Huffing and Puffington Post. It’s by a woman named Carolyn Gregoire, and I don’t know she pronounces it that way. G-r-e-g-o-i-r-e, Gregoire, Gregoire. It’s probably Gregory, if I had to guess. But anyway, headline: “Cadillac Made a Commercial About the American Dream, and it is a Nightmare.” This commercial has hit a nerve in the left that is such a teachable moment!
This commercial itself and the reaction to it by the left is all anyone needs know about what really has become of the Democrat Party and the American left. The actor is Neal McDonough. You’ve seen him in Justified. He was in some other TV series that ran for four years. I can’t think of the name of it right off the top of my head. You’d recognize him if you saw him. He’s playing the part here of a successful American male, who happens to own one of these new Cadillac electric cars.
Here is the ad. This is 43 seconds here. It’ll go by here pretty quickly and I’ll do the transcript myself when this is finished.
MCDONOUGH: Why do we work so hard? For what? For this? For stuff? Other countries, they work, they stroll home, they stop by the cafe, they take August off. Off. Why aren’t you like that? Why aren’t we like that? Because we’re crazy, driven, hardworking believers. Those other countries think we’re nuts. Whatever. Were the Wright Brothers insane? Bill Gates? Les Paul? Ali? Were we nuts when we pointed to the moon? That’s right. We went up there, and you know what we got? Bored. So we left. It’s pretty simple. You work hard, you create your own luck, and you gotta believe anything is possible. As for all the stuff, that’s the upside of only taking two weeks off in August. N’est-ce pas?
RUSH: As for all the stuff, that’s the two weeks off in August. He also says in the ad about the moon, and we’re gonna be the first to go back. Now, the left is simply outraged because they perceived this to be an attack on Western European socialism. This is Cadillac. Remember what I’ve always told you about advertising? Advertising that works is advertising that properly, correctly takes the pulse of the people it is targeted to.
It takes the pulse of the American culture at that moment, that snapshot. So here you have Cadillac and their ad agency, and what are they using to sell this thing? The American dream, the old adages: Hard work, success, climbing the ladder. You just work hard and work hard, and you don’t think about vacations first. You think about your work. You find something you love, you go out and you do it.
And, yeah, you acquire stuff. There’s nothing wrong with acquiring stuff, and there’s nothing wrong with improving your lifestyle. The left is just livid. A pull quote from this Huffing and Puffington Post story: “a completely shameless celebration of our work-hard-buy-more culture, with a blanket dismissal of ‘other countries’ and their laziness tossed in for good measure.”
One of the things that liberals love to hate about America is wrapped up in that one sentence. Let me read it to you again. The pull quote from Carolyn Gregoire, the Huffington Post says, this Cadillac ad is “a completely shameless celebration of our work-hard-buy-more culture, with a blanket dismissal of ‘other countries’ and their laziness tossed in for good measure.”
If there’s one thing that this commercial misses and — well, not really. There’s a lot of Americans who can’t work anymore. There aren’t any jobs, no matter how hard you work. There are just some people that can’t find work, but Cadillac is targeting those who have jobs and are trying. You know, whatever you do, don’t feel guilty about climbing the ladder. Don’t feel guilty about improving your life.
Don’t feel guilty about wanting a Cadillac, an electric Cadillac.
Don’t feel guilty about this.
Why are we looking to Europe for guidance? They take the month of August off, there’s 14% unemployment, they’re welfare states. They sit around and they move at a leisurely pace. They can’t defend themselves. They rely on us for that. What in the world is there to model ourselves after? And the left is just loaded for bear. I’ll share with you further details from this piece. Here. Grab sound bite 18. Quickly we can squeeze it in. Here’s Robin Roberts on morning America today.
ROBERTS: Oh, my goodness. And what’s wrong with taking more than two weeks off? You’re made to be felt guilty because you’re not working hard?
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That commercial, oh, wow! That makes you feel guilty if take more than two weeks off. That Cadillac commercial is making me feel guilty. I’m telling you, the left is afraid of that commercial. It’s such a teachable moment here.
