RUSH: You know, I mentioned an email I got from a friend yesterday and I didn’t get to it, but now it may be somewhat timely. He said, “Rush, the backstory about this whistleblower — changed the rules for hearsay, collusion with the House Democrats. The whistleblower complaint doesn’t match the actual transcript. Don’t you think that ultimately this is gonna collapse because there’s nothing in this that’s true? It can’t further their cause.
“Now they’ve gone on recess and — despite the efforts of the media — it is going to impede their momentum.” This guy’s an eternal optimist. I should have told you that he’s an eternal optimist, and he doesn’t understand… That’s not the right way to put it. He is frustrated why so many Republicans are turning RINO. He’s frustrated why so many Republicans in the Beltway do not understand the opportunity they have here because the Democrats are operating on lie after lie after lie that can be exposed.
Now, this guy’s realistic. He says, “Look, you and Fox News can’t do this. The Republican Party’s gonna have to do it. I mean, you help, don’t misunderstand.” He doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. He’s basically asking what everybody on the phones the past two days has been asking — or, I could say, for the past 30 years! “Where are the Republicans in this?” is what he’s asking me. I can’t tell you the heated conversations I’ve had with people that publish conservative magazines, trying to talk ’em off the ledge.
“They’re ready to throw in the towel, Rush! I don’t understand it. The right way to look at this is the Democrats have nothing! Whatever happened to confidence? Whatever happened to really realizing who’s got the evidence and who doesn’t?” And then he asked me a question: “Can you understand this defeatism? Rush, it’s so predictable. Before all of this impeachment stuff happened, what was going on? Trump’s polls were rising. His approval numbers were rising. Biden was getting in deep trouble.
“The world was learning what we’ve always known about Biden and his family and his corruption. So the Democrats run their misdirection play and this impeachment stuff, and the Republicans start cowering in the corners again!” You know, folks, it’s not just Trump. They didn’t come to George W. Bush’s defense much, if you really stop and think about it. But neither did George W. Bush come to his own defense. So I wrote him back, ’cause I recognized my friend was in a world of hurt, and I can relate.
My friend is an optimist here and thinks that as all this is happening that it’s actually an opportunity for the Republicans to nail these people. “They’re lying! They’ve got nothing! They haven’t had a thing on Trump ever, and they don’t have anything on him now,” and he doesn’t understand why all the defeatism. So here’s the what I wrote back. I will share it with you, and it’s nothing I haven’t told you before. “I honestly believe that defeatism is the natural state of conservatives in Washington, the belief that they are second tier permanently.
“Even after big electoral wins like Trump winning the presidency, they still don’t accept themselves as winners. They don’t know how to win, don’t know how to act as winners, don’t know how to go on offense. So this natural state of defeatism, this natural state of fatalism leads to a desire for acceptance from their betters in the top tier. So even after Trump wins, even after Republicans win the House, the Republicans still think it — and Washington, D.C., conservatives still have a defeated mind-set about it and still try to make the left like them.”
I said, “That’s the natural state. Now add Trump, somebody the top tier despises, and it intensifies this natural state of defeatism, depressing it further.” So you have this natural state that they are second-class citizens, that they are constantly the minority even when they win — and it’s true, by the way. They’re not wrong about it. They’re wrong to have the attitude and not want to change it, but they’re not wrong about how they’re looked at.
Remember what I told the Republican freshmen at orientation in 1994. I said, “You guys have just won the House for the first time in 40 years, and the media hates you for it. They are not going to be your friends. They’re not gonna start treating you the way you’ve always seen them treat Democrats. They’re gonna treat you as temporary interlopers,” and when that great speech was over, there were two infobabes came up to me be with, one from the Washington Post, one from New York Times.
“Do you really believe that?”
I said, “Hell, yes, I do. I wouldn’t have said it otherwise,” and they tried to make me think that I was nuts, which is what they try to do to every conservative. So when the top tier, when the left or the people that run Washington get even madder — when they become even meaner, when they become even more aggressive after a Republican wins — why, it just intensifies this fatalism that the right in Washington feels. So they have an attitude, “Even when we win we lose,” because they are total prisoners to the media.
