I have been following, with a curious compulsion, the comings and goings of anti-Trump conservatives, who frequently hold forth at newly formed sites like The Bulwark and The Dispatch. The recent announcement of Rush Limbaugh that he was suffering from lung cancer brought forth an affectionate reminiscence from James Swift, one of the leaders of The Bulwark, “El Rushbo and Me”, which contains the following:
I owe Limbaugh a debt, and I’m not sure I can ever repay it. Instead, I’d like to chat about his influence on me for a bit. Longtime readers know a little bit about my career trajectory. But I’ve never written much about Limbaugh, who played a role for me—and hundreds of thousands of other conservatives—over the years.
Earlier, another Bulwark contributor, Robert Tracinski, wrote a piece describing his early affection for El Rushbo (now discarded), saying that “Most of us listened to Rush at some point or another, because he sometimes had a genuine capacity to address big issues in a thoughtful and interesting way.”
Meanwhile, at the two-headed National Review, pro-Trumpy Matthew Continetti has marked President Trump’s award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush with the piece “The Era of Limbaugh”, in which he claims that Limbaugh is one of the five greatest conservatives of our time, joining with the company of William F. Buckley Jr., Ronald Reagan, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas.
Fortunately, there are still a few “real conservatives” (I hope that’s an appropriate term) reading NR, and one of them, “NCBorn”, provided a list of the Mighty Rushbo’s greatest hits:
Limbaugh (early in his radio career) to a black caller: “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”
After becoming a national radio figure:
“The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”
“Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”
“Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”
“Obama’s entire economic program is reparations.”
In 2014, concerning the Obama administration response to ebola: "People at the highest levels of our government say 'Why, why shouldn't we get it? Why should only those three nations in Africa get it? We're no better than they are.' And they have this attitude, 'Well, if they have it in Africa, by God, we deserve to get it, because they're in Africa because of us and because of slavery.'"
Limbaugh shared the song "Barack the Magic Negro" with America; described Obama as the affirmative action President; and promoted the birther nonsense.
But lest you think, Rush only trafficked in racial themes—
Re: College student Sandra Fluke who advocated for contraceptive coverage in college health plans, Limbaugh equated that to asking to be paid for sex and concluded "It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute."1
"When a gay person turns his back on you, it is anything but an insult; it's an invitation."
Re: Michael J. Fox's (who has Parkinson's Disease) appearance in a health care ad: "He's either off his medication or acting. He is an actor after all."
It goes on and on, decades of racism, sexism, homophobic jokes and dishonesty. This is the man who just received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and is embraced by Continetti as a great conservative.
I have been complaining, for a loooooong time, about just how corrupt the Republican Party has been, how anti-Trump conservatives like Max Boot, Charles Sykes, Rick Wilson, William Kristol and a host of others tolerated and indeed effectively embraced Rush and his decades of racism, sexism, homophobic jokes and dishonesty. Neocons like the late Charles Krauthammer loved to sneer that the Clinton administration constituted a “holiday from history”, but in fact it was conservatives who took a holiday, a holiday from responsibility. The collapse of communism seemed to deprive them of all sense of purpose. You don’t have to be “good” any more! Everything is permitted, if it will only help defeat those damn hippies!
Extra Special Afterwords, for English Majors Only
Prior to the 1960s, there was a special, shocking niche in the history of English Literature, the “Restoration Comedies”. The Restoration occurred in 1660, when Charles II, whose father, Charles I, had been beheaded by Oliver Cromwell and his band of Puritan Revolutionaries, took the throne after the death of Cromwell, the erstwhile “Lord Protector” and the only non-royal head of state England has ever known (prime ministers are heads of government). Charley II, well, he loved the ladies, and the whole manner of his reign was aristocratic relaxation, leading to a genre of theater in which, to the utter horror of succeeding generations, it was widely averred that young women actually wanted to have sex, a notion that even today many people find upsetting. One can say of today’s conservatives that sexual debauchery is the one sin they haven’t committed. They leave all that to Donald Trump.
1. In a further display of misogynistic ignorance, Limbaugh grossly and grotesquely indicated his belief that birth control pills are aphrodisiacs, picturing those dirty liberal sluts as gulping down handfuls before heading out for a night on the town. (I can’t “prove” this because his site has taken down the story that contained his original comments. I wrote about the “The Fluke of Fluke” back in 2012 but didn’t quote Limbaugh’s specific language.)
