RUSH: Here’s Joe in Pittsburgh. Great to have you, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Well, I know you’re great, Rush. I’m not gonna ask that, but we got our radio starts in the same place because they broadcast my high school football games on Wixie where you started out.

RUSH: Oh! In McKeesport?

CALLER: East McKeesport, absolutely.

RUSH: Yeah, WIXZ, Salted Rot and Mold is what we called it. It’s an oldies station.

CALLER: And my father worked for the Post-Gazette for 36 years, so I am a Rush Baby. I’ve been listening to you my whole life.

RUSH: Your dad worked for Pittsburgh Post-Gazette? Is that what you said?

CALLER: Yes, sir, for 36 years.

RUSH: Wow, no kidding. Well, welcome to the program. Great to have you here, Joe.

CALLER: It’s an honor to talk to you, sir. A couple weeks ago you made mention — and you make me so smart with my friends — you made mention of the New York Times article, friends of my generation, I’m 47, as not wanting to grow up, they want to be kids, play fantasy football, see superhero movies, and play video games.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: That’s all ridiculous because I don’t do any of that stuff and I have time to give back, write a book, and do all those things, but it’s those guys like me who are just bottom-line guys, and maybe that’s why all this is getting no traction with people is because they want the bottom line or their 401K’s are up, their pay is up, unemployment is low. So their day-to-day banter about impeachment and this and the other thing isn’t going to work, I believe — and I’m asking you — because they just care about the bottom line.

RUSH: Well, I think the polling is evidence of that, but I think even if we didn’t have the polling, I think that you are right. The Democrats to this day — and, you know, if you want to read the expertise on this whole phenomenon, find anything written by Salena Zito. She’s a columnist. She writes at the Washington Examiner. She’s got a book out that came out a year ago.

She has gone to all these places you’re talking about where people like the ones you’re talking about live. She started going to these places two years before the 2016 election. She knows who they are. She knows why they voted for Trump. She knows that this movement that elected Trump started before Trump came along, and he just tapped into it. The movement is not tied to Trump.

Now, that’s not to say Trump’s voters don’t like him or are not attached to him, don’t have a bond. They do! They know the movement isn’t gonna go anywhere without him. That’s why they’re not gonna abandon him. The movement, their desires, their resentment of Washington, their view of Washington as failing them because Washington doesn’t care about them, that predated Trump coming on the scene. Trump tapped into it.

They also know something else. They know, the people you’re talking about, that the hatred the media has for Trump is actually hatred for them. That Trump is the vessel for it. But the real anger is at all of the people that voted for Trump and all of the people that now will not abandon him. That’s who they’re really mad at. That’s who they really despise. ‘Cause Trump is term limited. He can only be president eight years. But the people that voted for him can vote this way their entire lives.

And so the resentment for these people is deep. And where they live, and it’s those people, by the way, that are donating record amounts of money to Trump. Last quarter the DNC — give me a break on the exact numbers, they raised a pittance, 15, $20 million compared to Trump’s $150 million. Trump’s donors are under $200. They are massive in number. And they are the very people that you are talking about. And the Democrats don’t know who they are because they resent them.

The Democrats don’t care to learn who they are, and the Democrats and the Washingtonians don’t care to find out what it would take to get them to abandon Trump. They just use the collusion stuff, you know, the traditional media smears of Trump, hoping that that will do it.

But they are the people that care about community. They care about their towns, their cities, the communities where they live, their churches, their small businesses. They are tightly knitted together. And in some sense as a throwback. But their interests, their political interests are not even touched on by the daily comings and goings of media reporting about what’s happening in Washington.

They’re not living and breathing and gasping and sighing over a phone call Trump made to the president of Ukraine. That’s not who Trump is to them. Trump is somebody looking out for them, who understands their livelihood and their futures and their past and wants to help them hold on to it and build it. It’s no more complicated than that. You’re exactly right.

And as far as impeachment is concerned, they’ll never be polled. The media will never hear from them or about them. And that’s why they’re gonna continually be surprised. And these people, many of them live in parts, areas of states that are considered blue, that are considered Democrat strongholds. But there are enough of them to upset that, give Trump enough votes to give him the electoral count in those states, and that’s what happened in 2016.

And Trump and his team are building on it, they are constantly in touch with these people who campaign. And Trump speaks to ’em every rally. He speaks their language. He’s talking right to them. The media doesn’t even know it when he’s doing it. They mock and make fun of the, “Trump hasn’t modified the message. Trump keeps making fun of the media. Trump keeps saying things that are not presidential.” These people, they’re eating it all up. They’re loving it. Trump says what they think. So they have a bond with him, you’re exactly right.

It’s great to hear from you, too, McKeesport. That’s a suburb of Pittsburgh, for those of you who don’t know. It was my first job outside of when I left home, and the station was WIXZ. It was pronounced Wixie. It was owned by a guy from Cleveland named Norman Wayne, and his parent station was WIXY in Cleveland.

Wixie Cleveland, we were Wixie — we called ourselves Pittsburgh. The offices were downtown Pittsburgh, but we were in McKeesport as it was pronounced locally. And I did the morning show. That’s the place I got fired, folks, for playing “Under My Thumb” by the Rolling Stones too many times.