RUSH: Okay. I just have one more thing here before we swerve back into the sexual harassment story. And I have to tell you, folks, there’s a part of this that is beginning to make me nervous, as an umbrella thing, not specifically. I’m just spotting a trend, and I know you have too. I’m sure I’m not the only person in this crowd. But you know, this business of sexual abuse is quickly approaching the same dynamics as racism in our culture.

And just as racism is a horrible thing to be accused of, and depending on how it’s done it’s sometimes hard to disprove it, it’s the same thing here with being accused of all kinds of improper behavior against women, especially blind allegations, they can be really tough to defend, especially the way the table is being set today. That women never make it up, that women don’t lie about it, that women must be believed. This is not an anti-woman screed. Now, don’t anybody misunderstand me here.

I’m addressing this as though we’re all human beings. Forget sex, gender, and all of that. I’m just assessing where our culture is going. And it’s because of the politicization of everything, because we have politicized relationships now. We have politicized the way men and women interact. That all began with feminism in the modern era of the late sixties. We politicize everything. The NFL is politicized, you name it, it’s all politicized now. And so since it’s politicized, those who use politics as a weapon then seize on everything that occurs and they use it as a weapon.

And so now male-female, man-woman, boy-girl relationships end up being weaponized by the people who have an agenda attached to them. And so if you’re going to come along, if we as a society are going to agree because of the hot-button tensions of the moment that the women must be believed, and I’m just pointing it out here. This is not yet a direct criticism of this. I’m just chronicling that this is happening where we are.

If that is going to be our standard as a society as we strive to fix this problem, if part of our decision, part of our technique to fix it is to say women never make it up, women must be believed, then it’s gonna be very, very difficult to ever defend against a surprise allegation that comes out of the blue. And what’s gonna happen is is that people are going to become more distant from one another. People are going to be suspicious and cognizant and sensitive to even the most innocently stated thing or innocently-engaged-in behavior could be grossly misunderstood and a life or future destroyed because of it.

And so people, to guard against that, are gonna clam up and they’re gonna avoid, because look what happens here. Take the case of Roy Moore and you’ve got the original allegation. Now how many of them are there? Five or six? And what’s happening? Every woman is believed because of the politicization of this. Every woman is believed, not doubted at all. It’d be the same thing with Franken except in his case we’ve got a photo, and in his case we have a body of evidence that backs up the allegation.

But there’s gonna be a time where somebody totally innocent is accused of this and isn’t gonna have a photo that would disprove it. So I’m just alerting you. I mean, you know how paralyzing the allegation of racism is. And you know how the whole subject of race, even though we have gone to war, even though 500,000-plus Americans have died to end slavery, we may as well have not taken one step toward ending slavery as the entire subject of race is used as a political weapon in America today.

And because of the immediate benefits, the perceived immediate benefits here politically of identifying somebody as a reprobate or a thug or a pig, you name it, the politically oriented are glomming onto this, and it has the potential of spiraling way out of control because, as you know, not every one of us is clean and pure as the wind-driven snow.

Not every one of us is honest. Not every one of us is satisfied with how much money we have. Not every one of us believes that the way to get more money is to work hard for it. Not every one of us believes innocent ’til proven guilty. Not every one of us is willing to offer the benefit of the doubt to people that make us mad or offend us.

We wish that was the culture we lived in. We wish that was the society we. But we don’t anymore. We live in a “get even with ’em as fast as you can-ism” kind of country now. We live in a “take ’em out before they know what hit ’em” culture now. And of course the reason we hit ’em before they know what’s hit ’em and the reason we want to take ’em out, that’s political too. It doesn’t matter if they’re nice people or not. It doesn’t matter if other people love and respect them, doesn’t matter.

If somebody can get rich quick, if somebody can get rid of a political enemy, if somebody can get rid of a president, then who cares if some small fry people fall by the wayside in the process. Now, it’s even risky to say what I just said, because it could easily be demagogued. You could easily see a story later: “Limbaugh thinks sexual harassment is never happening and is criticizing women who lie when they come forward.” And I didn’t say anything even approaching that, but this is how it now works.

If you don’t get with the groupthink, if you don’t adopt immediately the cultural and conventional wisdom, if you don’t loudly and publicly let everybody know that you think like everybody else does and you agree with what everybody else is agreeing with, then you are identifying yourself and you’re painting bull’s-eye on your back. And I of course experience this daily because I purposefully do not follow conventional wisdom precisely because it is groupthink.

And if I ever find myself thinking like the group does, I immediately grab hold of myself and say, “What am I doing wrong?” Or, “What am I not thinking through?” Or, “What’s happening?” ‘Cause never, ever do I go with the flow. Well, I can’t say never, ever. I mean, there have to be times where I agree with the majority, but I’m just saying as a general principle, when you’re talking about the political conventional wisdom of the day, I am not a practitioner. Just the opposite. I go the other way, in some cases on purpose.

