RUSH: This is Jimmy, Quincy, Illinois. Welcome, sir. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Oh, hey, thank you, Rush. Hey, you know, early in the show you mentioned that you’ve started to feel that the worm was turning and that the Democrats have overplayed their hand with Russia for so long. I just noticed in the pre-Trump era the Republicans would have caved in long before now. You know, the Trump supporters just don’t cave that easily. And I wanted to ask you, get your take on this. You know, obstructionism is gonna continue in some form, but I’m starting to see people worrying about Pelosi. And I’m starting to see a little crack in their armor.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: — the Dems —
RUSH: Now, that’s —
CALLER: — if the Dems turned the tide for Trump’s policies.
RUSH: This is a very, very shrewd question. It’s multifaceted. There are not many hosts who could follow the thread of your question, but I have. When you talk, by the way, of obstructionism, you’re talking about the Democrats obstructing Trump; you’re not talking about Trump obstructing justice. I just want to make it clear for people what you’re talking about.
The conventional wisdom, every election is that Democrats are gonna win in a landslide, no matter what the circumstances, and we’re into that conventional wisdom now. The Democrats are gonna win in a landslide in 2018 for all of the usual reasons. One of the reasons is we hate Trump and so we think everybody hates Trump. Number two, people hate the Republicans anyway and regret that they were elected, and people love the Democrats and think the Democrats care about people and so the Democrats, especially after this, are gonna sail through. Now, hang on.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, so now the general consensus, the conventional wisdom every election is the Democrats are gonna win. They’re gonna win all these special elections, remember? They’re gonna win Georgia-6. They were gonna win all four. And when they lost the conventional wisdom was that they had won and that they had gotten closer than anybody thought.
So the conventional wisdom descends from there. Right now the conventional wisdom is that Trump is hated, that Trump may have cheated and stolen the election with the Russians. It’s what they believe inside the Beltway. And believe me, they act as though everybody believes it.
So the question in 2018 is: Who’s vulnerable? Well, right now, the truth of the matter is, if the election were tomorrow, the Democrats would lose and lose big again. But not because of the Republicans. They would lose because of Trump and themselves. The real question for 2018 is the Republicans, there is some vulnerability there. What happens if, after seven years of House Republicans promising, swearing, guaranteeing to repeal Obamacare, and the reality of not doing it, House or Senate, what’s the price?
The only thing saving Republicans is gonna be Donald Trump and the Democrats. Donald Trump’s base is nowhere near upset with him, angry with him, nowhere near it. They’re nowhere near abandoning him, but Trump isn’t gonna be on the ballot in 2018. I think the Democrats are in heap big trouble, despite whatever is going on with the Republicans. Look, the Republicans won last year, what did they do? Most of the Republicans that won weren’t even for Trump. Most of the Republicans that won didn’t expect to win. Well, they didn’t expect to win the majority. I’m talking about in the House. They weren’t expecting — that’s part of the problem.
It’s very early. Political preexisting conditions are risky. Anything can happen at any time. I’m not gonna go on record here with a prediction for 2018, other than to tell you that the Drive-By Media conventional wisdom is not right. You can be fairly confident in not going along with that. But the caller’s theory is the Democrats are doing everlasting damage to themselves with the way they’re pursuing Trump, obstructing Trump, getting in the way of Trump, implementing his agenda, and I think that’s true.
I think there are a lot of people that want Trump to do what he said he was gonna do. I think a lot of people can’t wait for Trump to do what he said he was gonna do, including draining the swamp, building the wall, fixing Obamacare, tax reform, that had better happen. That had better happen. There’s so much riding on tax reform. Forget reelection. Let’s talk economics. This country’s economic growth demands, it requires tax reform. It must happen. And part and parcel of that, although I don’t think they’re inexorably linked but they are linked in certain ways, and that’s Obamacare and something being done about it that’s an improvement.
There’s a story, I forget where I saw it, just had a chance to glance at it. It was some conservative publication, and the author said, “Let’s be honest, we gotta be honest, we gotta be honest, we gotta be honest, there’s no way to repeal Obamacare fully. Just can’t be done. Can’t be done. No way to fully repeal it. It’s got too many woven webs of deceit in there now. We can’t get rid of it, not totally, not totally.” So they’re making excuses for it already. Senate’s where all the action is, Mitch McConnell wants a vote before July 4th. Looks iffy, if you believe the conventional wisdom and the Drive-By Media.
But I think the Democrats continue to self-immolate and they don’t know it. The Democrats, they really do believe they’re kicking butt. They think they’re embarrassing Trump, and they think they’re on the road to retaking the House in 2018 and winning the White House in 2020.
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