RUSH: Snerdley said during the break, “So you’re an anti-government guy now?” No, no, no, no. Don’t misunderstand me. Everybody knows what I mean. I’m not an anti-government revolutionary, this kind of crackpot that they’re trying to pigeonhole everybody into. Here’s my point. And, by the way, folks, when it comes to the Cantor election, I’m not gonna sit here and arrogantly tell you that I know why it happened.
Like everybody else, I have some pretty good educated guesses. But I’ll tell you what I do know. I do know that congressman Cantor had ceased to be perceived as having his own district in mind as he did things. He clearly had become an agent of the inside-the-Beltway establishment, and I’m telling you: The divide, the gap, the distance between the elite establishment and average Americans has never been greater.
And Congressman Cantor was seen as part of that very small yet powerful group of elites in the establishment to whom what happens in the rest of the country is not even known, nor is there much concern for it. You know, this border business. As I say, if they were serious about securing the border, if they really thought that that’s all they had to do to get support for amnesty, then they’d be out there doing it.
They’d be stopping these kids, however this is happening. But, no! We’re letting ’em in, we’re depositing them in military bases, in bus stations. The next thing to come is their parents. People can figure this out. I think it’s no more complicated than this: People have less and less respect for and use for Washington, the whole thing. Republicans, Democrats, the administration, the administrative state, the regulatory state, the bureaucracy, the FDA, the IRS, all of this.
People are fed up. They’re fed up with lobbyists. They’re fed up with the Chamber of Commerce. They’re fed up with all these media pundit celebrities who also don’t know what they’re talking about, who have no idea what life is really like for most people in this country and don’t seem to really care. That’s what people are fed up with.
And if Eric Cantor was perceived as being part of that, that alone would suffice to explain his defeat, without getting into specific issue analysis, such as immigration reform. What is the Tea Party? What is it? I had a long explanation about what the Tea Party is prior to my leaving on vacation. Grab sound bite one. I want to play a brief excerpt. This is May 28th on this program, and this does not actually get to the meat of how I define the Tea Party, but it’s like take me there. Listen to this.
RUSH ARCHIVE: The Drive-Bys, the Democrat Party, the Republican establishment salivating, excited and happy over their belief that the Tea Party is no more. The Tea Party is gone. The Tea Party has been vanquished, and what they really mean by that is that they think they’ve finally ended the day where conservative Republicans/Tea Party nominate wackos in primaries who will then go on to lose. … The Tea Party isn’t dead. It’s nothing more than a fervent desire on the part of the Washington establishment in both parties.
The Tea Party is never going to die. The Tea Party’s made up of average, ordinary Americans who are all of a sudden becoming activist because of a combination of they are outraged, insulted, and frightened by what has become of Washington. It’s out of control. The spending, amnesty, everything being contemplated is simply antithetical to the founding of this country. … They’re trying to stereotype who the Tea Party is, and they will fail at that because they’re just patriots. They’re just people who want to save the country from the direction that it’s going. And not even for themselves, but for their children and grandchildren.
RUSH: But here’s another thing. It’s called the Tea Party, but there isn’t any party. There is no convention. There is no slate of candidates. Washington persists in looking at the Tea Party through the prism of how they view and define politics, and that’s why they don’t understand it. The Tea Party is made up of people that used to be called citizens. They were standard, ordinary, every day people.
They were the voters.
They were who people Washington used to really care about.
The Tea Party is the people in the Greatest Generation who won World War II. The Tea Party is just average, ordinary Americans. They love God, love the country, love its founding, and believe in a moral code. They don’t threaten anybody. They have been abused, impugned, lied about. They’re called racist, sexist, bigot, homophobes. They’re the furthest thing in the world from any of that.
They’re just people, and they live their lives as responsibly as they can. They do everything they can to follow the rules. Nobody’s perfect. They see the country careening out of control. So they became activists for the first time in their lives, political activists by showing up at Town Hall meetings in 2010. The fact that the Washington establishment is frightened of them, the fact that the Washington establishment makes no effort to embrace the Tea Party?
