RUSH: Ground was broken last night on ESPN. It was Monday Night Football, game two started at 10:15 eastern. It was the Chargers and the Denver Broncos, and for the first time they had a female play-by-play announcer named Beth Mowins, and they teamed her with Rex Ryan, who has the toe fetish, the former coach of the “New Jersey” Jets. And this is history. So I just… I was watching it. (interruption) You know me and my hearing. I had the captioning on and I heard the announcers and I’d forgotten that they were going to use a female play-by-play last night, and I kept saying the captioning said “Rex.” I said, “Who’s Rex?” I finally figured out it was Rex Ryan. Anyway, here’s how it sounded. This is just the setup for what’s coming…
RUSH: All right, that’s pretty cool. Female announcer, play-by-play, ESPN, NFL, groundbreaking. I’m all for it. Fine and dandy. She’s pretty good by reputation. I never heard her do a game, but they say she’s pretty good. But! But! They brought over a sideline reporter last night. (chuckles) I’m not laughing. His name is Sergio Dipp, and they imported him from ESPN Deportes, which is the Spanish language version, and they put him on as the sideline reporter.
DIPP: It’s a pleasure to be with you guys here on the field from up close just watching Coach Vance Joseph from here. You watch him now on the screen. This diversity in his background is helping him a lot tonight. Quarterback at Colorado, defensive back in the NFL, and here he is having the time of his life this night making his head coaching debut.
RUSH: Because he has a lot of diversity in his background. Okay, and then after the game the guy was… They panned it. People were making fun of the guy, “Who is this guy? This is embarrassing. This guy does not know how to do his job.” So after the game, the guy was in tears talking about diversity and immigration.
DIPP: It’s been (sigh) a couple of hours now trying to digest —
RUSH: Wait a sec. Don’t play it. We don’t have time, folks. I’ve gotta take a break. I misread the clock here by one minute. But I promise to get to this. Don’t go away. Hang on.
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RUSH: I just have one question both about Beth Mowins in the ESPN booth. If they wanted real diversity, they’d put me in there. But it’ll never happen. How can any self-respecting caring woman stand by as these players risk concussion and brain injury for our enjoyment? Just beyond the pale anymore.
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RUSH: That I want to do is go back and play these two sound bites back-to-back and explain to you what people… I mean, this has become the talk, as much of what ESPN has been doing lately in their effort to somehow reach a majority of Americans by going “diverse” has. Whatever they think it is that unites the country, it isn’t.
They’re losing subscribers, they’re losing audience, and they’re losing money, and it’s dragging down Disney, and it’s all because they have an erroneous assumption of what it is that makes this country, what it is that constitutes the country and how our greatness is defined. And diversity is not skin color. That’s surface! But that’s how they look at it. It’s quotas. “What’s our number of African-Americans? What’s our number of Hispanic females? What’s our number…?” And if the numbers match and it fits some population chart, then fine and dandy.
But when you start getting into diversity of thought, there isn’t any at ESPN, and there isn’t any in the Drive-By Media, and that’s why they’re floundering. So they talk diversity and they preach it, but there isn’t any. In service of their definition of diversity, they are not finding the best. They’re not finding the most talented, they’re not finding the most professional — and, as such, it’s a disservice to the people they are charging a lot of money for to watch their network. They owe it to people to put the best they’ve got on, and their definition of “the best” does not include an assessment of talent.
The only thing that matters about them is their heritage? Those are identifiable characteristics but they have nothing to do with the kind of person someone is. Unless people are talked into letting those things speak for them rather than who they are, and that’s one of the inherent dangers of all of this. So in service to this definition of diversity, they went out and they’ve gotten people who they think will impress the audience. “Look at ESPN! Look at the diversity! Look at how ESPN cares! Look! ESPN’s really got their finger on the pulse.”
What they’re not doing is finding the best, and that’s what this is really all about. I mean, this poor guy Sergio Dipp? I mean, they’re laughing at this guy today, but he had no business being put on the sideline last night. It wasn’t his fault for taking the gig. It’s what he wants to do. But he wasn’t ready for it, and that’s what people are commenting on. He ended up in tears after the program because people in social media were making so much fun of him.
Whereas I guarantee you, he went in thinking he was gonna be a hero on social media because of the very “diversity” and things that they use on the left to define greatness. So here is his first report when they first went to him to introduce him to the audience, and he’s doing his first sideline report. They brought him in from ESPN Deportes.
RUSH: Right. But the diversity poor Sergio Dipp is talking about here is irrelevant to the guy getting a head coaching job. He got a head coaching job because somebody thinks that he can win football games and inspire players to win football games, not his “diversity” and stuff. But this is the way this guy’s been trained. This is how it manifests itself. So the minute this happened, social media erupted and they start laughing and making fun of this guy. I didn’t know this had happened ’cause, of course, I watch with the sound down and I can’t hear it. So I read about it first this morning in the New York Post. I said, “Okay, what’s this?” So I looked and I got the audio sound bite. After the game, poor Sergio Dipp was in tears continuing to talk about “diversity” and immigration when his job was football.
