RUSH: We’ll start here in Wisconsin. This is Dave. Great to have you, sir. Welcome.

CALLER: It’s great to talk to you, Rush. First-time caller, longtime listener.

RUSH: Glad you made it, sir. Thank you very much.

CALLER: Say, I just want to quickly remind everybody that President Kennedy used Russian back channels to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis.

RUSH: Exactly right. Back channels are used frequently, constantly, and almost all the time. Like my accuracy rating.

CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. It’s all a bunch of malarkey.

RUSH: It is, because the effort here — and it has largely been successful with a certain percentage of the country. I don’t know what. But the perception is that Trump is illegitimate. That’s the objective every day: To cement that. Everything is done with that primary objective. The secondary objective, of course, is to protect and preserve the Obama legacy, which is a disaster. But Obama must be spared. He must be protected. He must continually be (and remain) on the pedestal of the greatest of all time. I’ll share a little observation I have with you.

Going back to the dinner I had Saturday night, one of the guests was a very accomplished woman who was one of the first in her field to do what she did. But I can’t say any more ’cause it would let you know who it is and I don’t have permission to do that. So I’m not trying to tease you or anything. I’m just respecting people’s privacy. But I’ve been doing this 30 years, and throughout all 30 years I’m continually trying to find new ways to communicate and explain why I think what I think.

As I was listening to this woman’s story about how she was one of the first to do what she did (she’s not an athlete), it struck me that we get this a lot lately. The first African-American to do something, like be elected president — or the first woman to break the glass ceiling. The first woman to — and it’s always bothered me. I see other people celebrate it and make a big deal of it, and it’s always bothered me, but I’ve never known why. This woman had daughter with her, and her daughter is highly educated, deciding which of two fields she wants to go into.

And she started talking about women, root for women, how hard it is for women. She asked me a couple questions. I said, “You know, aside from the obvious, I don’t see you as a woman. Why are your accomplishments in any way linked to the fact that you’re a woman? You’re a human being. You’re a person! You live in the United States of America. You do whatever you want to do. Why all this identity politics stuff?” And it finally hit me: It is a way, if you…

At least in my perception, it is a way to actually be critical of the country, not celebratory of it. The reason for celebrating all of these minorities — women, African-Americans, pick your minority — who do something that hasn’t been done by somebody in that group before? The media goes nuts. It’s one of the greatest things in the world! At the root of that is that America’s unjust, that America is unfair, and that America discriminates, and that America is biased and bigoted and whatever.

So this person has overcome the institutional problems and be obstacles that it has placed in the way of our minorities, and that’s why it’s celebrated. By the media and the people who fall for it, championing it, repeating it all on social media. It is a way of actually denigrating the country by saying that somebody finally did it. Somebody worked so hard to overcome the built-in bigotry of the United States. This is why it’s always bothered me. The conversation led to, “I don’t think there are enough women in the Senate.”

I said, “Why does that…? Do you realize what you’re saying? You’re saying that human beings can’t represent human beings. You’re saying only women can represent women on women’s issues?” I said, “Tell me: What is Women’s Studies i done for anybody but waste their education? What is the point of it?” “Well…” I said, “No, the point of Women’s Studies i is to teach you how unfair and discriminatory your own country is — that’s the whole point of it — and then to convert you to a liberal.” She said, “They didn’t have to. I already am.” I said, “Well, I figured.”

She was nice, though. She actually wanted to know what I thought about the things that she believed. She was not one of these 30-seconds-and-start-calling-you-names people. It was fascinating. But the perception here is that Trump’s illegitimate and that his presidency is illegitimate and everything that happens in his presidency is illegitimate, and that’s why the assassination hit squad is never ending, because every one of these stories is to feed this perception, because it is not reality.

The perception that Trump is unjust, illegitimate, the election was flawed, that Trump is a criminal and his actions are criminal because of what he did with the Russians — and, of course, protecting Obama over here, which is a close second to the premise of making Trump illegitimate. That’s what all of this is aimed at. That’s why it’s not news. That’s why it’s not information. It’s not reporting to you things that you don’t know. It’s hideous. And this back-channel thing? Like the caller said: JFK used it solve the Cuban Missile Crisis. And did we eat our lunch on that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, predictably I got some emails: “What do you mean it’s not a big deal for the first woman, the first African-American.” Let me try this again. I know that I kind of swerved into that because it was not my primary discussion topic. I’m not trying to belittle anyone’s achievement here. It’s always bothered me. It’s just been like a craw. It has just bothered me, and it’s media related, not people related. It’s bothered me, particularly when African-Americans excel at something, the left goes bonkers as though they feel sorry for them.

There’s this never-ending sympathy that I’m sure in the minds of leftists, the sympathy derives from what the leftist thinks is the horrible existence of a minority in America, not just African-Americans, but women and Hispanics and Latinos. And you pick the minority. The left invents them as they need them. And life in America is so filled with drudgery and there’s so many obstacles put up there by the white patriarchal majority, the white Christian patriarchal majority, that there is sympathy for the victims of this great nation.

And so when any one of them triumphs it is portrayed — and it’s not she subconscious. It’s sort of hidden. But it’s portrayed as a triumph over America. That’s how I hear the media going nuts over it. Not as a triumph of personal glory and achievement, but a triumph over the odds. And what are the odds? Discrimination in America. It’s always rubbed me wrong, and it’s always, to me, actually short-changed the person who’s achieved something great, by not focusing on the achievement, but instead focusing on the environment, the supposed environment where it happened. The odds against them, the stacked deck.