They’re total prisoners to what the media says about them, the way the media talks about them. So the way they look at it, even when they win, they lose, because when they win the media hates them even more! And they come to recognize the peaceful state can be attained by losing. A peaceful life in Washington for the right wing can be had by losing. They’re not a threat to the left, not nearly as big a threat. This was what I told the guy, and I believe it. I’ve seen it!
This is not just an off-the-top-of-my-head reaction. It’s the result of careful psychological study over the course of many years. I’ve been perplexed like all of you have. After we win the House first time in 40 years or win the presidency with Trump, why is there no accompanying joy? Why is there no feeling of being on top of the mountain? Why is there no aggressive attitude to move forward now on the agenda the American people chose?
Now, you throw Trump in the mix and you get all kinds of answers to that question because half the Republican Party doesn’t like him, either. The establishment just doesn’t. It doesn’t matter about parties. But I told him. I said, “The people you’re talking about, they don’t see the world the way you do at all, my friend, and they haven’t since this began. They don’t think the country’s in crisis. They don’t think open-borders immigration is a problem.
“They don’t think the country’s in crisis because of this massive, all-out attack on Trump and the Republican Party. To them, it’s just politics as usual — and to a certain extent, they can understand it because they can understand why people don’t like Trump. So there’s nothing to counter their natural state of defeatism in this. All there is, is more and more daily evidence that their defeatism is warranted. They win.”
Trump is having a great presidency! Trump is doing marvelous, magnificent things. This is what really, really, really bugs this guy that sent me this note. He is having a magnificent presidency with success not just on things he promised to look at and try to deal with and fix. He’s having a magnificent presidency in terms of establishing America again as a great nation! This guy asks, “Isn’t that what the American people vote for?
“Why isn’t there more unit on this? Why isn’t there more acknowledgment of the great work that’s being done?” It’s because conservatives and Republicans literally know that their place in Washington isn’t to win. Now, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. It doesn’t include everybody. I mean, there’s some that are exceptions to that. But where they live, everything’s fine economically. Trump didn’t need to fix anything.
They’re not victimized by illegal immigration. They’re not victimized by any of the cultural rot that’s taking place outside the Beltway. I mean, the unemployment rate there is lower than the national average. Per capita income is way higher. So, I mean, there’s no reason for people that live in that neighbor, per se, to think that anything is really out of whack or in crisis.
And since they don’t have to live in inland California or they don’t have to live on the southern border, it may as well not be happening there. It doesn’t affect them. So it’s a frustrating thing. What can be done? This is why, you know, it’s all about Trump.
But again, Trump really is the stand-in for us. It is us who elected him and continue to support him that are the real ultimate targets, because even if Trump wins two terms, he’s eventually gone. But the people that elected Trump are gonna be out there forever as long as they’re alive, and then people will come along and join them and replace them, and that’s the Democrats’ ultimate target here, is to eliminate any and all opposition.
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RUSH: So Erick Erickson has tweeted the following. Now, when I… I don’t think it’s Erick saying this. He is repeating what he’s hearing other Republicans saying, okay? So don’t jump in Erick’s chili. Here we go: “Starting to encounter Republicans who wonder if maybe [Trump] should step aside for Pence.
“They’re absolutely in the minority on the [Republican] side, but there does seem to be a fatigue setting in — tired of always fighting and always having to defend.” (chuckling) No excrement, Sherlock! This is exactly what I was trying to tell my friend. Our people see themselves as losers constantly. They are second tier! They are at peace… The most peaceful existence that conservatives in Washington have is when Republicans lose. That’s when they are the least threat to the Democrats and the media.
That’s when the media pressures them the least. That’s when they don’t have to defend anything. When the Republicans lose, what is there to defend? Draining the swamp? (chuckling) It might mean eliminating 90% of the population of that town, which I don’t know is possible, obviously. So Erick Erickson says (summarized), “Yeah, Republicans — eh, some of them, it’s not many, it’s a minority right now — are thinking maybe Trump should step aside because they’re tired of always fighting, always having to defend.”