RUSH: Well, now, what could have gone wrong? What does the guy think his job was? You can’t blame this poor guy. Folks, this is how he’s been educated. This is what’s happening to your kids in school. This is what they grow up thinking is important. It’s what they’re being taught. This guy thought he was hitting a home run last night, I guarantee you, with his… I’m sure he rehearsed it. I’m sure he looked in the mirror and watched himself talking about the diversity of Vance Joseph, who happens to be African-American.
“Bingo! Minority! Diversity! All I gotta do is relate to this guy.” Then he’s taken to the woodshed for his performance, and how about this postgame? (impression) “Well, it’s been a couple hours now try and digest what happened to a 29-year-old Mexico guy like me, born in Mexicali, Baja, growing up in the American environment a minority, a minority…” He used the “minority” word throughout this thing. Sergio, it’s not why people are tuned in to watch the football game last night.
I guarantee you a lot of people wanted to see if Rex Ryan was gonna put his foot in his mouth, is why a lot of people were watching. But, anyway, this is a manifestation of how all of this irrelevancy is being taught as important and defining. Vance Joseph is not even a person to this guy. He’s a symbol. He’s an example. And just because of that, not because of his work, he’s inspirational to this guy. I feel for these kids that have been educated this way. They’re missing out on so much, and they’re going through life totally confused.
I guarantee you, poor Sergio hasn’t the slightest idea what happened to him. I guarantee you he thought it was a home run. I’m sure he thought he was gonna be a social media hero — “How many likes? How many thumbs up? How many people following?” however these people on social media define it — and his world turned upside down last night after what he thought I’m sure was the greatest sideline report by an immigrant from Mexico ever.
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RUSH: Hendersonville, North Carolina. Aaron, great to have you, sir. Welcome to the program. How you doing?
CALLER: I’m doing all right, Rush. Thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: Just real quickly: I always agree with you a hundred percent of the time. But today I just disagreed a little bit with you said you felt bad for the guy on the calling the plays on the field —
RUSH: Yes, Sergio Dipp.
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: I did say I feel sorry for the guy ’cause he was put into a position he’s not qualified for yet.
CALLER: Well, that may be true, but it’s the liberal ideology–
CALLER: Right, but I mean, he subscribed to the liberal ideology, and the first thing… I mean — I mean, you always say we want to watch football to do what? To get away from reality.
RUSH: Right! Want to watch football to watch football, to fantasize, to pretend we can be doing it, whatever.
CALLER: Exactly. Exactly.
RUSH: Root for our team.
CALLER: Exactly. Precisely. And the first thing this guy does is get on there, and he talks about… I mean, it sounded so insane to hear this guy say, “And this guy’s diversity’s really helping him out.” It sounded so dumb. And that’s how the whole liberal thing sounds —
RUSH: Yeah, but guess what, Aaron? The guy was destroyed by everybody on social media. The guy was destroyed by people who agree with you about this.
CALLER: Exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, that’s just my point. I don’t feel bad for the guy at all. He subscribes to the dumb liberal ideology, so, hey, he gets that’s what he deserves. I’m sorry.
RUSH: Well, okay. Now, look, I understand that. “Don’t feel sorry for the guy. He believes in what he was doing. He believes in what he was saying. He said what he said; he meant to say it. It backfired on him. Don’t feel sorry for him.” But I do. I feel… It’s not just for him, though, Aaron. Do you realize how many millions of young people have been mal-educated, ill-educated like this kid? “Young man.” I’m sorry. He really thought… I am sure he rehearsed this.
I know how these people do things first, folks. You don’t know ego until you have met a TV person. They stand in front of the mirror. I mean, they walk by a pane of glass and they’ll stop and look at themselves in it. I mean, if they’re walking down the street, you know, and there’s a big showroom at a store, they’ll stop and they’ll look at their hair. It doesn’t matter men/women. They all do it because their appearance is everything. If you’re on TV, your appearance is everything. So I’m sure this guy rehearsed in front of the mirror.
They’re not gonna throw anybody out there — first time especially — not knowing what somebody’s gonna say. It’s gonna have been rehearsed, scripted, one way or the other. It may not be on teleprompter, but that’s the general idea — and they thought it was gonna be great. This is the point. Now, Aaron here thinks, “Hey, you make your bed; you lay in it,” and I understand that. But Sergio wasn’t born with this cockamamie set of beliefs and values. He was raised with them and educated with them, and he’s not alone.
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RUSH: Here’s the thing about Sergio Dipp. Do you realize what happened to this guy? If you strip it all away, he got what I would consider to be his first real dose of education with this experience that he engaged in. I guarantee you the last thing he ever thought would happen is the reaction he got. I’m telling you, he was gonna get gold stars or whatever they pass out to kids now, trophy, or what have you. And this — I don’t know, it’s been ridicule or the mocking or laughter, I guarantee you Sergio hasn’t encountered that. Youngsters are shielded and protected from that kind of mean-spirited extremist behavior.
