RUSH: Okay, so here’s a story in the New York Post — actually, a column — by Marc Thiessen. “Democrats Are Doubling Down on Failure.” A story at Yahoo News: “The Contrarians: They Didn’t Vote for Trump, But They Would Now.” And the Washington Post has a story today on why the Democrats lost. Democrats are alternately weighing in on why they lost, and some of this is fascinating to me, because when you look at the budget deal, what are they losing? Let me explain something. The first caller that we had, I took his call without giving him time to get into everything that he wanted to get into.

I forget specifically what he was gonna say. It was on the call screener computer roster here. I get a little, couple sentences of what the caller wants to talk about, and I forget specifically what it was. But it jogged a thought of mine. And you heard the vice president talk about how this was a bipartisan budget agreement where the Democrats gave up on this military spending increase parity with social spending increase and all that. And something hit me. By that, I mean something occurred to me that if the Republicans do not fix this and get past this, then they will never, ever, really prevail over the Democrats.

And, essentially, when the vice president wants to highlight the bipartisanship, why? They weren’t sent there to work with Democrats. They were sent there to beat Democrats. They were sent there to “drain the swamp” of Democrats, to restore the rule of law, to create a booming economy. The Democrats are not in favor of any of that. There’s no compromise with Democrats on that. But I think what happens to the Republicans is they long for… (sigh) How to phrase it? If not media approval, they long for respect in the media.

I can’t think of any other way to put it. And it is so misguided, because, if that remains an objective, then the primary objective of defeating Democrats isn’t gonna happen, because the media is not the media. The media is actually the Democrat Party establishment. The media and the donor organizations with actually the muscle. They are the nucleus of progressivism, liberalism, what have you. The Democrat Party today, as a functional electoral body, is diminishing. They’re losing elections left and right.

They are an arm of the real power on the left, which is the media and big-moneyed special interest types. And the only way that the Republicans are ever going to enjoy success is with the approval of their own voters. That is what should be the objective. The approval of their own voters and the validation that they give their own voters by doing what they say they are going to do. Because no matter what happens, the media is always going to cast the Democrats as winners. No matter what happens, the media is always going to cast and portray the Democrats as the power.

The media is always going to portray the Democrats as normal, sane human beings, and the Republicans and conservatives will be portrayed otherwise. The only option the Republicans have is to defeat Democrats. And not just at the ballot box, but to defeat them in Washington as well. That’s the only option here! And even when that happens, the media is not going to shift its loyalties and now acknowledge a new player in town, a new party in town. They’re not gonna cozy up and be buddy-buddy with the Republicans.

Never is ever gonna change on this score. The only option that Republicans have is to defeat Democrats and advance the agenda that is opposed by Democrats. When I say that’s the only thing, it should be the only thing. It should be the objective! It should be what their purpose is and rooting out any and all opposition wherever it is every chance you get, such as in this latest budget reconciliation extension. It was a clear opportunity to show who won the election.

There was a clear opportunity here to use the power of the bully pulpit that the White House offers, the presidency offers and any other number of weapons per se at their disposal to begin the implementation of the Trump/”Republican” agenda. I put “Republican” in there in quotes, because you and I well know that the Trump agenda is not the Washington agenda. So getting look with Washington, for whatever reason, is not victory, and it isn’t going to move the needle, and it’s not going to make life better, and it’s not gonna improve anything. The only thing to do here is to defeat Democrats! Do not fund the sanctuary cities.

Actually get out of this climate change hoax! Get out of it. Stop spending money. Stop committing the United States to all of these liberal, left-wing things, which are rooted in one thing: anti-capitalist. The entire left-wing agenda is rooted in and inspired by hatred of capitalism and free markets and liberty and freedom. There’s no compromise with it! There’s no getting along with it. There’s no meeting them halfway. They have no desire for anything like that. They’re not open to it. They’re not capable. These people… They are anti-democratic.

They do not respect the authority vested in this country by the Constitution when it doesn’t go their way, when things don’t go their way. So the idea to win a PR battle, to win a spin battle? After a budget like this, to say, “Hey, you know what? This was really…” I saw Karl Rove on Fox Business this morning, and I don’t know where Rove stands on Trump now. Is it safe to say that he was not a Trump fan at the beginning of the..? (interruption) Safe to say. But Rove is a party man. He’s a big-time Republican — admirably, don’t misunderstand.

So it’s in his best interests to spin this budget as a winning deal, as a good deal, as, “You know, we snuck some stuff in there,” which is, I guess, close to the way he was describing what had happened. He said (paraphrased), “There’s more in here than people think. This was a win. There’s gonna be some stuff in here when it comes out that the Democrats…” What do you mean “when it comes out”? The perception here is all that matters, and the perception here is that the Democrats held on to everything that’s important to them.

This discussed $21 billion increase in defense spending without the accompanying $21 billion increase in social spending? They had to dig that out and tell us. That certainly is not something that yells itself off the page. Nobody’s gonna notice that. My point is, there’s no future in taking the Democrats on in a situation like this after they have lost the election, after we won the election, and then pointing to one or two things in a continuing resolution as signs we snuck a couple of things in there. We ought not be sneaking anything!

We need to be bludgeoning these people with our agenda; they lost! “Yes, Mr. Limbaugh, but we still don’t have 60 votes!” So use budget reconciliation! I’m just going on the president’s tweets today where he complained about that. Well, hell, veto it then, or use the budget reconciliation — you know, get rid of the 60 votes — or use the shutdown. I’m not one of these people thinks the shutdown hurts Republicans. It may in the media, but it’s never shown to hurt them with elections.

The biggest government shutdown, the biggest negative brouhaha ever regarding a government shutdown was 1995. That was the school lunch cut shutdown. Remember where Republicans were gonna starve kids with cuts to the school lunch program? It was a totally made-up thing, and the government did shut down. They shut the government down, and Larry King Live had some sleigh ride concessionaire from Jellystone Park on every night talking about how tough it was to get by because the Republicans had shut down the government, so there’s no money to pay for his sleigh ride concessions.

And then we got heart-tugging stories about how federal employees were gonna miss Thanksgiving because they weren’t going to get their turkeys free this year, because of the government shutdown. We just had a never ending, tear-laden strain of all of the misery and hurt and disaster that the Republicans had caused. And you know what happened in the next midterm election?

The Republicans gained seats. They didn’t lose anything. And it was a presidential year in 1996. The budget shutdown, it did not have any electoral damage. But it did have PR damage. It did have spin damage. After it was over the Republicans had to watch themselves be portrayed as Scrooges and starvers of children and what have you, but when it came time to vote, that’s not how people saw them.

My only point here is there’s only one option for Republicans if they’re going to continue to win elections here, and that is to defeat, literally defeat the Democrats. It ought not be that hard. The Democrats lost the election. I know, the media this or that, but at some point can’t the lesson be learned and you look past it?