You like him or hate him. One thing you have to agree on: he is one of the most influential voices in the history of radio. If you have to pick the all-time greats of radio, the people who mastered and/or transformed the medium, the list includes giants like Jack Benny, Orson Welles, FDR, Murrow/Cronkite, Larry King, Howard Stern … and Rush.
31 thoughts on “Rush Limbaugh has left the building”
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This is from A Moment with Bill Good. Bill Good is a long time journalist and talk show host in the Vancouver, British Columbia market.
“The most influential conservative media figure in the United States in decades, Rush Limbaugh died this week. His passing won’t change what the Globe (and Mail’s) Lawrence Martin called The Age of Wrath, but I couldn’t help thinking it wasn’t Limbaugh or Donald Trump who changed America, they both fed on the fear and anger that had been developing over a long time.
It was the American people, not all, but millions, who were drawn to the lies and distortions of Trump and Limbaugh, and many lesser lights who continue to thrive because so many want to believe that the elites, the mainstream media, the academics are to blame for the loss of the life that they once dreamed of. A life where an undereducated white male could leave high school, get a good job that paid well, own a home, drive a nice car…like it once was, 50 years or so ago.
Before people of color, women started to take jobs, before, before technology eliminated millions of ‘unskilled’ jobs, before climate change was taken seriously, Trump played on it. Before Trump became a force, Limbaugh beat the drum, but it wouldn’t have worked if so many millions of people didn’t want to believe it, to accept that the American dream is dead. Extremes on the right and the left have such effective platforms in this new misinformation age, and they, to a large extent, have drowned out moderate views. Trump is out and Limbaugh is gone, but sadly the extremes are still thriving.
That’s my opinion and I’m Bill Good.
There are things I don’t agree with here.
Depending on how you define ‘the elites’ they are responsible for a good deal of the problems in the world today: misinformation, global warming, income inequality.
The irony here, and this is not a new argument, is that Rush Limbaugh was one of the loudest voices in support of the genuine elites, the plutocrats. Whether it was for arguing against unions, against taxes on the plutocrats or against the reality of global warming, Rush Limbaugh was one of the loudest voices, if not the loudest voice.
I’m in the same class as Bill Good, a middle to upper middle class professional suburbanite, so I biases on many issues similar to Bill Good. However, I also recognize the failures of academics. For far too long, mainstream economists failed to recognize the importance of private sector unions or that jobs displaced through free trade or technology were not simply interchangeable with new jobs that were created by the displacement.
The ‘mainstream media’ also deserves a lot of criticism. They have played up the sensationalist voices and they lack the expertise to understand what they are writing about. Because of their lack of expertise, they tend to focus their favor on listening to people who are provided to them by the plutocrats: the lobbyists and their ‘think tanks.’ They are also unwilling to take blame, collectively and individually, whenever they do something wrong, whether it’s the mindless feeding frenzies they engage in, or supporting the second Iraq War.
It’s also not necessarily the case that broadcasters had to accept the lies and other misinformation of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. There are broadcasting rules from the FCC. Think of the nonsense over Janet Jackson. If that can be fined and censored, then it is incorrect to claim that free speech rights are absolute. I know we’ve had this discussion here before, but private radio stations can ‘censor’ what they like over and above FCC rules, and private broadcasters collectively could have taken a stronger stance in favor of the truth.
However, journalists clearly believed, for their own self interest, in having their ‘free speech’ rights be as broad as possible. The immediate example I think of this is when the vile Bob Novak outed Valerie Plame for being a CIA asset, the media collectively backed up Novak in refusing to name his ‘source’ as they decided (in their own self interest) there was no difference between a genuine whistleblower source and a source who intentionally used a journalist ( a totally willing vile journalist) to exact political revenge.
All I can say is that when I listened to Limbaugh’s show in the 90’s, I never heard him say anything I thought was racist. Before I’d be willing to condemn him based on quotes from his show (as I said 3 hours/days 5 days/week for 30 years) I would want to listen to the entire show that quote came for both context and tone. But I am sure even then some of what he said was indefensible. Sandra Fluke comes to mind. But at least in that instance he apologized, as well he should have. Rush Limbaugh was far from perfect. But I am sorry he has died.
I understand. I also find that ignorance allows me to think a great many things are good ideas when they are not.
