RUSH: Now, let me tell you one of the things that I am trying to be vigilant about and remain guarded about. It’s very easy, it’s very seductive to start joking — and it’s okay, too, to do this — and to have fun and laugh at Crazy Bernie and who he is and how he appears when he gesticulates and waves his arms and so forth. He comes across as a harmless, innocent old guy, and he is the exact opposite, because there is nothing harmless or innocent about what he believes. It’s tempting to not take him seriously.

Every story I have in The Stack is one way or another related to how the Democrat Party’s scared to death that he’s gonna get the nomination, ’cause it’s instant death, and what they mean is that they’re trying to convince everybody that Sanders — as the identifier, as the face of the Democrat Party — is gonna destroy it. They’re not so much talking about, I don’t think, the election. I know I’m in a small boat on this. But there’s a part of me that literally wonders if the Democrats actually do want to win the presidency and the White House in 2020.

You know, because when I went through after the Hawkeye Cauci, New Hampshire — the top three — and I went through and analyzed all the three winners… And that’s where this controversy over Buttigieg came from. I was examining him from the way Democrats do, the way Democrat establishment bosses were trying to look at the what they had, with Bernie on top and then Buttigieg and then, I guess, it was Warren. I don’t know. The point is that their formulation, their strategy may be, “Who would they rather lose with?”

Now, I’m telling you, in 1984, they knew they were gonna get trounced by Reagan. They knew they were heading to a massive landslide. They didn’t want to nominate anybody in their party that had a future because they didn’t want to kill the future of whoever they thought in their party had one. So they put Mondale up there. He’d been a loyal VP for Jimmy Carter, he’d been a loyal Democrat warhorse, he’d been a great fundraiser, but he was never gonna win. But he always wanted to be president. So they arranged for Mondale to be the nominee.

Now, 1984 was my first Democrat convention. I’ve been to two of them, one at Madison Square Garden… I had a lot of fun with that one. They had purple Kool-Aid for ’em as they arrived at Madison Square Garden that year — and 1988. I remember going to all of the cocktail parties, and I was working for a radio station in Kansas City at the time. So I was spending most of the time with the Missouri delegation, and there was a huge Democrat power broker from Sikeston, Missouri, 30 miles south of my hometown, Cape Girardeau.

This guy was very friendly to me because he knew my family, and he didn’t yet know what kind of conservative ideologue I was. He knew I was a Republican but didn’t know much else. I mean, in 1984, I’m 33 years old, and I haven’t even started a show like this yet. So I’ll never forget. This guy said (impression), “Let me tell you, we’re close here, Rush. We’re close. You spot me 70 electoral votes, and we can win this election!” I said, “Spot you 70 electoral votes? So you really only need to win 200, is what you’re telling me, that you got 70 in the bag?”

“No, no, Rush. I’m saying, you spot me 70 and we can win this thing.” That told me everything. They knew they were gonna get trounced. Nobody talks like this. “You spot me 70 electoral votes and we could win this thing”? So, they knew they were gonna get trounced, and I’m asking myself, “Do they have this kind of thinking going on this year?” Because, folks, somewhere in the bowels of this party, there is somebody in this party that knows that Donald Trump is not the ogre that they have tried to make everybody believe he is.

There’s somebody in that Democrat Party… I don’t know who and I don’t know where, but there’s somebody in that party who knows that Trump is formidable and probably is gonna win big. So if you’re the Democrat Party and if you really think that you’re gonna lose because incumbent presidents rarely lose… George H. W. Bush is one of the rare incumbent presidents to actually ever lose, and Trump has peace and prosperity. He has a personality that no Democrat can match. He draws 125,000 people to a rally in India!

It’s just inescapable, and they know what Trump is doing with these rallies and his fundraising and the fact… They know how many Democrat are signing up to vote for Trump. So their question is, “Who do we want to lose with?” I think. I’ll put as a caveat that I could be dead wrong on this, and I know that there are some of them… Believe me, they’re so deranged that they think they could win and they think he can win with socialism and communism, win with Bernie. So the party is an absolute mess.