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RUSH: No. No, no, no, no. The point is, the left really is anti-American tradition. The left really does not believe in the all American dream. It’s not that they don’t even believe it; they advocate against it. That’s what this Cadillac hullabaloo illustrates and is all about. You know, we think we’re all in this together. We might have our disagreements, Democrats and Republicans, but we all want the same things. We don’t anymore.
There is not a singular American culture that’s oriented around growth and prosperity and individual achievement and success. That’s not what the Democrat Party’s about anymore. Their power base is not rooted in people like that. Their power base is rooted in the failures and victims of our society. And they are trying to create even more of them.
The enemy, as far as the Democrat Party and the American left are is concerned, the enemy are the successful, the enemy is those who are achieved. The enemy is the philosophy that undergirds the American dream. It’s called consumerism and capitalism and it’s supposedly void of any real meaning and no values. It’s just about who has more stuff and who has more money and who’s richer and all that, and they are full-fledged resentful of that.
Now, this has been building for 50 years. It didn’t just happen overnight, but to some people who are casual observers, it has happened overnight. We went from George Bush, who was a Republican for all intents and purposes as far as low-information voters are concerned, a conservative, and he won two elections. He loses, and within two years everything the country stood for is gone and finished. How did this happen? That’s what a lot of people are asking. How in the world did this happen overnight? And the answer is it hasn’t been happening overnight, or it didn’t.
It has been building for years, starting in first grade, kindergarten, all the way up through the university level, the anti-America dream speech, philosophy, the pro-Western, socialist view of things, the all-powerful state, the idea that people aren’t smart enough to take care of themselves, people aren’t capable of taking care of themselves, that people aren’t, on their own, able to make the right decisions. They not gonna spend their money right. They need people do that for them. Liberals, preferably in government, determining how people live and what decisions are made, and if they make the wrong ones, then we’ll penalize them.
It’s an amazing thing that a commercial has come along and shown this for what it is. So let me replay — and this is not the whole thing — the whole thing is 60. We cut it down to 45 seconds just for the essence, you know, brevity is the soul of wit. And this commercial literally has the left in a tizzy. I read it, folks. It’s my gig here. Show prep, I know no bounds. And I’m telling you that all over leftist blogs there is genuine rage over this. Here it is again.
MCDONOUGH: Why do we work so hard? For what? For this? For stuff? Other countries, they work, they stroll home, they stop by the cafe, they take August off. Off. Why aren’t you like that? Why aren’t we like that? Because we’re crazy, driven, hardworking believers. Those other countries think we’re nuts. Whatever. Were the Wright Brothers insane? Bill Gates? Les Paul? Ali? Were we nuts when we pointed to the moon? That’s right. We went up there, and you know what we got? Bored. So we left. It’s pretty simple. You work hard, you create your own luck, and you gotta believe anything is possible. As for all the stuff, that’s the upside of only taking two weeks off in August. N’est-ce pas?
RUSH: Oh, man, I’ll tell you, they look at this as an assault on Europe. They look at it as an assault on sidewalk cafes, Starbucks and this kind of thing. They look at it as an assault on their lifestyle. Remember, these are the people telling us that you are liberated when you get fired. You’re liberated when you lose your job because now you don’t have to do some stupid job to have health care because the government will give it to you. You don’t have to work anymore. That’s where they come from. Yeah, you can finally go discover the inner artist in you, and you now can join the legion of great human beings who have painted. You can be one of them, not tied to some silly job.
You don’t need stuff. You need to be the inner artiste, and while you piddle around and produce absolutely nothing, we will take care of you, and we will give you your health care while you explore your inner uselessness, and only dream about what you could be while looking at other people who are successful and instantly hating them. Let me read to you even more from this piece at the Huffing and Puffington Post.
