RUSH: The funeral for Nancy Reagan just began. We obviously we’re not gonna join it in progress. The Battle Hymn of the Republic is being played, which is one of my favorites. They’re singing it, but it’s one of my favorites. I don’t know that I’d call it a song. It’s at any rate, this is going to be a profoundly beautiful service. And I comfortably predict that people watching this funeral are going to be lifted and inspired and encouraged and reminded of great days in the past in this country, what this country was, and what maybe can be once again culturally, politically.

You know, I was thinking the other night of the 1980s. Nancy Reagan is the last link that we have to the actual Reagan eighties. Now, there are a lot of people that worked for Reagan in his administration. But I was thinking back to those years as I lived them, and it remains one of my favorite decades of my life. It’s where, for the first time in my professional career, I discovered success rather than just made fleeting attempts at it. I actually discovered, I like to say, what a success track looks like and feels like. That would be 1984.

I lived in California when it happened, a place that I have… Actually, I love. If it weren’t for a whole bunch of circumstances, I would live there. We would live there. But I was just thinking about those years and the first four years of the Reagan administration. The first four years of the 1980s, I was making as little money as I’d ever made in my life, but I was optimistic and happy, excited. I had this job with the Kansas City Royals, which was a great, great experience. I mean, it was. It didn’t pay anything, but, man, it was exciting for the first couple, three years.

The eighties was where all of the dedication to my desires and all of the hard work that I do finally began to pay off. And I have nostalgic attachment that is almost universally positive. (interrupting) What’s Brokaw doing? Never mind. I’m not gonna ask. I’m not gonna ask. It just is a fond, fond set of memories. You know, I’ve got this belief that nostalgia only reminds us of the good times. I mean, there were bad times for everybody at all times, but just the things that I recall that were meaningful and mattered are all upbeat and positive from the 1980s.

And Ronald Reagan was, given my interest and devotion to politics and so forth… He never knew it. I never met him. I never met Nancy. But it didn’t matter, because I felt like I knew them. That was, I think, one of the great gifts that Reagan had. You felt like he knew you. You felt like he was aware. And not in a hero worship or idolatrous sense, but just in a real-guy sense. But I’m just gonna tell you:

If you see this funeral, if you watch it, if you see highlights of it, I guarantee you it’s gonna seem like a throwback to you, a positive throwback, and you’re gonna long for ceremonies like this. You’re gonna wonder what happened to them. Why do we no longer do things like this anymore? Things like what you’re gonna see today are what are mocked and made fun of and attacked and claimed to be discriminatory against others. I can predict that there will even be mocking conservatism of this funeral today in various places.