How did this nation ever get to the point where a man once considered nothing more than a tacky, loud, nouveau-riche liberal NYC real estate mogul/celebrity, with an orange complexion and a crazy pompadour/combover, would be transmogrified into the ultimate scapegoat for the failings, crimes, and corruption that have plagued our government and society since at least the end of the Second World War; the locus and symbol of the most unbridled hatred by the very same global elite that, in point of fact, are guilty of those sins and that he once perhaps was a part of? If I had to venture a guess, I’d say in nearly the same manner as “just some guy in golf pants” (as he once described how the elites tagged him) who at one time happened to have the largest sustained radio audience in history.
Last week marked the third anniversary of Rush Limbaugh passing away after a yearlong battle with terminal lung cancer. In a career that spanned nearly a third of a century, Limbaugh become far and away the most listened-to talk radio host in broadcast history. The conventional wisdom, which is something that Limbaugh defied on a daily basis, was that he had some sort of Svengali-like appeal over masses of mostly white, male, Bible-thumping bumpkins from flyover country by telling them what to think. In point of fact, it was just the opposite. Limbaugh’s success was being able to articulate what a vast swathe of the nation felt—a well-founded angst about the direction of the country especially since the beginning of the Clinton years and for sure with everything in the wake of the 9/11/01 attacks.
“There couldn’t have been a Donald Trump without a Rush Limbaugh to pave the way.”
He, more than any other political and cultural leader, held both a moral high ground and most crucially a bully pulpit that gave voice to a true silent majority. In examining the life and times of Limbaugh, as well as the gigantic sword of Damocles above Donald Trump’s head, and collectively whatever is left of the United States as we knew or imagined it, a bit of reflection on how we got here, or to coin a phrase, how we—or at least I—got “woke” to the world as it is, is in order.
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