RUSH: Here’s Kathy, Munroe Falls, Ohio. Welcome. I’m glad you waited. Really glad you waited. Hi.
CALLER: Well, thank you, Rush. Just an honor to talk with you. But I gotta tell you, I had to call to hopefully get you to pull me off the ceiling. Here in Ohio, especially in our little area, people are going crazy with grocery shopping, going to gas stations —
RUSH: I know. Kathy, where is Munroe Falls? What big area, city —
CALLER: It’s about 35 miles south of Cleveland.
RUSH: Okay. I got a photo yesterday after I got home, somebody went to the local — was it Publix? And took a picture of the toilet paper aisle.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: There isn’t any.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: No toilet paper.
CALLER: Yes. Totally wiped out. And then gas, now today my son went to the bank and was getting some money out, and they told him he would be the last large withdrawal because they were gonna run out of money. And he went to the gas station, and people have three and four gas cans in the back of their car filling up gas cans.
RUSH: I know. And they’re talking people into this. This is what I mean about all this being irresponsible. Can you tell me something? The coronavirus is the coronavirus. What the hell does toilet have to do with it?
CALLER: That’s exactly right.
RUSH: I mean, it does not cause diarrhea. Does it?
CALLER: That’s not —
RUSH: Does not cause diarrhea. So why are people scarfing up toilet paper?
CALLER: I don’t know. And I have to say, I did go to the grocery store this morning and, you know, bought a lot more groceries than I normally do. But it was like, oh, my Goodness. What are we coming to.
RUSH: I understand that, if everybody around you is, then you can’t take the chance that if you’re reasonable the next time you go to the store they’re gonna have what you need if everybody’s buying up everything. Like the governor of Florida is right now in Tallahassee doing a press conference, he’s surrounded by boxes of stuff, by cases of bottled water, it looks like some tampons there on the left.
I don’t know what all it is, but apparently there’s a run on everything everywhere now. And, see, the thing, the media is eating this up. My point is just like you don’t want any of this. You don’t want to be told by the bank that this is the last withdrawal. You don’t want to have to put four cans of gasoline in the trunk of your car.
CALLER: No. Absolutely don’t.
RUSH: People do not want these circumstances. They don’t want a market plunging. By the way, let me just check. You know, you can always tell the market’s up because no network shows it. So let me check it real quick. If the market’s plunging, you can’t miss it. It’s all over TV.
Let’s see. Aw, looky here. Market up 779 at almost 22,000, 21,979. So no wonder it’s not on TV. It’s up 700 points. That’s the Dow Jones Industrial. NASDAQ up 219. Apple’s up 10 to 259. So that’s good. The market’s up. I wonder why the market — who’s been talking up the market lately? Who’s been talking about the fact that people don’t like this? Anyway, Kathy, what are you doing to deal? I know you said you need to be talked off the ledge.
CALLER: Well, I don’t want to get caught up in it, I guess, is the situation. So the first thing I did when I got to the car after getting gas this afternoon was turn on your station just so I could, you know, hear somebody with reason, I guess. And that I appreciate so much from you and your program. You know, people just need to pay attention and not panic, I guess, you know, but I —
RUSH: It’s hard, I know. It’s easy for me to say, for example, if they’re gonna have a recession, don’t participate. It’s easier said than done. But I think in this case you need to realize that you’re not the only one out there that thinks all this is cockamamie. And as long as you realize that, if you thought you were the only one sane in a world gone crazy, then that would be disquieting. But you’re not alone. And you’re not the one going crazy. And it’s gonna end.
This too, what is it the Bible says? “This too shall pass.” It is going to end. But I’m gonna tell you, folks, there’s some people that don’t want it to end, and they don’t want it to end soon, and they’re even saying so. You have to know how to listen. For example, you just heard Governor Cuomo. “The coronavirus will not be over any time soon. They’re gonna be experiencing the reporting of new cases each and every day.”
What message does that send? People are looking forward to it. I don’t mean to be accusing Governor Cuomo, but I’m just telling you, there are people that are reveling in this. And some of them not for political reasons. Journalists just love to be in the middle of this ’cause they think it’s massive ratings, massive people tuning in, and that’s one of the reasons they do it. I appreciate the call, Kathy.
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RUSH: I got fired one time for playing this song too frequently for the program director at the radio station I worked, Under My Thumb, the Rolling Stones. Great to have you. El Rushbo back at it.
Folks, you know there’s gonna be a regular flu season that hits after this coronavirus. Flu season, some of them hit in the spring. Some hit in the fall. But I want you to stop and think of the precedent here. I think there’s a lot of virtue signaling going on. So the NBA announces that, “We are going to postpone our season.” The NHL says, “Well, we can’t be outdone. We’re gonna cancel our season.”
Then the PGA Tour said, “Well, hell’s bells, we gotta get in on this. We’re gonna cancel the Masters and we’re gonna cancel the tour championship.” And Major League Baseball says, “Oh, we can’t be left out.” Then the NFL says, “Us too, you know what? We’re gonna move free agency, we’re maybe gonna cancel the draft. We’re good people too.”
And this stuff feeds on itself. You got all these people doing this not because of the substance of it but because they can’t be shown to be less sensitive. But now we’ve got all these cancellations. You know what’s gonna happen when a normal flu or cold season hits. “Well, when we had the coronavirus, we stopped Major League Baseball. Are we just gonna keep going because we gotta shut –”
Once you shut things down, once you make a move, once you set a precedent, then how do you ignore the next so-called crisis? Well, there won’t be any crisis when there’s a Democrat in the White House or a Democrat running, there will not be a crisis, a health crisis. Not possible when the Democrats are in power. That’s the way it’ll work.
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RUSH: Susan in San Clemente, California. Hi. Great to have you here with us.