” There are plenty of things to celebrate about being American, but being possessed by a blind mania for working yourself into the ground, buying more stuff and mocking people in other countries just isn’t one of them.” And that’s how they view this commercial. This commercial is advocating for working yourself to death, buying a bunch of useless stuff, and making fun of other people. That’s the great sin. It’s a toss-up between working hard and making fun of other people that offends them the most. They don’t know which bothers them the most.
“So we wish we could say that Cadillac’s commercial [for it’s new electric car], which debuted during the Olympics, was a joke. But no, it seems to be dead serious — a completely shameless celebration of our work-hard-buy-more culture, with a blanket dismissal of ‘other countries’ and their laziness tossed in for good measure.”
Oh, I just love this. It’s so predictable, too. It’s so right on the money. People are just doing us the biggest favor by telling us exactly who they are and what they resent and what they don’t like. And what is it about hard work that bothers them? Bill Gates, I guarantee you when he was building Microsoft, it wasn’t work. It was love.
Let me use myself. I don’t look at what I do as work. I absolutely love it. I’ve always worked hard, and I absolutely love it, and I am thankful as I can be that I found what I love. I’m ecstatic I found my passion. I describe it as doing what I was born to do. I’m one of the lucky few, apparently, who found what that is, and, by the way, not an insignificant part, a way to get paid for doing it.
It’s not hard work. Well, it is, but I don’t look at it that way. It’s not arduous. I don’t get up regretting it. I don’t spend my days wringing my hands ticked off at people for what I have to do. I think every day’s an opportunity. To these people, every day’s drudgery, every day is more punishment, every day is more of an excrement sandwich. And work hard, who needs that? There’s a reason why the United States has been the lone superpower.
And, by the way, we now have a president who agrees with this take on this commercial. The American dream’s always been phony. You know why? The American dream’s been a trick. The American dream’s a trick fostered on people to get ’em to work hard for evil corporate bosses who won’t pay them anything with this impossible result that they’re gonna make it big someday. That’s a lie. This is what the left thinks. It’s a lie put forth by corporate America, rich America, to get you to bust your butt for them while they pay you nothing. And you will die dreaming of what you never had, and, my God, you will have wasted your life in the process. And that is their outlook. You are nothing but a victim being exploited by the evil rich who are mostly white, by the way, and that’s important in this, too.
The article continues. “The opening shot shows a middle-aged man, played by the actor Neal McDonough, looking out over his backyard pool.” That bugs ’em, too. The guy has a big house. He’s got a big house, it’s in a nice neighborhood, and he’s got a pool, and it’s a built-in pool. It’s not one of these cheap balloons that you put water in. It’s a real cement pond, really ticks the left off. And he’s looking over his domain, says, “‘Why do we work so hard? For this? For stuff?’ As the ad continues, it becomes clear that the answer to this rhetorical question is actually a big fat YES.” All we do is work hard for stuff.
“And it gets worse. ‘Other countries, they work,’ he says. ‘They stroll home. They stop by the cafe. They take August off. Off.'” Which they do! They take August off. They do stroll home. And when they’re not strolling, they’re driving little lawn mowers they call cars. “Then he reveals just what it is that makes Americans better than all those lazy, espresso-sipping foreigners.” You just feel hate dripping from every word here? “Then he reveals just what it is that makes Americans better than all those lazy espresso-sipping foreigners,” which, by the way, Carolyn I’m sure would love to be one of those lazy espresso sipping foreigners. And she may be, who knows.
But that’s the lifestyle, that’s sophistication, you see. Sophistication is, work? I’ll do what I have to. I’m gonna really devote myself to what’s important. I’m going to go paint. Then I’m gonna go visit a museum. After I visit the museum, then I’m gonna go to the art gallery, and after I finish the art gallery, I’m gonna head over back to the espresso cafe. When I finish there I’m gonna head to the real bar and I’m gonna have a couple shots, maybe some white wine, maybe some Camembert. When I finish there, I’m then gonna go to the craft show at the local community center where I’m gonna learn how to knit and sew and knit and peel and whatever, and then I’m gonna go home and I’m gonna water my garden. And right before I go to bed, I’m gonna add to the poem I’ve been writing for the past month.
