RUSH: So it was just yesterday, just yesterday that I endeavored to explain to McDonald’s and all interested parties why their sales are down, and why they had to let go their CEO. If you were here yesterday, I’m sure that it was something you’d never considered: The politics of it. You figured, “Eh, McDonald’s isn’t as popular anymore as it used to be. It just happens. You know, people like things and they get tired of it, and move on.”
McDonald’s was attacked by militant vegans, militant vegetarians. As I stated yesterday, the problem for people like McDonald’s is don’t believe it is even possible that vegans/vegetarians are militant. I think there’s a huge lack of understanding among otherwise smart people of just who they’re up against politically when it comes to leftists and Marxists. Some might say there’s a difference in a liberal and a Marxist, but it’s the Marxists that are trying to shut everybody down. I think it’s a fine line of differentiation. I’m not sure it’s all that big.
But McDonald’s was sued. They were sued, and they knew what they were up against. But they caved. They caved on the beef tallow, and when they caved on the beef tallow in their French fries, it was over. Vegans said, “That’s kills! That stuff kills people, animal fat! You’ve gotta get it out of there.” It’s what made McDonald’s French fries McDonald’s French fries, but they tried to curry favor. They tried to curry favor with the protesters, and it’s never about currying favor. They don’t eat McDonald’s!
Vegans are never gonna shop at McDonald’s, never gonna eat there, and they don’t want to. And a Happy Meal with an apple slice instead of French fries sealed the fate. So, anyway, the CEO is let go, the earnings are down, the stock price and down, and I endeavored to explain why yesterday, it’s all rooted in the fact these companies need to learn to fight back. They need to fight back against the 10 to 12 people that are out there making themselves look like they are hundreds of thousands of people.
That’s how it works, believe me.
These “massive” e-mail campaigns, massive Twitter campaigns — don’t go to McDonald’s here, don’t go to Chick-fil-A there? It’s 10 or 12 people running these programs, and they have found ways to create spam and algorithm programs that amplify the number of people actually sending messages. You know, our local advertisers — say, on an EIB affiliate in Oshkosh — will get inundated with complaint e-mails and tweets from people.
“We’re never gonna shop at your store again unless you stop advertising on Limbaugh!” We found out that it’s 10 people, maybe 12. It’s 12 people all over the country that make themselves look like it’s 500,000 or more, and we found out that in nine out of 10 cases, the complaint e-mail doesn’t even come from somebody in the same state, cannot possibly be from a legitimate customer. I guarantee the same thing happened at McDonald’s.
It’s just who these people are. The militant leftists are not content for you to live your life the way you want. If it’s not the way they want you to, they’re gonna shut you down, especially if you’re a capitalist business. Well, anyway, on the heel of that — on the heel of that — right here in the Washington Post today is another example. The Washington Post has a “Manners” column, like an Emily Post column.
The Washington Post “Manners” columnist has once again insisted that anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender businesses be blacklisted by all caring liberals. In today’s case, you know who the target is again? Chick-fil-A. The Washington Post “Manners” columnist, who happens to be gay, is suggesting that everybody avoid Chick-fil-A because they are not sympathetic to LGBT people and issues. So now Chick-fil-A is being hit again.
Now, Chick-fil-A, the last time they were hit, they fought back, and their customer base responded, and they responded with enthusiasm, massive amounts of support. That’s how you have to react. These people have to be stood up to. The American people, which is a majority, disapprove of these kinds of tactics. Okay, somebody might not like McDonald’s, but they have no business with McDonald’s being in business because they know some people do like it. Just what kind of person is it, what kind of people are they who, A, don’t like McDonald’s?
And then, B, think McDonald’s ought not be in business, ought not exist — and then engage in fake, phony, fraudulent, anti-fair business tactics to shut them down? Why in the world would you want to pander to that kind of person? Unfortunately, that’s the route most people take because they think it’s the path of least resistance, and they try to appease them. But there is no appeasing them. You give them an inch and… If you do one thing that responds to their demands, they’re just gonna say, “We got ’em,” and they’re gonna keep coming at you ’til they shut you down.
Make no mistake: They’re not gonna stop on McDonald’s until one of two things happens, ’til McDonald’s stands up and tells ’em to go pound sand or ’til they succeed in shutting McDonald’s down, and they’re ramping up against Chick-fil-A here. What kind of people are these? Do they have nothing better to do than run around and identify enemies that are legitimate American businesses and then try to shut them down? Who the hell are these people, and why is everybody afraid of them?