It’s just the people who make the country work is all it is, and yet Washington is threatened by average citizens. They’re threatened. They’re scared to death of them. They’re angry at them. They despise the Tea Party. The Tea Party is just your mom and dad. It’s your grandparents. It’s the guy at the ice cream stand, the guy that drove the ice cream truck in your neighborhood growing up.
It’s just the most invisible people you’d ever see.
They’re just the people who make the country work, and they’re scared and frightened ’cause they don’t recognize their government. They don’t see their government representing them. They see their government governing against their will, and they don’t understand it, and they don’t really know how to do anything about it other than organize and show up on Election Day and maybe raise money for candidates that they want to see elected.
The Washington establishment sic’d the IRS on the Tea Party! This is how out of touch Washington is. The Washington establishment sick’d the IRS on the Tea Party, and the Republicans of the establishment have done very little to defend people who have been set upon by the IRS for nothing more than wanting to organize politically. It’s not just immigration reform. It’s not just the Bergdahl prisoner swap.
It’s everything, combined with the arrogance, the snootiness, and the condescension with which establishment people talk about, deal with, and talk to the people of this country. And it’s everything. It’s the Republicans, it’s Democrats, it’s the Regime. It’s the administrative state, the regulatory state. It’s all over control. The EPA, with nobody objecting, is going to mandate a 30% reduction in carbon output?
That will kill things. It will destroy many people. It will impoverish people. It will literally impoverish people with their utility bills alone. But forget that. They don’t have the authority to do it. It’s always been that radicals want to do things like this, but they used to be reasonable, responsible, dependable people who’d stand up and represent you and stop it or try to. That’s what’s missing.
The Tea Party exists because nobody can see any effort to stop destructive direction the country seems to be taking. Lobbyists, Chamber of Commerce, media pundit celebrities. Same faces, same voices thrown in people’s faces every day on all the cable networks. The formula is the same, the interviews are the same, the guests are the same, the hosts are the same.
And the results are the same. It’s all become predictable, and more and more people are becoming insulted by it daily and see through it. But this gap or divide or whatever… You may have a better word for it than I do, but I think it is epitomized by the fact that the Tea Party is not really a party; it’s just people. It’s just average, ordinary Americans.
In my little definition, the people, the invisible people who make this country work. It isn’t Hillary Clinton who makes this country work. It isn’t John Kerry. It isn’t Barack Obama. It isn’t Eric Cantor. It isn’t John Boehner. It isn’t Mitch McConnell. Those people are getting in the way of the country working, or they are perceived to be getting in the way. People are pulling their hair out. They can’t believe that there is this innate inability or purposeful, whichever it is, distortion of who these people are. You’ll note that these illegal immigrant children, they’re not being dumped in the neighborhoods where the establishment lives.
None of what the establishment is doing is happening to them, or where they live. The IRS is not being sicked on them. They are always gonna find a way to pay their utility bills, or it won’t matter to them what their utility bills are. But I’ve never seen this government so removed from mainstream American life as it is today, and the Cantor election, just a microscopic — well, maybe not microscopic, but it’s a small, little illustration. And the people inside the Beltway, the establishment, they’re not scared. Do not make the mistake of thinking they’re scared. They’re mad.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Just one thing Eric Cantor is saying. He’s going to leave the leadership on July 31st, the day before the big push for amnesty starts in August. As I mentioned mere moments ago, this was the first time a House leader’s been defeated in more than 100 years. Quite historic. Eric Cantor is the first sitting House majority leader to lose a primary since the position was created, which was 1899.
House majority leader was not something that was part of the House of Representatives originally. Like many other things it was invented, created as we went along. By the way, a strong military to preserve the peace? Unh-uh. Hashtags! Hashtags preserve the peace today, and don’t you dare forget it. Okay, where are we starting? Oh, Mechanicsville, Virginia. This is Linda. Linda, you’re first, and it’s a delight to have you here. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you. I just wanted to let you know that I do live in the 7th District of Virginia and I did vote for David Brat, as did all my friends, all my neighbors, my acquaintances. Basically you have pretty much covered in the last hour why we did that. You know, we are fed up. We are tired of being ignored. I’m 70 years old. I think that I know better how to manage my health care, what to drive, what to eat, what to drink, how to heat my home than the bureaucrats in Washington do.