Yes, I’ll work on my poetry. When I finish my poetry, I will then retire and go to bed. And when I awaken, I will get up, and I will hate the fact that the first part of my day is a job where I’m going to be exploited by some evil capitalist. But I’ll go do it anyway so that when it’s over I can stroll back to the espresso bar and maybe while I’m at the espresso bar, I’ll dream of inventing the flying car, and I’ll write it and scribble it out there on my Microsoft Surface, because I don’t want to the best, the iPad. No. And then I just repeat the cycle. I’ll go to a different museum and I’ll go see different displays, exhibits and so forth. That’s sophistication. That is what we should aspire to. All this hard-work stuff, what a crock.
If you do work, by the way, if you do get sucked in, make sure you work for a nonprofit. In fact, the best thing you, make sure you run a nonprofit. That way you can really get paid for not doing anything. That way you’re not working for some enterprise devoted to the evil of profit. No, you’re working for a nonprofit. You will live off what other people give you and you will claim that you are better people, because you have not been soiled by the poisons of capitalism. There isn’t any profit or loss in what you do. You’re interested in public service.
Then, when you finish that, it’s to the soup kitchen and the homeless shelter, just to look in, just to see that people are there, and you’ll feel great about yourself because you care. And then you’ll demand the rich pay higher taxes so that the soup kitchen doesn’t close. Oh, yes. Back to the story.
“‘Why aren’t you like that?’ he says. ‘Why aren’t we like that? Because we’re crazy, driven, hard-working believers, that’s why.’ By this point, the ad has already become little more than a parody of itself, but we had to ask: believers in what? The pursuit of ‘stuff.’ The other reason for America’s superiority, according to Cadillac? Our unrivalled space exploration program (‘We’re the only ones going back up there,’ the ad boasts). Never mind the fact that the US government is now paying Russia $70 million a pop to shuttle NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.”
Hey, Ms. Gregoire, never mind that Barack Obama made NASA into a Muslim outreach department and it’s Barack Obama, your idol and hero, that makes it necessary to pay the Russians $70 million for every astronaut to the space station. By the way, with this thing in the Ukraine with the KGB vs. Obama, i.e., ACORN, what happens if Putin says, “You know what, you really ticked me off and I’m not taking you back to your space station,” how we gonna get there, Ms. Gregoire? ‘Cause Obama’s shut it down. NASA’s a museum for Muslim outreach now.
“Cadillacs have long been a quintessentially American symbol of wealth and status. But as this commercial proves, no amount of wealth or status is a guarantee of good taste. Now, the luxury car company is selling a vision of the American Dream at its worst: Work yourself into the ground, take as little time off as possible, and buy expensive sh*t (specifically, a 2014 Cadillac ELR).”
That’s what she said. It doesn’t talk about working yourself into the ground. It’s not talking about working yourself to death, to punishment. The ad is about working yourself to prosperity and achievement and success. And they just can’t stand it, folks.
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RUSH: Here’s the thing about hard work. Hard work is hard — and, by the way, folks, not everybody loves their work. This commercial is an indication of what can happen if you work hard, even though you may not like it. But you know what this commercial really is? By the way, this commercial was originally not for an electric car. They made this ad about an electric car to try to soften the blow so it would offend these leftist wackos less.
The fact that this Cadillac commercial is about an electric car doesn’t make a difference. But let me tell you what Cadillac sees. The ad tells us that people with money do not want little bitty hybrids and lawn mowers with seats on them. This ad tells us that people with money want comfortable, sexy luxury cars — and I’ll tell you what else this ad tells us. Cadillac sees the enthusiasm for the Tesla.