And when you listen to the standard-bearers like Carville and Rahm Emanuel — all the old, what you think of as the standard, day-to-day, normal Democrats — the way they talk, “This is end of the party.” Jim Clyburn, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucasians, thinks that if Bernie’s the nominee, they’re not only gonna lose the White House, they’re gonna lose the House. They’re gonna lose everything. So if they’re thinking this way, they have to be asking themselves how do they want to lose.

Do they want to lose, and do they want socialism and communism as identifiers of their party to lose, or do they want to try to win with it? ‘Cause that’s really the question they face, ’cause Bernie Sanders is a communist. He is a socialist. When you listen to what he says he’s going to do, I am telling you. In fact, this election, if he’s the nominee, this is something that I, in the past, have actually longed for! I have longed for the starkest choice possible for the American people, ’cause I want socialism and communism to be defeated as possibilities in this country.

And with Donald Trump as a Republican — and he’s not a conservative ideologue. But I’ll tell you what, what Trump has learned and the way he’s been treated, he’s becoming more instinctively conservative than anybody I know. Look at the judges that he’s appointing. Look at the people that he’s listening to. Ric Grenell is a great conservative, the guy running Director of National Intelligence for him.

So we’ve got the essence of conservatism, which has created the last three years of an economic boom. The American public has expressed satisfaction at record highs. The direction the country’s going: Record high. Trump’s approval numbers: Record high. So we’ve got that, and what are the Democrats gonna throw against it? Socialism and communism? I say, “Bring it on!” Let’s finally have this side-by-side choice, and let’s let the American people — once and for all — send socialism and communism to the ash heap in America.

Now, the Democrats know this. Do they want to lose with somebody who is their future? Who is in their future in this list of nominees? Buttigieg would be one who’s their future. I don’t know, Fauxcahontas maybe, but she’s not demoing she can — (interruption) What? (interruption) Well, no. But she’s done now. She’s done now. But age-wise she’s not finished. But Plugs is not the future. Crazy Bernie isn’t the future.

So why not, if you’re gonna lose, lose with one of them. There was a time they thought they could win with Biden when they were delusional about their belief that half the country or more hated Trump. Now, there are some in the party who think they can win with socialism and communism. And that’s why _ haven’t mentioned Bloomberg yet. Bloomberg is of the belief that Democrat Party is finished if Crazy Bernie’s the nominee. But we’re getting to a point where Bloomberg can’t stop it if he spent all $60 billion of his money because it’s about delegates, and he doesn’t have any, and Crazy Bernie’s gonna have insurmountable lead of them after Super Tuesday.

So I still think that the battle within the Democrat Party is gonna be between people who think socialism and communism can win. And in that group you’re gonna have people that think that that means free education, no student loans, free Starbucks, whatever else they want, free homes, and they’re gonna vote for Crazy Bernie.

But I think something isn’t gonna change. Turnout among the Millennial and younger demographics is gonna be low, as it always is despite the hopes and dreams of the Drive-By Media every election. They say the young are gonna put the Democrats over the top, and it never happens because the turnout never matches expectations. And it’s running true to form in their primaries. The young are not showing up here in these primaries. More people are showing up to vote for Trump in uncontested primaries than are showing up in these Democrat races.

Now, there was record turnout for Crazy Bernie in Nevada. But that’s because they saw what happened in New Hampshire and Iowa. But this looming contrast, there are some — in fact, there’s a piece today in American Greatness, actually it ran yesterday. It’s by Eric Lendrum, and his column is, the headline: “The showdown between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders increasingly seems likely. But the truth is it was always inevitable.”

