Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Rush Limbaugh: What This Election Is Really About and What's Really at Stake - The Rush Limbaugh Show

MUST HEAR!!! Rush Blows the Lights Out in the Final Hour! What This Election Is Really About and What's Really at Stake - The Rush Limbaugh Show

I can't stand Rush Limbaugh, but this explanation of what the election is about for people like him is amazingly candid.  It explains the massive disconnect between the right wing base and the Republican Party and the rise of Trump. It explains why no candidate supported by the Republican "establishment," not even the far-right poster boy Marco Rubio, can get any traction in the primaries. It explains what all these "angry voters" are really angry about.

It comes down to this. The right-wing base is comprised of angry, frightened white people who are desperately resisting the gradual but inevitable transformation of the US from a white majority country to a multi-ethnic nation.There are many other issues in this election, but ultimately, Limbaugh is really saying, this is the only issue that really matters. This is the last chance, Limbaugh says.  He lays it all out: the Democrats and Republicans are collaborating to make the US a majority non-white nation full of layabout immigrants and others in the Democratic coalition (Limbaugh's racism has never been even slightly concealed) who will vote for socialism.

Limbaugh played twice this clip from Marco Rubio, and then he explained what it means to people like him. I put the key language in bold type.

RUBIO: As far as the 12 million here that are, look, I don't believe the American people support some sort of militaristic roundup of individuals, and I don't think you could carry it out, the sort of tactics that would require would offend the American people. And the good news is we don't have to do it that way. If you secure our border, if you secure our border, if you put in place mandatory E-Verify, if you put in place a mandatory entry-exit tracking system, if we prove to the American people that illegal immigration is finally under control, I think the American people will respond in a very rational, reasonable, but responsible way.

For Limbaugh, and for millions of other people, this is easy to interpret--it means that the GOP establishment (and remember that Rubio is now their choice) is complicit with the Democratic party in an effort to (1) not really close the border, and (2) give citizenship, including voting rights, to 12 million or more undocumented immigrants who are already here. Why? Democrats, he says, want voters who are dependent on government programs, which will guarantee their rule forever. The Republican establishment mistakenly believes that outreach to non-white voters is the only way forward for their party. They believe that Latino and Asian voters have enough cultural conservatism to find their party attractive.  Limbaugh says the party is clueless.  In truth, Limbaugh says, this is the road to ruin for the party.  If immigration isn't stopped and 12 million people deported, America as a white majority nation with a capitalist economy is doomed.  Here's the way Limbaugh said it:

"It's about preserving a distinct American culture which is under assault, which is under siege.  And it's being brought to us by the Democrat Party, which is trying to register all kinds of new voters all the time 'cause they need a permanent underclass of people incapable of taking care of themselves, incapable of providing for themselves who will always be counted on to vote Democrat to be taken care of... If you believe in a certain cultural America, it's under siege.  There's nothing to join with on the other side in preserving it.  They want to tear it down, transform it, and rebuild it.  They have to be defeated.  This is why the Republican Party's worthless.  They don't even think this way. The Republican Party's thinking about showing they can work together, they can cooperate, make Washington work.  Sorry; we're so past that, we're so far past that, it's irrelevant.  We're talking about holding on and preserving the country as founded."

He goes on to say that winning the election isn't enough, because "these people have to be defeated.  They have to be overwhelmed." There is no compromise, no middle ground, no "bringing the country together," because "We're too divided."

Understand that this is not just Limbaugh. Listen to Mark Levin, or Laura Ingram, or Ann Coulter, or Michael Savage. They all have millions of people listening to them.  They all say that immigration is the single most important issue facing (white) America. Eric Cantor, the second most powerful Republican in the House, lost his seat to a Tea Party nutburger over one issue: the slightest, most tentative indication that he might, maybe, be willing to go along with some timid immigration reform.  His district tossed him out over that one issue.  This xenophobia and racism is exactly what Trump has tapped into.  This is why so many different groups within the right wing base--evangelicals, cultural conservatives, ideological conservatives, neoconservatives, you name it--don't care about their differences with Trump on any of their issues. They don't care about his ignorance, lack of political experience, or any other mistake or gaffe or flaw. As Trump says, they wouldn't care if he murdered somebody. Because they know one thing: Donald Trump is a "strong leader" and the most outspoken, aggressive, angry, anti-immigrant candidate they have ever heard, and that is enough for them. This is the racist, xenophobic American right rising up against the changing demographics of the USA, and Trump has fired them up like nothing this country has seen since the 1920s, when the KKK had as many as six million members. They believe that if he gets to the White House, he will somehow preserve White America, even if he has to trample all over the Constitution, the laws, the media, and anybody or anything else.

This is the tiger that Trump is riding. I don't know if he has thought about how and when he gets off, which is always the challenging part. Talk show hosts and candidates just have to talk, but elected officials have to act. The congressional GOP is already the most dysfunctional major party in the developed world. Add to that a president with no experience and narcissistic personality disorder leading a rabble of tens of millions of scared and angry white people, and 2017 could be an interesting year.

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