In California, the number one selling car of all cars is the Model S. I think it’s the Model S, but it’s some model of Tesla. They’re expensive as hell. This Cadillac is 75 grand in this ad, and Teslas are going into six figures. One of my buddies… I came back from LA. One of my buddies told me he bought one and was afraid I was gonna get mad at him. He said, “I’m not buying it ’cause I’m a wacko, Rush. I love the car. I can call up your website up in the dashboard in your car.
“I love the car — and you know, Rush, I get 175 miles a charge on it.” I said, “Wow.” But Cadillac sees that people with money — and that’s who they sell their cars to, people with money — have an enthusiasm for the Tesla. The Tesla is the competition for this ELV car of theirs, and it’s clear who the market is. The market that this car is made for is high achievers — and Cadillac is trying to talk to them in their native language, these high achievers, and the left just hates it.
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RUSH: We’re gonna starts in Dayton, Ohio. Julie, I’m glad you called. It’s great to have you on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Thanks. I’m so happy to talk to you again.
CALLER: Thank you. We’re Home of the Wright Brothers, which was mentioned in the commercial.
RUSH: That’s right.
CALLER: Yes. Dayton, Ohio. I love this commercial. I don’t typically watch commercials because I DVR a lot of stuff, but I happened to be watching something live, so I was kind of ignoring the commercial while it was on until I heard the gentleman talk about taking a month off in August versus we take two weeks.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: That just totally struck a chord with me. I jumped up, I backed the commercial up, and I had to replay it. I listened to that commercial over and over again, and I was just like, “Oh, my gosh. I want to go out and buy a Cadillac now.”
RUSH: What do you like about? You’ve gotta get specific for me here. Obviously you had an overall favorable impression. You felt great watching it, but what hit you? What did you like about it?
CALLER: Well, I work for a pharmaceutical company, a foreign pharmaceutical company. I know that for any drug to be successful, it has to be successful in the United States, otherwise that company is not gonna do well. Americans are the hardest, hardest working, and we push and we push, and we work 40, 50, 60, 70 hours a week. We work one job, two jobs, three jobs. I mean, we work hard and we work hard for —
RUSH: I know, and it doesn’t leave me time to paint or write poetry or go to the museum.
CALLER: None at all. One of my best friends is Marcus, who I love dearly, but then my best friend Georgia, she is Greek, and when she would go over to Greece, she says, “It is so laid back.” She says that they take-two-hour naps at lunchtime, and they close down work at, like, three, four o’clock, and they just don’t work as hard as Americans do.
RUSH: That’s not the right way to look at it. No, no. “They are sophisticated. They are more balanced. They have their lives in much more perspective. The Greeks, never mind that they’re broke and in debt and totally dependent on others to keep them living. The Greeks and the Spaniards and the British and the French and the Swiss? We love the Swiss, and the Danes.
We really love the Danes. They’re sophisticated. They’ve got it all figured out. They don’t work hard at all. They know that that’s not necessary. There’s no intense pressure attached to their lives. They’re able to slow down. They don’t even have to defend themselves! The United States will do that if they are ever attacked, like by the KGB. So we just don’t see the world in the right way.
John Kerry is one of these guys that thinks Western Europeans are doing it right. They’ve got the answer with their 14% unemployment. Speaking of which, you know, there’s sort of a funny story. What is this, Carla Brunei, the wife of Sarkozy, former president of France? It is Brunei, or Brunei? (interruption) Brunei. All right. Well, she was a model and an actress, and then she married the guy.
And then she couldn’t work anymore because of conflicts of interest with the government, president, and so forth. She’s actually quoted in a newspaper story today as thinking she got shafted. She thought she was marrying a guy with money, and he only makes 300 grand a year or the equivalent, and she feels like she got screwed. (interruption) Well, I know 300 grand is a lot, but not for the elites, see. That 300 grand, that’s embarrassing. For the wife of a president of a country?
Julie, I appreciate the call. Thank you.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Nice to talk to you. It’s an honor, sir.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Thank you. Rush, in reference to that great ad, that great Cadillac ad, I was thinking that there’s a couple of points with that, and one being that Obama took public funds and bailed out GM. We all recall that, and then they come up and they make an ad like this that targets hardworking Americans. And it’s kind of like a slap in the face to the left, and my take is they can’t stand that. They think that GM should toe the line now because they were bailed out with public funds.
