RUSH: Judith in Houston. Glad you waited. Welcome to the program. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. I’ve been listening to you since 1992, almost half my life, and today on my 50th birthday I was wondering what your outlook was on your 50th birthday about the future of this country.
RUSH: Oh, man. You know, my problem is I actually answer questions.
CALLER: (chuckling)
RUSH: This is why I would fail at politics. I actually answer questions. I don’t take the asking of a question as an opportunity to filibuster on something unrelated to the question. So I’d have to go back 15 years which is basically, what, 2001 or 2000. George W. Bush. Honestly, my outlook on the country in 2001/2002 was much better than it is today, if you want to know the truth.
CALLER: Yeah. Mine’s a lot different than it was 25 years ago. Not quite as hopeful as I was back then. I’m starting to hear myself like my parents, “What’s this country coming to?”
RUSH: Okay, now, that’s interesting. You’re starting to hear yourself as you heard your parents. What about the possibility that that’s just an aspect of getting older, that it’s really not so much that the country’s any different than it was, it’s just that you get older, and for a whole host of reasons… I mean, you’ve lived more than you have left. That’s a realization that people at our age have. And so there’s all kinds of psychological aspects to that that… It makes it easier to think, and I’ve found it true.
At whatever age I was, depending on how much older people were, the attitudes about the future of the country were pretty negative, and every generation has this. Every generation. Without fail, Judith, every generation has had some in it who think, “It’s never been worse than it is now, and it’s getting worse.” They think, “We may even in fact be in the last days.” Yet every one of those generations been wrong. Every one of them has been wrong. America has done nothing but grow and provide more opportunity any number of things.
But, see, I don’t think that’s the case now. Now the argument we’re hearing is that we may have the first generation which will not do as well or better than their parents. See, I guard against this all the time. I really do. I guard against what I call “old fogyism.” I vowed when I was young that I would never become one, and so I’m constantly on guard. I’m always asking myself, “Am I being objective when I analyze where the country is and where it’s headed?” And I think the situation is dire. I think this country was sold a bill of goods in 2008 and bought it hook, line, and sinker, and if this does not stop… There’s always gonna be an America, Judith.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: But what it’s going to be like and how it’s going to be governed and run? I mean, the biggest thing I see — and there are many things. It’s tough to single one thing out. But we are losing liberty and losing freedom. At the same time, our government is growing exponentially. It’s getting bigger and bigger and incurring more and more debt, real problems that at some point in time have to come home to roost. So it’s an ongoing effort here to not succumb. It’s very easy to think that we’re in a mess unlike we’ve ever been in before. It’s very easy to get seduced but that kind of negativism. Negativism is something everybody’s capable of without any effort whatsoever. But I can tell you that my outlook in 2001 was different than it is today. IÂ’m just being honest with you. No question it is.
CALLER: So how will my outlook look in 15 years? Hopefully good.
RUSH: Well, we don’t know, ’cause we don’t know what’s gonna happen.
CALLER: We don’t know.
RUSH: We don’t know what’s going to happen in these 15 years.
CALLER: How is yours? Does it look better today than it did today? No? Yes?
RUSH: Well, my outlook… See, I’m balancing things because I do try to remind myself — and sometimes it takes reminding (this is my point) — that I have a basic optimistic nature. I can’t tell you why. I can’t give you reasons. So it’s not very persuasive, maybe. But I do think all this is gonna to be overcome. I do think all of this liberalism is gonna beat back. I can’t tell you how, I can’t tell you when. It’s a faith thing, not a religious thing. It’s a faith in the country, a faith in the uniqueness of America, faith in the founding, faith in a majority of the people. I just think the United States is going to be unique and survive where other empires have fallen.
But I can’t tell you why, and I can’t give you specific predictions or reasons why, other than I just am a general optimist, and I do believe that, push come to shove, a majority of Americans will come to their senses or are in the process of doing it right now, and that there will be a tipping point at some point. How it manifests itself, I couldn’t tell you. It’s not blind faith; it’s not blind, willful hopefulness. It’s a genuine optimism I have about it, but I can’t be any more specific than that. That’s why I’m still doing this, to be honest. I think it all matters.
But any day events happen that make even the biggest optimists question themselves. For example, if you would have told me back in 2001, 15/16 years ago, that gay marriage would be the law of the land, there’s no way I would have believed you. And that transgenderism is in the process of being celebrated? No way I would have believed you. If you’d have told me on September 12, 2001, that anybody who thought militant Islam was an enemy of the United States would be attacked as biased and prejudiced and racist, I wouldn’t have believed you.
Those are things that have happened, and many people think the very nature of those things happening is evidence of a decline that may be irreversible. My belief is that at some point… I have this vision of millions of people collectively putting their foot down, pushing back, and saying, “No more!” And I think we are seeing the first reverberations of this in this presidential campaign. I wish I could be more specific on my optimism. I can’t. It’s just an attitude that I have and a thought, as well as feelings. It’s all combined. Judith, thank you.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Jim in Monmouth, Oregon. I’m glad you waited, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Happy birthday.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I’m so glad to get a chance to talk with you. Thank you. I was thinking about your remarks about the State of the Union and the address.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I was just thinking if your wife is at the door and her bags are packed and the kids are in the car and she gives you a business card for her attorney, the state of the union isn’t good. And I was thinking that with the president and how he’s conducted himself and just the very notion of the truth, you were talking about what the empty seat that’s gonna represented at the State of the Union.
RUSH: That’s right.
CALLER: Perhaps on the empty seat maybe they put a little placard and it would be called “the truth.” But it’s just been catastrophic. You and I are the same age, and I have watched the very notion of truth itself come under assault in such a fashion that’s unique in my lifetime.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: I’m sounding very geezer-like, but I tell you, I’m seeing things I never thought I’d see, too. I believe her name was Judith that called earlier?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: I’m still at someone whose wife and kids are at the door and she gives you the lawyer’s card.
CALLER: I think it’s the American people with our leadership in general. I think people are jaded. I think they’re at the place where anybody that would speak truth — even if it was truth that made ’em uncomfortable — they’re ready to hear it now. I really believe they are. And, like you, I’m optimistic that there are better things coming, if Americans would act like Americans have always acted, and I think that turnarounds are possible. But I believe Martin Luther —
RUSH: That’s what I keep saying. That’s what I’ve got the faith in, that the American people are still the American people. The empty seat? Let’s be honest. The empty seat here is Obama. The empty suit. The empty seat. But I’m still trying to figure out whose wife and kids are at the door handing out lawyer cards. It’s got me worried.