Especially now that we know that it’s only 10 or 12 of ’em, in most cases, that are making themselves look like hundreds of thousands or in some cases millions.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Mary in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Hi.
CALLER: Hi. I am so excited to talk to you, and I only have a few minutes. You are dead on about the militants. And they hate Scott Walker.
RUSH: Oh, they do.
CALLER: Oh, yes, they do.
RUSH: They despised Scott Walker before they humiliated them by beating them. But they hate everybody, Mary.
CALLER: Yes —
RUSH: It’s irrational. I’ve never understood — I’m gonna be out front here — I’ve never understood something. Okay, so you’ve got, take the XYZ Widget company, and the XYZ Widget company wants to sell this to that group of people, whatever it is, and there happens to be a majority of people that like what the XYZ Widget company makes. And then all of a sudden here comes some complaint e-mails or letters from some group or actually from an individual, and then tens of thousands of them come out, and the XYZ Widget company panic, “Oh, my God, we’ve gotta change.”
You explain to the XYZ Widget company, “No, no, no, it’s not tens of thousands of people. It’s 10 or 12 people that are fake generating all of these tweets and e-mails. They don’t even live in town where your business is. And they’re just doing this because they want to harm you. They don’t like your product, or they don’t like your politics, they don’t like who you support or whatever. Why would you even care about trying to appease? You’ve got your customer base over here which is doing great guns and your business doing great guns and all of a sudden you’re gonna be afraid of a bunch of frauds.”
They are. McDonald’s demonstrates how this works. I think McDonald’s fell prey to the notion that these 10 or 12 people actually were 500,000 people. Why else would you get rid of the beef tallow in your French fries? A bunch of health Nazis come along, tell you they’re never gonna shop at McDonald’s, never gonna eat there anymore, because you’re poisoning the kids and you’re poisoning the planet, destroying the planet, beef tallow comes from beef, cattle farts, methane, whatever, destroying the planet. I understand businesses don’t want any complaints, and sometimes they’ll try to appease. It’s a natural human behavior, emotion, so forth.
But when you can demonstrate to them that it’s a fraudulent campaign, which can now be demonstrated, why the appeasement goes on is beyond me. But it does work. I mean, it’s plain as day that these militants are trying to harm the business, not help it. The beef tallow thing with McDonald’s, and I don’t mean to harp on McDonald’s, but it’s just a recent example because the CEO just ended up being let go because the stock prices plummeted. I know why. They tried to appease a bunch of people that aren’t customers to begin with. They’re people that made ’em think they’d start eating at McDonald’s if they took the beef tallow out of the fries. They were never gonna eat there ’cause they’re vegans.
The way to answer to that is don’t put vegan menu items on the menu. That isn’t gonna work. So this is how this process all works. But the point of it is that these so-called complaints coming from so-called customers are really no more than efforts on the part of several leftists or anti-capitalists that are trying to destroy these businesses that they target, be they big corporations or small businesses, it doesn’t matter. They’re actually trying to destroy them, for one reason or another. Maybe the business raises money for Republicans. Maybe the business donates to Republicans, and the militants don’t like the fact that the Citizens United case made it possible, so they go out and they intimidate ’em so don’t donate to Republicans anymore.
Everything is politics, and yet these complaints are looked at as legitimate complaints from legitimate customers. They’re not. They’re totally fraudulent, made up, fake generated by a bunch of people who have figured out the process. And they hide. They will not make themselves known. They will not make themselves public. They hide behind fake names, fake algorithms, and all kinds of other things. And you can have the data that proves this, and you can take it to people and show it, and sometimes it’s just impossible to convince ’em, so powerful is the complaint message.
But that’s who they are, and that’s how they operate, and that’s what their modus operandi is and that’s what their purpose. And it’s right out in the open. I mean, the left, the Democrat Party, look at its enemies list, look who they hate, look who they’re always ragging on: Big Oil, Big Pharmaceutical, Big Retail, big whatever. And if you can synthesize it down and boil it down even further, they’re just anti-capitalists, pure and simple. They just need to be stood up to. Stand up to ’em and they’ll go away. Maybe not at first, and they’ll ratchet it up and try to really frighten you, and they may even engage in faux vandalism and this kind of thing.
It’s brutal. There’s no question that it’s brutal. But the point is, none of it’s legitimate. Sure, there gonna be complaints coming in every day. Every business is gonna get a complaint letter here, complaint letter there, but these organized campaigns of tens of thousands, or even just plain old thousands, they’re orchestrated. They’re not legitimate.