Frank Deford, I’ll give you a modified, moderate example of this. Remember Frank Deford, the great sportswriter, Sports Illustrated, The National, he passed away recently, 78 years old. I met him once. I remember Frank Deford primarily from TV commentary. He was on the NBC pregame show for football way, way, way back when, and he had one of the most perceptive observations about fans that was hilarious. Deford could be funny.

He was talking about fans in Chicago. Chicago’s got the best baseball fans, the best baseball town in America. And Deford could never understand it because the Cubs never won anything. The way Deford looked at it, the fans were stupid for constantly supporting and building up a winner. He had some line about does Chicago want to be known as the best laundry town, want to be known as the best dry cleaning town? It was funny the way he put it together. It was an alternative take on the notion that fans of losing, hapless teams are the best fans ever.

Well, Frank Deford passed away and there were these obituaries and other articles about him, and in one of them he was asked for his greatest sports memory. And this man had seen and written about sports from his teenage years. He had seen everybody in the modern era. He had watched and seen practically every major event, either live or on TV. So he’s got all of these sports memories to draw on in answering the question, your greatest sports memory.

And do you know what it was? It wasn’t a sports memory. He was in South Africa when Arthur Ashe took on the white apartheid government in a speech. He said that is the greatest sports memory I have. Now, no quarrel, but it’s not a sports memory. It’s a memory of a guy who played tennis pretty well taking on what? Racism, apartheid, what have you. And this is how leftists look at things. They take the arena of sports — look at what’s happening with ESPN now. All liberal, all the time.

And it’s not just that. I think where ESPN is really rubbing people wrong is that they’re portraying a number of these athletes, like Colin Kaepernick, as victims. My whole point, victims of what? What is Colin Kaepernick a victim of? Quarterback for the 49ers, took a knee rather than stand up for the anthem. You know who I’m talking about. So ESPN of course champions him and anybody else who followed Kaepernick and took a knee, why? He’s protesting America. Good for him.

This is the thing that’s always rubbed me wrong about this is the reason these guys have attention focused on them, the reason they are heralded is they are said to have overcome dire consequences of being an American, the horrible life circumstances of being an American. And they do the whole thing with women who achieve and accomplish. Well, that’s what’s offensive to me. (interruption) Oh, I don’t expect the left to understand.

I expect the left to be boiling, raging mad if they’re hearing this or when they’re gonna read about the way this is written on Twitter. Twitter will blow up in its own little sphere there. They will have not the slightest idea what I’m talking about. They won’t have the slightest clue. They’re not even gonna try to understand what I’m talking about, because in this case they are guilty. And of course, they, in their own little warped minds, are never guilty.

But there’s another reason for this too. By continuing to hold onto — ’cause are we not long past the first women to do something great, the first African-American to do something great, the first Hispanic, the first transgender to do something great, are we not long past that now? Oh, that’s right. Not ’til we get a woman president. That’s precisely my point. What does it matter?

I’ll tell you how little it mattered to voters. It didn’t matter a hill of beans to voters that they could have had the first woman president. It did matter they could have had the first African-American, but that was because voters wanted to end all this kind of talk, and they thought they could prove the country not racist by voting for and electing a black man. How’d that work out? But they’re not similarly obsessed with the first woman president.

But we’re long past the era of first this to do something, first that to do something, are there any firsts yet to happen? Well, yes, actually, the first woman to play offensive tackle in the NFL. I thought, what is that sugar bear mama on the Honey Boo Boo, what’s her name? Mama June. She could have played offensive tackle at one time. She lost a lot of weight. So the first woman to throw a touchdown pass in the NFL, the first woman to kick a field goal in the NFL.

I guess you can make up a bunch of firsts that haven’t happened and then prove that the NFL is discriminating, prove that the NFL is discriminated and bigoted as is America, because women are not allowed to play offensive tackle. And this is the subtext of it. But there’s another thing.

By holding to the first woman, the first black, the first homosexual, the first transgender, the first native American, the first whatever, there is also something else more hideous that is woven into this intricate web of deceit, and that is the built-in excuse to why they might or will fail. It’s because America is unjust. When you have the first woman to do something, the media questions, “Why haven’t there been more?” Well, America is unfair, unjust, bigoted, sexist, and misogynistic.

And yet this one woman, whoever she is doing what, has overcome it. But the next one, if she fails, it’s gonna be because America hasn’t sufficiently changed. So here’s a built-in excuse to fail if you are a victim minority. Oh, that’s what I was gonna say about Kaepernick. The big problem ESPN’s doing beyond just liberalizing and lefting everything is that they are making these athletes victims. Of what, again? American culture and American society.

And these people that are making gobs of money doing something that 900.9% of the population cannot do and in doing their jobs they provide an outlet of relief for people who want to get away from their day-to-day drudgery and forget about it for three or four hours and watch a game and engage in discussion about it, now we’re being sucked in here politically, and we’re being told that these great athletes and these great stars are victims.

Kaepernick is a sad, victim, look at what he’s having to do, he can’t get a job now in the NFL. Right, he can’t play, but it’s not because of that. He didn’t get a job because NFL owners are uber-patriots and they’re discriminating against a young African-American. (interruption) Why are you shaking your head at? You said they’re really not gonna understand me now?

But I’m telling you, I know it’s self-inflicted, but, look, the media couldn’t get enough of it. They picked it up, they championed because today’s left wing is built on victimization, making everybody a victim and then creating sympathy and an impossible set of obstacles to overcome as a means of portraying America as insufficient, therefore needing massive transformational change.

This is what’s always bugged me about all this. ‘Cause, see, I don’t hate my country. I don’t dislike my country. I never have. And I mostly don’t understand anybody who does. But I know they’re out there.

I have to take a break here, folks.