But just my announced and professed concern with the quasi-warning about where we might be headed, could be and probably will be twisted into saying something I never said. And then the allegations will be out there, and I’ll have to come to you the next time and start defending myself for something I didn’t say. Whereas other people are going to be in the precarious circumstance of defending themselves against something they didn’t do. This is precisely how groupthink and politically correct tyranny triumph by literally frightening people into not saying anything that doesn’t already comport with the conventional wisdom.

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RUSH: Okay. Now, you can pooh-pooh what I said. Feel free. But let me just ask you a couple behavioral questions. As you know, the way we have been created as human beings, there are various roles that men and women have been assigned that we call human nature. And, of course, with everything there are exceptions. So nothing is uniform. But it has genuinely been accepted human behavior over the course of millennia that men chase women. Correct? Nothing wrong with that. Men face a lot of rejection. Women have to get good at doing it.

Woody Allen said, “The only difference I’ve noticed about success is being rejected by a higher class of woman. That’s all success has meant to me.” Yes, there are women who pursue men. I know this. But the general rule of thumb has been that it’s men who propose, men who ask women out on dates. The question is this: If the politicization of male-female relationships continues on its present path, and if men become afraid of even that behavior, if simply asking for a date is considered stalking or is considered harassment — and don’t think it can’t get there.

We’re on that path now. Then what happens? What do men do? Rather than run the risk of being accused of being a stalker or harasser? Because, look, sometimes you have to ask a woman out four times before she’ll say “yes.” In the old days — right, Snerdley? — sometimes it took more effort than that. What if the second time is considered stalking? What if the third time is considered harassment? So what are men gonna do if they decide, “Okay, screw it! I don’t even want to run the risk, and so they stop the pursuit?” The healthy pursuit, I mean.

What happens? Do women pick up the slack? Does it become acceptable for women to then become the, shall we say, aggressors, the person of action in a couple scenario like this? I don’t know. I have no answers to this. I could guess. But men are amazingly adaptive. Men want to be around women and will do whatever it takes to succeed. They will fake being pro-choice, for example, like in Hollywood. They’ll totally lie about it. They will say, “Oh, yeah, man! I would love to go to the museum and look at elephant tusks.” They’ll do anything, if they really want to be with a woman.

So what’s the adaptation gonna be if even the slightest approach or bit of attention runs the risk of a stalking charge or an harassment charge? Back off! Don’t do it. Find some other way. (Hello, Playboy magazine? I don’t know.” And maybe nothing. I mean, I could be, you know, exaggerating this to the point none of this is gonna happen. But I nevertheless ponder it, because take the circumstances we’re all facing now with race. I mean, look how race is permeating everything. We have ended slavery, 500,000 Americans died, and it may as well not have ever happened.

The NFL is destroying itself over the premise, essentially, that that didn’t happen, that we haven’t solved anything, and that there is still wanton lynching and murder of innocent African-American men. You know it as well as I do. And there are lies aplenty. “Hands up, don’t shoot.” It didn’t happen, and yet how many of these NFL players protesting still to this day probably think that it did? So how does that affect other people who don’t want to go anywhere near being accused of racism. They just stay away, right? It leads to segregation, in that case, in that instance. Will that happen with men and women? I doubt it.

Human nature will take over and prevail, regardless.

That’s what the feminists never understood.

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RUSH: I tell you what’s gonna happen. If asking a woman out on a date becomes sexual harassment or stalking, I tell you what’s gonna replace that: Sex robots. There are already stories of sex robots that are out there and being tested and supposedly enjoyed. Don’t laugh, folks. People are very creative and resourceful when it comes to sex.

RUSH: Back to the phones to Sea Bright, New Jersey. Denny, you’re next, sir. How you doing?

CALLER: Rush, long-term listener. First time I was able to get through. I’m excited.

RUSH: Well, I’m glad you’re here. What’s up?

CALLER: A question about the sexual harassment thing. Do you believe, as I do, that this sexual harassment explosion that’s been going on over the last couple of weeks is possibly a by-product of Hillary losing the election?

RUSH: No. I actually don’t, in this case. But I’d like to know your thinking on this. Why do you think it might be?

CALLER: Well, we were supposed to have the first woman president, everyone thought it was going to happen. I know a lot of women who voted for Hillary strictly because she was a woman and no other reason. And she was taken down by a powerful man, and is this whole thing about women taking down powerful men? Is that what’s going on here?

RUSH: There could be a strain of that. Can I ask you another question here about the women you’re referring to that just wanted to vote for Hillary strictly because she was a woman. Why did that matter? What did they think? I don’t know if you talked to them to get them to explain why. I never chose a guy running for president ’cause he was a guy. Now, naturally there weren’t women on the ballot, but there have been women on down ballot elections and it’s never mattered to me. You know, I’ve never thought male solidarity here, I’ve gotta elect the guy.

