RUSH: All right. So look at that headline right there: “Republicans and Democrats Clash Over Police Reform.” You know what this is about? This is about an actual piece of legislation that is being argued and debated in the United States Senate.
And I did a double take because that’s not how laws are made in our country anymore. The Senate and House don’t actually do anything anymore ’cause they’re all afraid to. Our laws come from regulators, unelected bureaucrats and our judges, as has just been demonstrated by these Supreme Court decisions.
Josh Hawley from Missouri got it exactly right when he was complaining about Gorsuch and the decisions on the sexual discrimination cases being lapped into the 1964 Civil Rights Act. You know, to put this in perspective, to show you how we conservatives — look, folks, I don’t want to dispirit you here. I’ve already got a story here of polling data — well, a poll shows that half of Americans are unhappy. Let me find the actual headline. Yeah. “Americans Are the Unhappiest They’ve Been in 50 Years.” Not half of Americans. The unhappiest they’ve been in 50 years. Does that not make sense?
I don’t want to dispirit you here, but do we ever hear about liberal judges not advancing the liberal cause? We do not. They never make a mistake when they appoint a judge. Isn’t that amazing? They never get fooled. They appoint a judge, and that judge knows his job. That judge is to write the law as it should be under liberalism.
We don’t do that. We have these people that rate judges and recommend them to the president, and we pick the best conservatives we can find based on conservative principles and so forth. Then we roll the dice. The bottom line, conservative judges do not consider themselves at all like liberal judges do. You might say, “Well, that’s the way it ought to be. It ought to be that way. They ought to judge cases based on the law, not their agenda.”
Well, that’s why we keep losing, because we’re not on the playing field. We are engaged in a battle for the kind of country we’re going to have. Why do you think the American people are suggesting that they’re more unhappy than they’ve ever been? None of what’s happening now is normal. None of what’s happening now is anything people would design, including the lockdowns, the shutdowns, the pandemic, the ineffective way of dealing with it, the fake news, all of these public protests, all these malcontents.
Look at what we’ve done. Lyndon Johnson, Civil Rights Act 1964. What did we have? We had the Great Society. We had the War on Poverty. We’ve had over $4 trillion of wealth transferred from producers, taxpayers, to people who were discriminated against. They’re worse off today than they were before all this happened. This is one of Shelby Steele’s big points. After all of this supposed help — it’s one of my big points, too — after all of this help, after all this compassion, after all this assistance provided by the Democrat Party, we’ve got an angrier population of minorities than we have ever had.
And most people in this country do not think they’re racist. They think they’ve gone out of their way to avoid being racists. They’ve gone out of their way to be cooperating. They’ve gone out of their way to be sympathetic. It doesn’t compute. Most people are ask, “What the hell else can I do?” Now, if you get into the Millennial demographic, they’re not old enough to have had this perspective yet. And I have mentioned the past couple of days — and this is true — that the vast majority of violent protests, not all, but the vast majority of violent protests are being conducted by white Millennial kids.
And in that group, it’s a hell of a lot of women. Their minds and brains have been totally commandeered. You parents who have kids at college or recently were at college and have come home, you know exactly what I’m talking about. After two years there, they come home and they start telling you how you’re racist, you’re destroying the planet with climate change, you’re listening to complaints about your parenting and the way you’ve run the country that you don’t even recognize.
But your kids have been indoctrinated to believe that this country is white privileged, it’s white systemic — I get these two terms confused. White privilege, white supremacy. And the dangerous thing is, I’ve seen evidence. I’ve had parents call here that start agreeing with their kids. Their kids are coming home from college and persuading them that they’re right. So then when the kids go to Seattle and start burning things down, the parents are proud of ’em. Other people, what the hell is happening to our country?
If you think in the big picture of things, what is there to be happy about? Well, we’re alive. But that doesn’t count because everybody takes that for granted every day. Let’s see. The economy may be coming back. Well, yeah, but do you notice that there’s an effort to try to dispirit you on that? There is an effort — it is ongoing and never ending — to depress you, to dispirit you. I find so much of this totally explainable why people would be unhappy.