CALLER: Hi, Rush! Mega prayers coming your way, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you very much. You know, I gotta be very careful about this because things can change. But I actually, Susan, believe that they are working.
CALLER: Oh, that’s awesome.
RUSH: I’ll just tell you one thing. I’ll just tell you one thing. You know, I vowed, I promised that I’m not gonna belabor this. I’m not gonna live this in front of everybody. Cancer can take over your life, and I’m striving for that not to happen. Plus, I don’t want to bleed on you all every day. But I will tell you this. It’s the one thing. I have stopped the rapid weight loss. It has stopped. I’ve stopped losing weight.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Now, that’s a big thing. That’s a positive thing. Now, that could end next week; you never know. But I take positives wherever I can get them.
CALLER: Well, and I don’t blame you — and trust me, you don’t bleed on us, because without you and your voice of reason, what’s going on right now? I’d probably be jumping off a cliff right now without you.
RUSH: Well, thank you very much. I know the feeling. I feel the same way about you all being out there. If I didn’t have this to come to every day, I’d be going nuts like the rest of you are.
CALLER: Well, I’ve been listening to you since 1992.
RUSH: That’s almost —
CALLER: So life without Rush every day is crazy. (chuckling)
RUSH: You’re almost a lifer. I really appreciate it.
CALLER: You’re welcome. You’re welcome, and good luck on your treatment next week. My point I wanted to bring up is the entire panic and the insanity going on right now —
RUSH: Mmm-hmm?
CALLER: — reminds me of the media-driven hysteria over Y2K.
RUSH: Yeah. You know, that is an interesting comparison. The bottom was gonna fall out from Y2K! Airplanes were gonna fall out of the sky.
CALLER: Oh, bunkers were being built!
RUSH: Satellites were gonna fall on our heads.
CALLER: (chuckles) Exactly. And, you know, I mean, people were building bunkers and it ended up costing the United States $100 billion, and this just is very reminiscent to what’s going on right now.
RUSH: Yeah, and it turned out to be nothing.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: But it was filled with all kinds of lead-up panic. This is what media has become. It’s understandable in a sense. Media is competitive. It’s just irresponsible. I don’t know how you put a lid back on it. I mean, the antidote for this is a more informed and educated population, and the media then is in the middle of that, too, standing in the way of that. But I appreciate it, Susan. Thank you very much.
Sean in Ogden, Utah. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello. Mega 24/7 dittos and prayers, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: So, you know, I’m no highly trained or skilled broadcast engineer or broadcaster, and I’m not gonna tell you how to do your show. But it might be time to repurpose the America Held Hostage.
RUSH: Why? I mean, that was created to deal with the election of Slick Willie.
CALLER: Well, this —
RUSH: Did I say, “erection of Slick Willie”? Election! The election of Bill Clinton.
CALLER: This just feels like with the coronavirus that we are being held hostage.
RUSH: Oh. Oh. By the media. Yeah. (sigh) I understand. Look, it’s frustrating. It is. I know how frustrating it is. In fact, folks, I got to tell you something. Again, I’m not complaining. Every day is kind of like this to me. I mean, this is the extreme of it. But what do we do here every day? Every day we go against the grain. Every day we dispute the conventional wisdom and what everybody else is conforming to or with in the media.
Of course, it is “Trump bad, Republicans suck, Republicans don’t care, Republicans mean.” We push back against it every day, and what is the evidence that it works every day? Well, Trump wins elections, Republicans win elections and so forth. But we don’t see any evidence that pushing back against this is working.
We don’t have any evidence yet that reason is triumphing here, and nobody wants to be part of a panic. Nobody. That’s, to me, really the bottom line to all this: Nobody wants any of this to be happening, and yet look at all the people reveling in it. The health professionals are reveling in it. They’re loving the media time they get. They love going on TV, some of them, and ripping into Trump and Pence, saying they don’t know what they’re doing.
Others love just the face time on media.
People are people. And most people love being on TV. And the more they’re on TV, the bigger star they think they are. And if they’re on TV because they say certain things then they gotta keep saying certain things for TV to keep wanting them back. So if TV wants you to come on and explain to people how they’re gonna die next week or how they might die next month or how they’re gonna be lucky if they don’t die this year, then you better keep telling people that or TV is not gonna want you back.
If you ever go on TV and say, “Look, you guys are overblowing this. This is not as bad as –” TV’s not gonna ask you back. So you tailor what you’re saying to being asked back, and everybody wants to be on TV. And all it takes is being on TV two or three times and you think you’re a star. You’re on TV two or three times and you think everybody recognizes you.
In fact, if you know how to watch people who are on TV, it’s actually kind of funny. Because people on TV a lot are some of the most self-conscious people you’ve ever seen. And when you see them in public, they’re just waiting to be recognized. I mean, they’ll go to baggage claim and stand there with no bags by the carousel. Or they will act like they get mad that you recognize them, like you’re invading their privacy, when they’re putting themselves in places to be recognized.
It’s almost a — well, not a mental illness, but it does things to people. Especially when they think they’re becoming famous. And if the fame is because of either being on TV or saying certain things, those people are gonna keep doing that which made them famous. That’s how this stuff feeds off of itself. But the next you’re at an airport when they open ’em back up and you see somebody that you recognize on TV, instead of going up and talking to ’em, just lay back and watch ’em. And you’ll spot it immediately, they’re standing there turning circles, making sure everybody sees them, everybody notices them, desperately hoping somebody comes up and asks for an autograph or acknowledges them or whatever.
And then when that happens, one of two things will happen. They’ll either act irritated because that’s what they think stars do or they’ll be genuinely happy that they’ve been recognized and hope that you ask ’em for an autograph. It’s a fun case study. Try it next time you’re somewhere where somebody thinks they’re famous is in public waiting to be recognized.