So what is this about women were gonna vote for her simply because she was a woman? What did that mean to them? I can understand African-Americans voting for Obama because they thought that meant — well, we know what they thought it meant. But what do women think it was gonna matter, that Hillary was president? Why? What’s the deal?

CALLER: Well, this was a presidential election. She would have been the first woman president in the history of the country.

RUSH: Yeah. But other than something historic which lasts about five seconds after it happens, what’s the benefit to women? What is she gonna do for women? What was it gonna mean to them? Self-esteem?

CALLER: They just wanted to see a female president. Now, I’m not saying that all women did this.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: But I do a lot of women who wanted her to be president strictly because she was a woman.

RUSH: Oh, I know. I just don’t know why, beyond —

CALLER: I don’t fully understand it myself.

RUSH: — allegiance to the skirt? What is it? It escapes me.

CALLER: I don’t fully understand it myself, because as you said, men do not vote for a male candidate just because they’re a man.

RUSH: No. It has to be rooted in the fact — there has to be some animus toward men women like that have, if voting for Hillary because she’s a woman means — it escapes me. I don’t think that way, so I strive to understand why it matters to women. How’s it gonna manifest in their lives? How’s it gonna improve their lives day to day that a skirt is in the White House? Or a pantsuit, whatever.

CALLER: Yeah. Actually a pantsuit. Right.

RUSH: As to your first question, there’s a reason why it’s happening now all of a sudden, but, look, Weinstein’s real. What Weinstein was doing was real, and it was bad, and it was punitive, and it was harming women, it was hurting women. And he’s not alone. Apparently that whole community out there in Hollywood is nothing but a bunch of Weinsteins and Weinstein Jrs. And the media and people out there knew about this for years.

The question is, what made it all of a sudden okay to report on it? What made it all of a sudden okay for the New York Times to blow the lid on Harvey Weinstein? And the fact that Hillary lost, I don’t know. ‘Cause it is a real — this is horrible behavior. These guys needed to be called out on this years ago.

CALLER: Well, that’s another suspicious thing. Why has it taken so long? Why is it now? Why not years ago?

RUSH: Well, because look, politics has touched everything. Everything’s become politicized, therefore things have become corrupt. But with somebody as big and powerful as Weinstein, there’s also fear. If you’re gonna do it, you better take the guy out or you’re finished. And there wasn’t a woman around all those years who felt she alone was powerful enough to prevail. I totally understand that too.

But the question about timing and what were the circumstances that all — you know, all the dominoes fell at just the right time. Does it relate to political desires that the Democrat Party has? Did somebody say, “Look. If we’re gonna go after Trump –” ’cause they all knew about Weinstein, they all knew about all these guys.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: If they’re gonna go after Trump on this basis, do they say to themselves, “Look, we’re gonna have to clear the decks on some of this behavior on our side so it doesn’t hold us back”? I don’t know. But the thing is it’s rotten behavior, it’s despicable behavior, it’d been going on for a long time, and the very people now calling attention to it looked the other way for all of those years.

CALLER: Well, I’m certainly not defending what these men did, if any of the allegations are true. But it just seems a little odd to me that there’s been this explosion over the last couple weeks.

RUSH: Well, look, I can relate. You know, shortly after Obama was elected, maybe two weeks after, it seemed like the whole country had become the Soviet Union. It seemed like it happened overnight, progressism, liberalism overnight. “When did this happen?” I was asking myself. But it didn’t happen overnight; it’s been creeping up on us. And all it took was the election of one guy who was thought to be simpatico and a leader, and they came out of the woodwork.

They’d been there all along and they’d been raising hell all along when Bush was president and even Clinton. But it really hasn’t come out of the woodwork. I mean, gay marriage has been a thing trending for years. It’s been happening. What we all thought was, it was never going to reach majority status. What you’re really seeing is a bunch of this stuff seems to have all of a sudden overnight become majority status, and that’s what you can’t square.

CALLER: Hmm.

RUSH: And I can’t, either. Now, before you go — —

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: — would you like a new iPhone?

CALLER: I would love one.

RUSH: Okay. Now, again, you don’t have to say you want him. You won’t hurt my feelings. But I can’t just randomly offer — like if I offer the previous guy a phone and then don’t offer you one, what you are gonna think of me? So once I start it I have to offer every caller a phone. I love doing it, but you don’t have to take it. I don’t want you to feel obligated. You’d be foolish not to take it, but I’m giving you the option to go either way on it.

CALLER: No, good timing on my part. I would definitely take it. I love it.

RUSH: All right. So which would you like?

CALLER: The X would be great.

RUSH: Okey-doke. What’s your carrier?