Do you ever think about winning? Do you ever think about pushing back and winning? Do you ever think about going on offense, so you don’t have to defend? You’ve got evidence on your side! Trump hasn’t done diddly-squat! They’re making it up! Everything the Democrats are doing is a lie! Did ever think about investigating them? Do you ever bout having hearings on Biden and his kid, for example, to use just the most recent example? Let me tell you what’s gonna happen.
I don’t want to scare anybody here, but, Erick, you need to tell these people that you are talking to you like this one simple fact: If they abandon Donald Trump, they’re finished. If these Republicans that you’re talking to are telling you (sobbing), “We’re tired of being on defense all the time! We’re tired.” You tell them that if they cave, they are never gonna win another national election in a generation, if ever. That it is over. Trump supporters will walk. They will abandon them.
The GOP will cease to exist, and the socialists and communists on the left will take over and that will be that — and that’s exactly what the press wants. This is exactly what the Democrats in the media want. They want Republicans giving up and behaving as they normally do, as fatalistic losers! Losers with honor! Don’t forget that. You’ve heard that, have you not, Mr. Snerdley? “We must lose with dignity. We must lose with honor so the American people will see our moral superiority.” (Snort!) Moral superiority.
I sometimes wonder if some of these Republicans wouldn’t mind exactly that scenario. Just get rid of all these Trump supporters, get rid of all these Trump voters. Just get ’em out of the Republican Party, have ’em leave, and have the Republican Party represent maybe 20% of the country max and start over. I think it’s what the Never Trumpers on the Republican side would actually love. I think they would love you Trump supporters walking out on the Republican Party, and if they could make that happen by abandoning Trump?
(interruption) They don’t need to win anything, is my point. You’re not listening! They’re happy when they lose! They’re at peace when they lose! The Democrats are not attacking them when they lose! They don’t have to defend anything when they lose! The Democrats let ’em come to the cocktail parties! The Democrats let ’em go to a congressional hearing! The Democrats let ’em play golf! The Democrats and the media leave them alone! They don’t harass them when they lose!
They don’t want to win anything. When you start looking at people who ask, “Why aren’t the Republicans doing this? Why aren’t the Republicans…? Why don’t the Republicans…?” Well, because it doesn’t look like the actions of people that want to win something. Who does, though? Donald Trump. Donald Trump exudes winners. He exudes winning as an attitude, as a human objective — and they resent the hell out of it.
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RUSH: I knew this was gonna happen. “Rush, Rush, you fell for it. Erick Erickson’s talking about his own thoughts. He’s not talking about Republicans. He’s a Never Trumper.” Folks, that’s no concern. It doesn’t matter if Erick’s trying to put his own thoughts in the words of imaginary others or not. The point is that I’ll guarantee you it’s true. I’ll guarantee you, that’s my whole point in the monologue earlier about conservatives in Washington preferring to lose! It’s hard work winning. It’s hard work defending, it’s so beneath us.
They’re at peace in Washington. You know, sue for peace, wish we had peace with the Soviets. What’s the Democrat version of peace always been? What’s the Soviet, what’s the communist version of peace? How do they define peace? (interruption) No. The absence of opposition! Peace is the absence of opposition! That’s what the Democrats seek! The Republicans want to give it to them! The absence of opposition.
The Republicans think they’re not gonna be put in jail, they’re not gonna be sent to concentration camps. They’re gonna be allowed to write for their nonexistent little conservative magazines or their guest shot on a supposedly conservative TV network and everything’s fine and they’ll be respected — somewhat — by the top tier.
That’s not how we define peace. Because a mature person realizes there’s always gonna be opposition because there’s insanity and evil everywhere. But leftists, socialists, communists who believe in complete autocratic power believe in the absence of opposition, and that’s what we’re up against. And why in the world even have a Republican Party if they don’t want to be in opposition?
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RUSH: Okay. Little test question. You think if like Erick Erickson’s tweet, if Trump stepped aside and Pence became president, do you think the Democrats would stand down? Sorry, folks. That’s not the way to deal with this. That would not happen. They would be coming for Pence next even bigger! See.