And I understand too, in a for-whom-the-bell-tolls kind of way. But right now we are trying to survive the consequences of the sort of lies and hate that Limbaugh for 30+ years, and that his imitators continue to pump out, so it’s a bit much to expect people NOT to be glad he’s gone. You know, the people who don’t like lies and hate.
And of course Limbaugh was, to a large degree, a symptom and not a cause. He achieved wealth and fame because he filled a demand, and eliminating that demand is the problem we have got to solve. But he was scummy enough to fill it very well, and deserves no fond remembrance for that.
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In 2006, he falsely accused the actor Michael J. Fox of exaggerating the effects of his Parkinson’s disease to promote stem cell research. In 2007, he called Iraq War veterans speaking out against the conflict “phony soldiers.” In 2010, he alleged that the Deepwater Horizon disaster could have been perpetrated by eco-terrorists. In 2017, he accused Democrats of permitting white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, to spiral out of control for their own political purposes.
“This is what Democrats do,” he claimed, before launching into another conspiracy theory. “This is what Clinton [did], the Oklahoma City bombing, [which] launched the rebirth of his presidency. The Democrats see a crisis and find out how they can benefit from it, while making people think they’re trying to fix it or solve it.” Last February, shortly after receiving his presidential medal, Limbaugh dangerously claimed the “coronavirus is the common cold, folks”
Wait – the Oklahoma City bombing was the rebirth of Clinton’s presidency? Dang, I was alive then and I didn’t even notice. I did see how 9/11 gave Bush the Younger everything he ever dreamed of and more. Is one or both of those things just prejudice on my part?
I’ve read and listened to some eulogies of Rush from conservatives, read obituaries in the main stream media that were mostly negative and read comments here and elsewhere. As I wrote below, I hadn’t listened to Rush since long before Trump ran for president. As I understand it, he was a full throated Trump defender. Those are positions I cannot support. But I did listen to him quite a bit in the 90’s and the attacks on Rush I heard and read from the left then are basically the same I am hearing now. Limbaugh talked for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 30 years. He was very funny. It seems completely understandable to me that a man trying to be funny, talking that much for that long would have instances where he went too far. For at least some of those he later apologized.
Those tended to be the clips the various news shows chose to include in their stories. Jonah Goldberg, in his most recent column, compared Rush to Jon Stewart of the Daily Show. Both were social commentators trying to use humor to make their points but from different political ideologies. One of the eulogies I mentioned talked about how Rush, in his final months on the air, talked about dying with dignity. While I would not have wanted to hear any defenses of Trump in the last few months, I am sorry I didn’t hear him talk about death with both courage and humor. I don’t believe that most of the people attacking Trump actually listened to him much. They are reacting to what others say about him and to excepts of his show, sometimes taken out of context. I am sure sometimes they were taken in the right context but even then in no way reflected all of who Rush was. I can say that based on what I heard in the 90’s Rush was in no way a racist or white supremacist. But I think the reason he is so hated by the left is why he is so respected by the right. Rush created conservative/alternative media. Without Rush there would have been no Fox News. There would be no Daily Wire. No Breitbart. Well I would really prefer it of there was no Breitbart. But that is one of the costs of free speech, freedom of the press, and the marketplace of ideas. Rest In Peace Rush.
Limbaugh literally broadcast names of AIDS victims as a joke segment and said gays deserved their fate of death. There’s nothing to be taken out of context with him. His own words in various statements on his show have been vile, hateful bullshit that need no spin whatsover and stand on his own hate. Whatever anyone says about him in death hasn’t been as vile as the stuff he said in life.
“Limbaugh did in fact have a radio segment on his show in which he mocked people dying of AIDS.
LGBTQ+ Nation reported that author Ze’ev Chafets wrote about the segment in his book Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One.
A passage reads: “He chastised ‘militant homosexuals’ for their disrespectful behavior and shortly thereafter began broadcasting irreverent and tasteless ‘AIDS Update’ segments introduced by Dionne Warwick’s “I’ll Never Love This Way Again.”
The Los Angeles Times published an article in 1998 about what was described as the “popular” feature of Limbaugh’s show.
The publication stated that Limbaugh even said, “Gays deserved their fate.”
Additionally, per Snopes, Iowa newspaper Cedar Gazette reported in 1990 that the segment played songs such as “Back in the Saddle Again,” “Kiss Him Goodbye,” “I Know I’ll Never Love This Way Again” and “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.””