RUSH: There probably is some of that in the left’s reaction to this, that this is a government-owned company. What the hell are they doing selling something like this anyway?
CALLER: Right, and kudos to the advertising agency that would actually make an ad like this and make a pro-American, pro-work ad. And even though they took those funds, it’s kind of like, well —
RUSH: Here’s the thing about this. At the risk of sounding naive — and I am naive about a lot of things and I don’t mind people knowing that. Did you ever think — any of you — that an ad like that would be something divisive in the country? That ad is what used to be the philosophy everybody was raised by. That ad was, in fact, how everybody who wanted to be a success or wanted their kids to be a success was raised. That ad typifies distinctly, as we know, distinctly American values. And I’ll tell you, they are held in other parts of the country.
That ad is gonna ring home and true with Asians and a couple of other cultures who are also from the hard-work school of going through life and conquering it. But the idea that an ad that is as innocuous as this, this is hard work. How do we get stuff, and, yeah, there’s some people around the world that don’t. This is what American exceptionalism is. This is how we’re different. This is why people come here. That is exactly right. That ad is why people break the law to come here. And yet that ad has become something divisive in our culture now. That ad is something that is really controversial now to the left. But divisive as well.
This why I say this is a teachable moment. Look, some of you may be wondering why I’m spending so much time on it. I’ll tell you why. And it’s the same old thing. By the way, I’ve got friends who tell me I ought to change my approach. I’ll explain here in a minute. I really believe that the more people who could be taught, who would learn, be educated, what liberalism is, is the way to eventually see to it that they don’t win anymore. They’re not a majority now. They have to lie about what they believe and what they’re gonna do in order to win elections. They are not anywhere near a majority of the people of this country.
We’re being governed by a minority, and it’s simply because they have mastered the emotional, compassionate, feel-good approach to things. And they’ve made great hay out of the misconception, as they put it forth, of equality. To them it’s sameness, and anything that’s not the same is something inherently wrong with the country. And I just think this is educational. I think this is one of these great teachable moments for low-information people. Now, I have a friend who says it’s an ideological thing, it’s all good, but it’s not gonna reach everybody, Rush. People don’t want to look at things that way. Liberalism, conservative, not nearly as oriented like you are in that direction, and they’re not nearly as passionate about that.
So you gotta talk about it in terms of stupid versus smart. Instead of talking about what a big liberal Obama is, it’s just stupid what these people are doing, just plain damn dumb. And I understand the people who think that ideology is not the best way to go about educating, but it’s worked for me. I am never wrong when I predict what a liberal is gonna do, never wrong. I would never vote for one, I don’t care who. I would never vote for one. Why would anybody, is my attitude, after this, but then when you realize what they do, they’re Santa Claus. The people voting for them are not voting for them on ideology. They’re voting for ’em on the basis of stuff.
The dirty little secret is, everybody wants stuff. It’s just that some people are happier if it’s given to them, than having to work for it. Hard work is always gonna be a tougher sell than getting gifts. But it makes for a better culture, country, and society over all. That’s what’s always been the truth, truism and the case. You what the average life span of any republic or democracy is? It’s about 200 years. So we’ve gone past ours. We’ve gone past our life expectancy. And when does every democracy end is when the public learns that they can vote themselves money from the Treasury, that is the beginning of the end. And we’re in that phase.
So the question we have is, can we arrest that and stop it before we are swallowed and destroyed by this ever-expanding mountain of debt, because that is what will do it. Don’t listen to people that tell you the debt doesn’t matter, including the people in the Republican establishment. “Ah, the debt’s the debt. It’s no different now than it was then. It may be a little bit bigger, but, hell, it’s the United States government, always good for what it owes (muttering).” At some point it all collapses and can’t sustain itself. And we have reached that point.
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