RUSH: You know how to spend your money more wisely than they do. You know how to live your life in general.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: You don’t need them to do that.
CALLER: I voted for Eric Cantor in the past, and in the beginning he was very connected to us and seemed to want to do the right thing by us. But they get up there, and once they get up there it seems like the only thing they’re interested in is advancing their own career and they don’t want to hear from us.
RUSH: Let me —
CALLER: They don’t want to hear from us.
RUSH: I do think that it became obvious to people in Virginia 7 that they were no longer his constituents —
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: — that the leadership was, that Washington was, even Obama. Is there one thing that made your mind up to vote for Brat, or was it just a slow evolution of thought?
CALLER: No. It was everything that’s going on. It’s just one thing on top of the other, on top of the other, on top of the other. You know, our government’s out of control. We need to clean house, and the only way to do it is one by one.
RUSH: Well, this is the only way we’ve got.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: The elections are it for us.
CALLER: We have to get ’em out one by one and get some fresh-thinking among the people. I can also tell you something they haven’t talked too much about: The turnout was huge. I don’t know if you know that. I’ve not heard too much about it.
RUSH: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You might live there, but I read people in Washington and you don’t know what you’re talking about.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: In fact, the reason that Cantor lost — you may not have heard this — is because it rained and the turnout was depressed.
CALLER: Oh, it didn’t rain here.
RUSH: Well, yes, it did.
CALLER: (laughing) I’m right here!
RUSH: That’s what the Washington media says.
CALLER: When did it rain here last? It rained here like four or five minutes. (laughing)
RUSH: See how stupid you are?
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: You don’t even know when it’s raining in your own district.
CALLER: Is that the reason? (laughing) Oh, boy.
RUSH: That’s what they’re saying. There’s somebody saying it. I wish I had the name. I can’t think of it off the top of my head. Somebody blamed it on the rain. It couldn’t have been immigration. It was some media pundit. (interruption) What difference does it make who? They’re all the same. (sigh) The Drive-Bys say that the rain tamped down the turnout, not that it was real high. Linda, thanks for the call. I appreciate it and I totally get it.
Kathy, Powhatan, Virginia, you’re next. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. It’s an honor to talk to you. Yes, I live in the district that’s next to Cantor’s. I live in the fifth district, and we’re conservative here in the fifth and seventh districts, and the thing that bothers us the most is when our constituencies (sic) go to Washington is they compromise away our freedom. They compromise away the Constitution. They compromise all that has been fought for, that we want to leave for our kids. We see regulation. I happen to be an insurance person. I visit businesses every day, and all they can do when they look at what’s going on with their health insurance is just shake their heads.
RUSH: Wait a minute, now. Wait a second, Kathy, because I can quote I don’t know how many Republicans who say that the people — which would include you — want them to compromise. They want people in Washington to work together to get things done.
CALLER: No, that’s absolutely wrong. We want them as a firewall against what has been happening with regards to Obama and his constituencies and the attack on our freedoms and our rights.
RUSH: Why do you think they don’t get that anymore? I’m drawing a blank. Why do they not understand what their purpose is?
CALLER: Well, they’re not paying attention. Now, I have to say, my representative is Robert Hurt. What he does different from what Cantor does is that he has virtual town halls. I get a phone call every couple of months saying, “Look, we’re having a town hall. You can come and ask your questions,” and he answers them. It might be a small thing but at least I know he hears my voice, and he votes pretty consistently. I’m gonna vote for him in the next election. But, you know, Cantor, all he’s doing is saying, “Look, okay, we want to appease people so that you’ll think we’re nice.”
RUSH: I tell you, I do think that being in the Republican leadership is a political death sentence. Folks, I’m just gonna tell you: Kathy, her perception and our previous caller’s that the Republican leadership is compromising, is working with, is helping Obama and the Democrats? That’s not why there is an opposition party.
That’s not why there’s a Tea Party. But yet these people believe it. It’s another media/Democrat trick. Republicans apparently have bought it hook, line, and sinker. And if they haven’t bought it, if it’s what they normally think and believe anyway, then it’s even worse. They really do think that compromising their beliefs to get things done is what people want?