As we all know, social media is a sewer, and mixed in with the good there is really a never-ending parade of human debris. Sergio’s hearing it from everybody, and it’s the first dose of reality that Sergio probably has ever had in his life. This is why I feel sorry for these people. In addition to feeling sorry, they pose a great problem, folks. They’re gonna grow up, these people are gonna eventually assume leadership positions throughout our culture. Generational shift’s happen all the time. The more education like this that Sergio Dipp can get, the better.
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RUSH: Poor Sergio Dipp and what happened to him and his eye-opening awakening to the fact that the world does not see things the way he thinks they do. In other words, people were not watching that football game last night and thinking of the diversity of the head coach, coaches, or players. They tuned in to watch a football game. They wanted one team to win. They wanted to see a good game. The people tuning in, the last thing on their minds was race, sexual orientation, sexual desire — well, not sexual desire, ’cause that’s a special — but they wanted to watch a football game.
They didn’t want to be preached to about how some head coach got where he is because of diversity and all this sort of stuff, and they didn’t want to hear the sideline reporter compare himself to the head coach. But Sergio believed totally differently. He thought he was hitting a home run.
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RUSH: Matt in San Antonio. Welcome to the program, sir. How are you?
CALLER: I’m doing great, Rush. Thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet, sir.
RUSH: Exactly.
CALLER: — because championships are won on merit.
RUSH: It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what their sexual orientation is. It doesn’t matter where their parents came from. It doesn’t matter, if they just play well, entertain us, get our minds off things, make us wish like we could do things that they can do. I know all of that, you’re exactly right. But this is all part of the —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — forcing everything on everybody. It’s the groupthink, and it’s only gonna get worse. It’s gonna continue happening.
CALLER: Right. Sports is the ultimate free market. We don’t care what color our coaches and players are. We just want them competent and we hold our sideline reporters to the same standard.
RUSH: Let me ask you this, though, Matt. You come to the sporting event, baseball, football, doesn’t matter, you don’t care what the race of the players is, and you don’t care about the mix, the diversity. They’re your team, you want ’em to play well, you want ’em to win. But what happens to you if they keep talking about this stuff to you. Like if somebody scores a touchdown, “He comes from a racially mixed background. His father was 70% Mexican, his mother was 32% Romanian,” or however they do it, what effect is it gonna have on you? As a fan, if they keep promoting this part of their agenda, if they keep politicizing it to talk about their definition of diversity or how a kid was a victim and overcame this or that, what effect is it gonna have on you as a fan?
CALLER: Well, I think we’re already starting to see that effect because ESPN’s ratings are going right in the tank to the point where people, people of all colors, by the way, are losing their jobs. Diversity is actually costing jobs at ESPN.
And I’ve always found that fascinating, that people thought that they were not guilty of any of these bad thoughts or injustices, and yet they kept being pummeled with it. And now with white privilege as a sign of the cross, Dracula, and courses in white privilege. I mean, they’re taking people to whom race really hasn’t mattered to a lot of people, and they’re putting it front and center. And when they keep doing this in sports, I think he’s right, I think they already are seeing evidence of the impact.
It’s not just Kaepernick. That’s just an element of it, not just the protests of the flag. There are many, many factors. Sports especially. People don’t care about the politics of it, and they don’t want to have it preached to ’em. So ESPN subscribers are way down in the millions, and it’s having an effect on Disney. And there are all kinds of examples of the way this encroachment is happening.
I mentioned that I played golf Saturday with a very famous Hollywood actor, both movies and TV. And there’s a story, you know, Hollywood’s box office this summer’s been the tank. So I asked this seasoned veteran of the stage and the screen, I said, “What do you think is the reason for it?” I saw a story this morning that the management of various studios is blaming Rotten Tomatoes. He said, “What do you mean?”
“Well, Rotten Tomatoes is CrowdSourced movie ratings system. And so people before they rent a movie on iTunes or go to watch union they’ll check the Rotten Tomatoes rating, people have seen it, and it can effect whether they go see a movie or not.”
He said, “That’s bunk. I mean, there’ve been critics left and right in newspapers and TV for decades telling people whether a movie is bad or good.” He thinks, he told me the truth, he thinks that the decades of politicization of actors and actresses off the screen as well as in script is finally coming home to roost because people have other options to watch.
Now, do you realize Millennials — I saw something and TV executives are gonna read this and weep — most Millennials, I don’t know what the percentage is, most Millennials do not watch TV live. In other words, they don’t watch whatever they watch when it’s broadcast. They stream it later when they want to.
Now, for decades we’ve all predicted that’s what TV was gonna become, and it has, but the networks are not leading it. The networks are still stuck in the same old model that they’ve had. And that’s gonna have an impact on advertising. But if kids don’t mind watching a movie on a five-and-a-half-inch screen
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