CALLER: Verizon.

RUSH: Verizon. Fine and dandy. I should tell the other guy, too, these phones that you’re gonna get, they’re unlocked. They will have a SIM card in them but they’re not tied to any carrier. You can take this phone to any carrier and it will work. In your phone, you can take it any carrier, and it will work. It has a Verizon SIM card in it. If you want to swap SIMs, you can do that, but it’s not locked to any carrier or any account, okay? It’s important if you take it to a phone store that you tell ’em it’s a gift and it’s unlocked.

CALLER: All right.

RUSH: So hang on. You’re also gonna get a one year subscription to the Rush website, Rush 24/7, RushLimbaugh.com, a new tumbler and the goodies that go along with that, so we need to get an addresses and other data from you so don’t hang up and Mr. Snerdley will be with you next.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There’s a piece at The Week. It’s a website. A piece here by Damon Linker. “Al Franken is Just the Beginning.” This is somewhat close to the monologue that I delivered one hour ago. Would that be right? Yeah. If you missed it I’m not gonna run through the whole thing, but you might want to revisit RushLimbaugh.com later today for the monologue on what all this means, where we’re headed.

I’ll tell you the way to search for it, is that we’re approaching male-female relations as being similar to race relations in this country. I mean, it’s getting to the point where the slightest misunderstanding could lead to the ruination of a reputation or life. And I think that’s what this piece is, “Al Franken is Just the Beginning.” A couple of pull quotes from the piece.

“Now think of all the pages and interns and young staffers cycling through all of those offices on Capitol Hill, year after year, decade after decade. And the countless thousands of staffers who’ve passed through the White House and executive branch departments and agencies across Democratic and Republican administrations. And all the Supreme Court clerks and assistants. How long until one of these pages or interns or staffers or clerks or assistants, or dozens of them, or hundreds of them, begin to talk and make credible accusations against leading public figures of both parties? How many terrible men will go down?”

Now, Mr. Linker here is assuming that every allegation’s true, that there could be hundreds of women — and men — who have been harassed and abused and stocked and what have you over many, many years in Washington, and that the Franken news could open the floodgates and all kinds of people could surface, ’cause it happened with Weinstein. I mean, women came out of the woodwork after Weinstein. And Mr. Linker here is assuming that they would all be telling the truth.

So he writes, “How many terrible men will go down? There’s no way to know. But one thing of which we can be fairly certain is that President Trump will survive. The time for him to suffer the consequences for the appalling behavior he described (and bragged about) on the Access Hollywood tape is long past. He got caught admitting his predatory sexual entitlement and abuse, and he won the presidency anyway.”

But the left is not done with him, Mr. Linker. So Linker writes, “That’s why it’s oddly fitting that of all the sexual harassers and coercers who have been and will be exposed, Donald Trump should remain untouched by the rising political maelstrom.” By the way, I happen to opine that early in this hour for the exact same reasons. Trump has already triumphed over whatever allegations that he admitted to. He was elected president. But that doesn’t mean they’re gonna not stop looking for other women to bring forth so they can have new stories about Trump.

But Linker thinks Trump’s gonna survive ’em anyway. And he says, “In some ways, we owe it all to [Trump].” See, knew this was coming. In some ways we owe on all of this to Trump. “There’s no way it’s a coincidence that it was within the first year of the Trump administration that women at long last overcame their fear and shame to tell their stories and take down the perpetrators. It’s as if each perp is in some small way a vicarious stand-in for the sexual predator in the White House.”

So you see? Our last caller said, is this happening because Hillary lost? No. It’s happening, you see, because Trump won. Mr. Linker says that Trump winning has so enraged legitimately harassed women that they have decided to come out of the woodwork in droves. So in his view, Ashley Judd and some of the others that stood up and nailed Weinstein did it because of Trump getting away with it. That’s what they want to believe.

But, you see, it misses the point. The point is, Weinstein did it. Trump only ever talked about this stuff. There isn’t any evidence Trump did anything like Weinstein did. And yet they want to try to lump Trump in, and they want to lump Trump in with Roy Moore. There isn’t any evidence of Roy Moore. There are just allegations. And now Gloria Allred still will not produce this yearbook that she claims proves everything. Weinstein did it. All of these other Hollywood guys did it! Trump just talked about it.

So Mr. Linker here is mad. Trump’s gonna get away with it. Trump’s the guy that caused all this, Trump’s the guy that made women so mad they couldn’t stay silent anymore. Trump is living rent free in every progressive brain, which doesn’t leave much room in those small brains for anything else, and you can tell.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Kirsten Gillibrand thinks that Bill Clinton should have resigned. Thanks, Kirsten, for nothing. And Fauxcahontas says that Franken’s behavior unacceptable, deeply disappointing. The women in Franken’s office are doing a Nina Burleigh on us.