RUSH: My friends, one thing I’ve learned just by virtue of my own life: There are not just a few people that end up being qualified to post opinions on the internet. You know, in the old days, when it was ABC, CBS, NBC and the two newspapers — the Washington Post, New York Times — if you had a commentary job at any of those places… If you were an op-ed columnist New York Times, Washington Post. If you were a commentator like Eric Sevareid with bad teeth at CBS, or Howard K. Smith…

I don’t know about Howard K. Smith. They all had ’em. They all had their commentators. Those jobs were precious. ‘Cause there were only five or six of them. I’m talking about on air. The newspaper op-ed people are more numerous than that. But back in those days — and we’re going back now to the sixties, the modern era, sixties, seventies, and almost the entirety the eighties. Those jobs were special, and the people that did them were thought back then to be special.

There was a reason you should listen to Eric Sevareid as opposed to Fred Slobodnik writing a letter to the editor in the Oshkosh Gazette. There was a reason why you should pay no attention to some guy writing a letter to the editor but you ought to pay attention to Eric Sevareid. And that was part of the image creation. It was part of the way the networks created the aura of uniqueness, that only people who worked for them were capable and qualified to render opinions, learned opinions on politics, science, you name it.

Then something fascinating happened. In 1988 a guy came out of nowhere that nobody’d ever heard of and started a radio talk show. And he was the quintessential guy that writes letters to the editor of the Oshkosh Gazette. It was me. And I started a radio talk show, and it took the country by storm. And one of the reasons that I was such a threat to these people was the very fact of my existence.

I should not have been allowed to happen. You don’t get to be on national media telling people what you think and what they should think, particularly about presidential and political events, politics, without having paid some dues, without having gone to the right schools, without having gotten to know certain people.

It was a club. It was the early forerunner of the establishment, deep state, whatever you want to call it. And here I come, I come from a town in the Midwest. I did not graduate university or college. I had literally no resume that would in any way be acceptable by people who were doing what I was doing except they were doing it at the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC. It shouldn’t have been possible.

That’s why they resented me all these years. That’s why they resent Trump and the presidency. Should not have been possible. I should not have been possible. The point I’m trying to make to you is that if I can come out of nowhere and attempt to build a radio show based on my love of politics, my desire to discuss it with people of the country, and if that show can succeed beyond anybody’s wildest dreams, then it destroys the myth that only a select few can qualified to do it.

It destroys the myth that only Eric Sevareid is qualified to tell you what to think, that Walter Cronkite, he’s the only guyqualified to tell you what to think. Brinkley, Brokaw, you name it, it blew all of that out of the water. And this new guy, me, happened to be conservative. Oh, that was a double whammy.

The point is, when there are these new websites that nobody’s ever heard of, and they’re out there offering you their opinion on politics, don’t make the mistake of assuming that just because you never heard of ’em they’re a bunch of kooks. Don’t let the powers that be in Drive-By Media get you all caught up in being in this arrogant, exclusive group that thinks, “These people are not qualified. I’ve never heard of getyourgun.com. I never heard of that.” You never know. It could be some of the smartest people you never met. They’re also gonna be a bunch of frauds ’cause it’s wide open out there.

But the idea that the only people are qualified to engage in discussions like we have here, the only people qualified are people who have been approved by mainstream sources is not the case. And this is what largely constitutes the New Media. People that would have never, never been hired by ABC, CBS, NBC, Washington Post, New York Times, would have never been hired. They didn’t have the track record. They didn’t have the resume. They didn’t have the pedigree. They didn’t have the college transcript record.

This is how the mainstream media and every other business limits the number of people it permits in its clubhouse. And the resentment for me was I got in anyway, and I got in by forcing my way. But I didn’t even know what I was doing. I was just doing what I love. I finally got the permission to do a radio show the way I thought it should be done, and it worked. I wasn’t trying to conquer anything other than radio. I wanted to be the best radio guy there had ever been, provably in a number of ways — money, revenue for the business, ratings — that was my objective.

My objective was not to come in and take over opinion from ABC, CBS, NBC. That just ended up happening. So, yeah, there are reasons why these people have their noses out of joint. And Trump, by the way, fits that mold as well, the Rush mold, if you will, in their view. “Yeah, he’s a successful businessman, but he’s a contractor, for crying out loud. The guy, he’s a constructor. The guy’s, ew. No way, Trump, no, we can’t have Trump in our club. That can’t happen, Trump’s dirty, filthy, people he hangs around, filthy, richest people. No. No.” And that’s their attitude about it.