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RUSH: Look at this headline: “Manhattan DA [Refuses] Declines to Prosecute the Man Arrested who Committed Vandalism Against St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”
Do you realize how often this is happening all over the country? The vandals, the rioters, the looters, none of them are being prosecuted! Why do you think that is? Well, because at the root of it is Black Lives Matter, and everybody is scared to death of ’em, literally scared to death of ’em, and so it’s just the path of least resistance.
“Okay. We catch somebody looting? We catch a bunch of people looting, vandalizing? No prosecution.” There’s this firm out there that has raised $30 million to bail some of these perps out of jail. Do you know how much they’ve spent? As of yesterday, $200,000. So there’s $29,800,000 hasn’t been spent yet that has been raised on bail for Black Lives Matter and other type perps.
Where’s that money? Where’s that money go? I’ll guaran-damn-tee you that money’s going right to the Democrat Party. It’s going right to the presidential campaign. It’s going right to the Democrat National Committee. What do you mean, “Where’s it going?” The only place it can go! All of this talk about these police reports and how racist they are and how bigoted and how out of control they are.
Didn’t Obama and Eric Holder have the Department of Justice take over something like 36 of these police departments under consent decrees? They took over police departments from Oakland to Baltimore — I think they tried in St. Louis, Ferguson, dozens of cities in between — and you know why they did it? These consent decrees are well known.
It was the way Obama wanted to federalize local police forces. He and Holder had this as an objective, “federalizing” mean give the federal government control over as much as possible, including local policing. Thirty-six American police departments were taken over by the federal government. They were demanded. They were told that they had to do certain things, and if they couldn’t, that’s consent decree would apply, and they were given impossible conditions to meet.
So a number of these police departments — and I’m not kidding: Oakland, Baltimore — ended up under the control of the federal government. So how can there be any police racism or brutality after police departments have been under the enlightened control of the Obama-Holder administration? How does that happen? How is it that places that have been run by the Democrat Party for decades…?
How is it that there’s any racism anywhere in these cities, much less just the police department? The Democrat Party promises to end all of that, and they promise to punish all the people responsible for it — us, conservative Republicans — and yet we don’t have a presence in any of these cities where we have any ability to shape the law or regulations! This is all on the Democrat Party.
I’ll tell you, I think a lot of these statues coming down and all of this stuff going on is Democrats doing the best to get rid of their symbols of failure. The Democrats are doing everything they can to divert everybody’s attention away from what has been decades of failure — failed promises, failed implementations of policy. ‘Cause virtually everything they’ve been promising, particularly to minority communities, hasn’t come to pass.
The minority communities are angrier today than they’ve ever been, after $4 trillion transfer of wealth to the Great Society programs and the War on Poverty, all of those things that LBJ created. Listen to Shelby Steele. He will tell you that the black community, in terms of education, in terms of jobs, in terms of standard of living, they were all doing better — including in Harlem!
They were all doing better before the War on Poverty, before the Great Society. And he will tell you that the Great Society and the War on Poverty were not about actually improving the lives of African-Americans. They were all about improving the political prospects of politicians who supported the legislation. It was the greatest example of “I care” you’ve ever seen.
It had gazillion-dollar price tags to it. It had all kinds of blame. It had all kinds of promises. But as we know now, we can watch the country burn in various blue cities after various blue cities and various blue states, and we can see by the evidence in our eyes that there hasn’t been anything that the Democrat Party has engaged in that has made one person in the minority community they claim to serve happy.
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RUSH: I’m still zeroed in on this story: “Americans Are Unhappiest They’ve Been in 50 years, Poll Shows.” By the way, this poll was taken by something called NORC. This is not defined in this stupid story, so I don’t know what it is. It’s NORC at the University of Chicago. I’ve never heard of it.
The senior research scientist with NORC at the University of Chicago is Louise Hawkley, and she says (summarized), “Well, loneliness, surprisingly, was not more prevalent among people who claim they’re unhappier than ever. Loneliness is not as high as it could be. People have figured out a way connect with others.