What he means is that at some point in this country we’re gonna have a choice: socialism, communism, or freedom. And it may be that that choice is this year. The question becomes, or remains, what percentage of Democrat power brokers want socialism and communism to lose because they don’t want their party branded as such. Not that they want socialism and communism to lose because they are rejected on substance. Because that is the Democrat Party.

The problem they’ve got is that they can say all day long that Bernie’s an outlier and that Bernie’s gonna destroy the party, but Bernie is their party. Bernie is. His policies are indistinguishable. “Well, wait a minute, Rush. Crazy Bernie’s for Medicare for All.” Yep. So is Elizabeth Warren. You had two Democrats that want to take away private health insurance, 150 million Americans get their health insurance at work, and they like it. Both Bernie Sanders and Fauxcahontas want to take that away from you.

Medicare for All is not Medicare expanded. Medicare for All is a brand-new system that does not yet exist. It’s a branding art-of-deception technique. Medicare for All is nothing more than government-run single-payer health care. It’s not expanding Medicare as it exists to everybody, including those under 65. That’s how it’s been branded.

Mayor Pete? Mayor Pete and the things that Bernie wants to do — in fact, let get a quote. I got a tweet here from Mayor Pete where he kind of demonstrates, he unintentionally explains that there are no moderate Democrats. Let me read to you this tweet. Now, Mayor Pete is trying to pass himself off as a moderate, right? Well, I don’t think there’s anything moderate about Mayor Pete. I think he is just another extremist who speaks in moderate tones. He shares Bernie Sanders’ ideals.

Can I read to you the tweet? Pete Buttigieg: “We’re just a few votes from Senator Sanders — whom I respect and whose ideals we share, but who has a very different approach — getting an insurmountable lead.” We’re just a few votes from Senator Sanders getting an insurmountable lead. But he says he respects Senator Sanders and shares his ideals. I’m sorry, Mayor Pete, then that kind of cancels you out as a moderate if you share his ideals because Bernie’s not moderate.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right. Here we go. (interruption)

Mr. Snerdley said, “What happens to the Millennials if they invest fully in Crazy Bernie ’cause he gonna wipe out their student loans, make sure they never have to pay another thing at Starbucks or wherever, and then he loses. What are they gonna do? What’s gonna happen to the Millennials?”

What do you mean? What does anybody do after their candidate loses an election? (interruption) Nah. What do you think the Millennials gonna do? Go back to Grandma’s home or father and mother, mom’s home and get back in the pajamas and start tweeting anonymous insults at people? What are they gonna do? (interruption) Do you think they might not leave the Democrat Party?

You think if Crazy Bernie loses, that it might so shake the Millennials, they might end up disillusioned with the whole Democrat Party and all their promises, they’re never gonna happen, say screw it, we’re gonna do what, become Republicans? (interruption) Third party. (interruption) That is a question that we can deal with when and if it happens.

I’m not gonna change what I want to happen because what the Millennials might do when they lose. That’s the last thing. “Oh, we can’t have Trump win. That would mean the Millennials lose, and then what are we gonna do?” Screw that. Think I’m gonna be concerned with what the Millennials are gonna do? That’s not gonna change a thing about whether who I want to win changes. (interruption) Ah, no. The Democrats are not gonna be destroyed. No. The Republicans are never gonna be destroyed.

But if the Democrat Party loses this election, depending on how they lose it, they could be shell-shocked and rocked for a generation. The more important question, what happens to ’em if they lose a significant amount of the black vote to Trump, if they lose a significant amount of the Hispanic vote to Trump, that’s a bigger question for the Democrats than what happens if a bunch of spoiled, rotten Millennials don’t get their way. I mean, that’s how they’ve grown up. Nothing new about that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The Iowa Democrat Party is gonna recount caucus results from 23 precincts. Believe it or not… Now, this story ran three days ago, and I’ve not seen an update from it. They’re still trying to figure out who won Iowa three weeks after the Hawkeye Cauci on February 3rd, and this is because both Crazy Bernie and Mayor Pete have demanded recounts. In fact, Mayor Pete’s “campaign has questioned his third-place finish in Nevada’s caucuses and called for the state’s Democratic Party to release a more detailed breakdown of votes and address reports of more than 200 problems allocating votes in Saturday’s caucuses” in Nevada.