Limbaugh was a person who lied constantly and constantly opposed human progress and supported hate and the advancement of oligarchy. You want to see the people who loved Rush Limbaugh? The people whose minds he filled and guided? Go watch the Capitol riot footage. Go watch the Charlestown footage. Go watch Kyle Rittenhouse gun down a couple of people because his head was full of lies. Jeebus. If someone can’t recognize Limbaugh for what he was, how smart, how realistic, how just plain decent is that person?
Saying that Limbaugh was trying to be funny? That’s like saying Goebbels was trying to be funny telling Jew jokes, or Klansmen telling jokes about blacks were trying to be funny. My god, there are none so blind as those who will not see.
Limbaugh needs apologists, sure. My god, does he need apologists. But if they think they can spray BS about the man and everyone ought to just peacefully accept it, they can go to hell. Maybe I should tell lies about them all the time, funny lies. That would just be part of the “marketplace of ideas,” apparently.
Somebody quoted a line today that Bette Davis said in some movie or other. Roughly, it went: They say we should not speak badly of the dead, only good. Well, Rush Limbaugh is dead. Good.
As I recall, he gave full-throated resonance to the birther crap. Since there was never any reason of any kind to believe it, and he kept on it after it was totally and utterly refuted by an unassailable set of facts, I can reach only one conclusion: he was, indeed, a racist.
And the fact that he did Amos ‘n Andy voices
and “Take that bone out of your nose can call me back.”
and “I think it’s time to get rid of this whole National Basketball Association. Call it the TBA, the Thug Basketball Association, and stop calling them teams. Call ’em gangs.”
Limbaugh was unquestionably a flat-out racist of the first order. And the stomach-turning efforts to defend him demonstrate exactly how we ended up with Trump.
If there’s a Hell, he’s roasting there now.
Here’s some of that knee-slapping humor that Michael McChesney enjoyed so much:
*[To an African American female caller]: “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”
*On Obama: a ‘halfrican American’
*“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.”
Limbaugh has more in common with Goebbels than Larry King or Art Bell, but he was effective at brainwashing people over decades while he profited off of lies and destruction. Typical of the conservative agenda, he made $84 million in 2018 alone, profiting off of lying about how the problem is people getting $20 in food stamps instead of 9 figure elitists like himself who’ve done nothing with their lives except lie and harm others for their own personal gain and greed.
There’s some sort of irony the week he dies, conservative wanna-be nation state Texas ends up minutes within a full on failure of its own home grown anti-federal power grid. Meanwhile, their rich elected official Ted Cruz takes the first place out to Cancun to live large while his state suffers, and who’s state of emergency is signed without any tweets, rants, or threats about ‘red states’ needing help from a liberal President.
Somewhere in hell, if there is one, I’m sure Rush is enjoying the monster he helped create. Turn off your brain, turn on your radio, Fox News, or insane streaming propaganda network and let the host cash in on the idiocy of conservative American. Truly the American he dreamed of.
OK, from an outside perspective. I’m a UK and European resident Brit but I’ve spent a lot of time in the US over the years, and I’ve served as an embed in the US Army overseas on several occasions.. I’ve heard of Rush Limbaugh but I don’t know if I’ve ever heard his voice and I certainly wouldn’t recognise it. I suspect he is a purely US phenomenon.
This probably tells us something which is quite important, although I’m not sure what it is yet.
You may not realize it, but he influenced the whole world, just as in the bible Adam influenced everyone below him in the begetting. Rush begat an army of dittoheads, who in turn begat Trump, who in turn begat an emboldened army of similar-minded right wingers like BoJo and Bolsonaro. Conan Doyle once wrote about Moriarty, “He is the Napoleon of crime. He is the organiser of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city.” In Holmes’s view, if one found crime and searched for its ultimate origin, one would likely find Moriarty. Similarly, if one looks far enough behind any right-wing lunacy, Rush Limbaugh can probably be found at its origin. Rush was the plus-sized Moriarty. He was the Napoleon of nutbaggery.
I wonder if the demand Limbaugh filled is always there, but varies only in magnitude, or if it takes certain circumstances to create it?
There lies a real sack of crap. That Donald hung a medal on him says it all.
If you can’t say something good about someone, sit by me …
That you Alice?
dude wasx pervert who visited Dominican Republic , well known place for sexual tourism… specially for certain kind….