“It’s just not satisfactory, but people are managing, to some extent.” Most of it, I guess, is based on people’s fear for their kids’ economic future, which makes total sense. I mean (chuckles), although that’s a common parental concern in good times as well.
So apparently there’s a new China outbreak in Beijing. It’s caused them to halt flights, to shut schools. Residents, just as they were in Wuhan, are now being rounded up and sent to who knows where. So depending on the fake news you look at, you can find any reason in the world to be unhappy, is the point.
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RUSH: Carolyn in Virginia Beach. You’re up first today. Great to have you on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you for listening to me, and mega prayers and dittos. I was just going to say that I think that the unhappiness is just another sign that Trump is gonna win again.
RUSH: Okay. Tell me why.
CALLER: So, because the same thing like it was back in 2016 where we were forced not to speak the truth. The same thing is happening all over again. You’re not allowed to raise your voice or show your flag, because the cancel culture will come down on you hard. You see all these companies out there really honestly making fools of themselves with all this stuff.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading and listening, and I feel like there’s gonna be many more black Americans voting for Trump than the left wants to admit, and so they’re just trying to continue to scare us. It’s really hard to find anything positive to listen to on the media or to read these days, but when you do find something…
Like I found something last night where this woman who sounds like she was a pretty flaming liberal went to a Trump rally and actually enjoyed herself and says she’s gonna vote for Trump. So I just think that they’re being scared, and we just have to stand up for the truth and for our country. And one more thing. Tim Scott today did an amazing job with this whole police reform, which they also don’t want Trump to get through. You want to talk about somebody for 2024? Tim Scott is in there, too, because —
RUSH: Could you explain something to me, Carolyn?
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: Don’t get mad at me, folks. What is in this reform bill that Tim Scott and these other guys are planning?
CALLER: What is it?
RUSH: Yeah. You like it. What’s in it?
CALLER: I don’t know that I necessarily like it, but I feel like some of the stuff that especially if they can tame down the unions. I mean, unfortunately I know that the unions help good cops sometimes, but it might be that they’re helping bad cops more than they’re helping good cops, and so they were talking something about dealing with the unions a little bit.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I’m not sure about the whole chokehold thing. My nephew is a police officer, and I know that it’s really hard to take people down sometimes, but the things that we’ve been shown —
RUSH: I’ll bet you have a mean chokehold. You sound like somebody that would have a mean chokehold. You sound like a no nonsense choke holder.
CALLER: Well, they’re not gonna get me down.
RUSH: (laughing) Yes. All right. Well, I appreciate the call. I understand the sentiment with this poll out there with so much American unhappiness it pretty much translates into a Donald Trump reelection. Now, keep in mind — and I don’t have to tell you this, that the media — and it’s not media. The Democrats in the media, whatever the hell they are, they are attempting to — the reason for this poll: More Americans today are unhappy because of Trump.
Because of what Trump’s done. Because of the mockery Trump has made of the White House and the presidency. And Trump’s the reason people are unhappy. Trump’s the reason they’re burning down cities. Trump is the reason that white cops think they can go out and kill black people. They’re trying to throw all of this off on Trump, either directly or indirectly. But regardless how they’re trying it they want that to be the conclusion.
Folks, I’m telling you. I’ll tell you one more time. What they’re really trying to do is convince all of you Trump voters that none of this would be happening if you hadn’t elected Trump in the first place, that you ultimately are responsible for this. These people will tell, you know, we’ll go back to being sane, we’ll go back to being cooperative and nice and all that when you get rid of that guy. You have ruined this country by electing that guy, and he’s the reason we’ve gone insane, he’s the reason we’re crazy. You elected him. You get rid of him, and I guarantee you the country will get back to normal and none of this will continue.
That’s what they want you to believe, however they go about convincing you of it. They want you to believe all this is your fault, it’s your responsibility, you elected the guy, and you stand by him, that everything they’re doing is justified because he’s so dangerous, he’s so unqualified, he’s so stupid. Their insanity is justified because of Donald Trump, and you made it happen. I’m just trying to warn you of the pressure that you are going to be under in the coming months.