Have you ever seen this much in dispute? It seems like every Democrat primary, caucus, what have you, somebody is upset. Now, Crazy Bernie… Crazy Bernie is a Jewish guy. He’s an atheist, however. (sigh) So I guess you have to call him an atheist Jewish guy. Now, Crazy Bernie yesterday “announced that he’s not gonna attend the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference, AIPAC.” They hold it in early March every year, and Crazy Bernie says he’s not gonna go.

In addition to saying he wasn’t gonna go, he also “blasted” AIPAC for its “bigotry” against the Palestinians — the same Palestinians that want to wipe Israel off the map. Crazy Bernie tweeted, “I remain concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights. For that reason, I will not attend their conference.” Now, it shouldn’t be surprising to anybody, ’cause Crazy Bernie is an atheist. So he has no loyalties of any kind to Judaism or Israel. (Snort!)

He honeymooned happily in the Soviet Union in 1988 when they were still sending Jewish people to gulags. Crazy Bernie is supported by anti-Semites from Linda Sarsour to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the Squad. “AIPAC Hits Back at Sanders Over ‘Odious’ Criticism.” See, now, this is the kind of thing that’s gonna really trouble Democrats. AIPAC is a major, major, major donor concern — and here is the guy who appears to be the likely presidential nominee trashing them.

If you want to find out, by the way, why the people like Rahm Emanuel and Carville and these others are going after Crazy Bernie, follow some money. It’s not the only reason here, but Crazy Bernie could result in a whole bunch of donor rivers drying up, ’cause he’s out there insulting so much of the Democrat Party establishment. Here is James Clyburn of the Congressional Black Caucasians. He was on This Week with George Stephanopoulos yesterday. He was asked this question: “If Bernie Sanders is the nominee, do you think it could put the Democrat House majority in danger?”

CLYBURN: A lot of people think so. I do believe it will be an extra burden for us to have to carry. This is South Carolina, and South Carolinians are pretty leery about that title “socialist,” and so I think that that would be a real burden for us in these states or congressional districts that we have to do well in. And in those districts, it’s gonna be tough to hold on to these jobs, uh, if you have to, uh, make the case, uh, for accepting, uh, a self-proclaimed, uh, “democratic-socialist.”

RUSH: He’s not calling himself a “democratic socialist.” That’s what you guys are doing! He’s calling himself a socialist. He does not call himself a Democrat. Now, they might use the term “democratic socialism” to disguise what they want, to make it look like they’re talking Denmark or some such thing. But I’m gonna tell you, you can expect it, folks. Prepare to get blue in the face, ’cause I’m gonna be reminding everybody every day that there is no difference between democratic socialism and the Democrat Party.

They have been… What else is it? These people believe in growing the government and never stopping growing the government. These people believe you don’t have the sense to spend your own money the right way. These are the people that want to turn as many Americans into victims as they can. These are the people, this is the party that wants as many people to be angry at America, to have one grievance after another, to feel victimized by some aspect of America or capitalism.

The Democrat Party wants to be the party to go in and say, “We will protect you from these evil Republicans, conservatives, and capitalists.” I want somebody to tell me how it is that Carville and these other guys run around and say (impression), “This the worst thing ever happened to Democrat Party! The party… (sputtering) This party gon’ cease to exist! Crazy Bernie? No…” I don’t see the difference in the party and Bernie. I want one of you Democrats to tell me the difference. Democrat nominees in these debates, candidates in these debates…

Universal health care?

Every hand goes up.

Support for illegal immigrants to get away with breaking the law?

Every hand goes up.

There isn’t a moderate Democrat Party that’s gonna win anything.