Conspiracy theorist, rabble rouser, blowhard, liar, drug addict. Connected with gun-obsessed trailer park trash years before Trump, paving the way for the insurrection after Trump became the Lord of the Flies. That’s why Trump gave him the highest honor in the country; he was grateful to Rush for banding together in solidarity millions of mindless, violent zombies more than willing to be led by a psychotic nut who conned his way into Presidency. Giving Rush credit for being “one of the most influential radio hosts” is like giving Hitler credit for inventing the swastika. Throw some dirt in the gigantic chasm he was buried in & be done with it.
He was influential.
In terms of good and evil, influential is not a weighted word. Hitler was influential. Gandhi was influential. Trump was influential. FDR was influential.
In some cases, it’s impossible to assign a value at all. St. Paul was influential. Mohammad was influential. Were those good things or bad? As my main man, Dalton, always said, “Opinions vary.”
Rush attracted and influenced more radio listeners than just about anyone in history. One wonders what he might have accomplished if he, like Dr. Frankenstein or Richard Nixon, had used his power for good instead of evil.
Well you could legitimately say he died doing what he loved even if you hated him
Yes, he died being hateful; his last Facebook post was a shot at Biden. I guess he had nothing else to do, or really believed he had spent his life doing something worthwhile. Lots of awful people have the ability to do that. I guess it goes with the territory.
Some people you can just skip the nil nisi bonum de mortuis bit for.
A wretched bastard who was a key element in the degeneration of the GOP.
Unfortunately, hate is what he loved.
It’s been quite a long time since I listened to Rush. I started listening to him while working in pizza places in the late 80’s/early 90’s. Talk radio was a nice way to engage the brain while making pizza. As I usually worked late, I also listened to Larry King’s radio show quite a bit as well. I really enjoyed Larry’s long form interviews with interesting guests. I remember Larry once announcing Tom Clancy as an upcoming guest. That had been my first clue Clancy had a new book coming out. I bought the latest Jack Ryan novel the next morning. Rush’s show was quite different as Rush rarely had guests. But he did have information important to conservatives and an incredible sense of humor. I remember he came out with a parody commercial for a Dan Rostenkowski memorial postage stamp in the wake of the Congressional Post Office scandal.
When I first started listening, I wondered if he really believed what he was saying or if he was adopting a persona to capture high ratings. Well from what I understand he was adopting a persona in terms of acting as a brash over the top personality. But one caller convinced me was sincere in his beliefs. A young man called to say he thought there was nothing wrong with shooting abortion doctors as it was done in an attempt to save lives. Rush responded with a cogent thoughtful well reasoned argument about how the man was wrong and how such violence undermined the pro life movement. I never again doubted his sincerity. But I stopped listening after the mid 90’s for 2 reasons. First, the Internet had opened up a world of conservative news sources and it was much faster to read such sources than to listen to a 3 hour broadcast. The second, is I stopped making pizza for a living. As I understand it, after initially using his platform to try to stop Trump from getting the GOP nomination, he became one of Trump’s biggest supporters. I have to believe at least part of that was to prevent lost ratings as the GOP base embraced Trump. Then again, after 30 years as a cultural warrior, he may have sincerely believed embracing Trump was necessary to avoid giving aid and comfort to the enemy (i.e. the left).
He is also a pioneer in the dumbing down and increased dishonesty in the public discourse. Having a large fan base should not necessarily be revered. Rush was undoubtedly one of the most influential persons of the past century, but not for the better. His rhetoric and appeal to the least educated of our society is what ultimately led to the scourge of the Sarah Palins and Donald Trumps.
Larry King predated Rush Limbaugh as a national radio talk show host by about a decade. However significant or not Limbaugh is in terms of creating a national political radio talk show, Larry King was the much more important innovator.
That said, as I posted when Larry King died, King did not create the national talk radio format, the Mutual Broadcasting System did that, but Larry King was the first to make it a success.
Limbaugh was also as much a success in timing, having been the first national right wing radio show host shortly after the repeal of the ‘fairness doctrine.’
Finally, I also add Art Bell and Alan Freed to the list of radio pioneers.
Agree that Art Bell and Larry King were masterful at what they did.
Agree on all three (King, Bell, Freed) as members of the all-time radio top twenty, but I don’t agree that King was more influential than Rush. Rush provided the arguments and satire that justified people’s positions and gave them confidence in their beliefs. Perhaps he even transformed the raw clay of the undecided and apolitical into the hardened soldiers of the conservative thought bubble.
I’m not saying that was a positive thing, but there’s no denying that it happened.