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RUSH: Here’s Diane in Allentown, Pennsylvania. You’re next. Hello.
CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush. Thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: We offer prayers every day for you, sir.
RUSH: Thank you. Thank you.
CALLER: Okay. So what I’ve been thinking about is while we have citizens of the country imposing and infringing and impinging on the rights of other citizens with these Marxist takeovers and marches and all the anarchy, what our government is focusing on is reforming the police. Once again, we’re bending over to make the left happy while practically ignoring what they’re doing. I’d like to know what you think about that.
RUSH: I think that is right on the money.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: I started the program talking about the Senate doing legislation on police reform and how unusual it is to actually see the Senate or the House actually working on a bill. ‘Cause legislation doesn’t come from the Congress anymore. It comes from judges or from unelected regulators up on various cabinet levels.
But I think you’re exactly right. But this is what happens. This is exactly what Republicans do. So let’s back to 2009. Barack Hussein O is the president, and we’ve known since the campaign of 2008 that he was going to try to nationalize American health care. It was gonna be called Obamacare.
And we are expecting our party to push back on this! There is no way the Republican Party is for socialized medicine. There is no way the Republican Party is for single-payer — and a bunch of Republicans ran for office in 2008 on that promise, to oppose it. So Obama brings it up, and what’s the Republican response?
“Okay. But we think we can do it better. We think we can do it smarter.” They were afraid to oppose Obama because what? Race. They were scared to death to oppose Obama, to criticize Obama, to disagree with Obama on anything. And so that’s when the Tea Party erupted. A bunch of people who had never formally been involved with politics came out of the woodwork, organically. They were upset it all the spending. They were upset at the legislation itself.
The Republican Party and Democrat Party were blindsided by it. There was no singular leader to attack to destroy it. And they were opposed to. They were scared to death of the Tea Party so they immediately created Occupy Wall Street as a supposed organic Democrat uprising. But the bottom line is that the Republican reaction was not to push back but rather to say, “We think we can do it smarter.” It was a pure pander.
Now we have police reform. Don’t forget there are two elements of this, and one of them is an executive order by the president. And then we have this legislation that Tim Scott and others are running in the Senate that contain Opportunity Zones and some other things. But you’re right, it’s the same thing. So a bunch of cops — well, let me rephrase that. A few cops do some really stupid, disgusting things and protests and discord erupt all over.
And what do we do? We act like it’s our fault. We act like they’re right, it’s our fault, we’ve gotta prove to them that we’re not like those cops. We gotta prove to them that we’re not racists. So we’re gonna come up with a police reform bill. Pelosi and Schumer sit there and smile. They don’t have to do diddly-squat. In fact, they can oppose it all day long and say it doesn’t go far enough. Pelosi can sit there and say I’m gonna kill this bill by throwing a bunch of spending in it that you can’t possibly support.
You think they’re gonna let the Republicans get away with winning this? You think they’re gonna let the Republicans succeed in carrying the mantle of police reformists into the presidential election? There’s no way. But you’re right, it’s not pushback. It’s the exact opposite. Some people call it pandering. Other people would call it the path of least resistance or what have you.
Regardless, what it does is accept the status quo and accept that we might be somewhat responsible for it. We might be, we’ll fix it. ‘Cause it’s just so much easier to tell these people to go to hell and to straighten up and fly right and stop the BS. Nobody’s inclined to do that. Nobody is inclined to say that. I don’t know of a single elected official who will say that to any of the vandals, any of the looters, any of the people that are destroying and rioting and commandeering private property.
We’ve got prosecutors that are vacating charges against people who have been caught after looting Macy’s, after having been caught burning down buildings and stores, prosecutors are racing in Los Angeles, California, New York, they are racing to absolve these perps and to announce they won’t be charged. I mean, it couldn’t be being handled in a worse way than what we are witnessing.