The crisis in Texas continues, with almost 2 million people still without power in frigid temperatures. Pipes are bursting in homes, pulling down ceilings and flooding living spaces, while 7 million Texans are under a water boil advisory.Cox has more to say about him in that post. But she is a respectable historian, so she's more kind in her comments that I am.
Tim Boyd, the mayor of Colorado City, Texas, put on Facebook: “The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!... If you are sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising! [sic]…. This is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the FEW will work and others will become dependent for handouts…. I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves!... Bottom line quit crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family!” “Only the strong will survive and the weak will parish [sic],” he said.
After an outcry, Boyd resigned.
It was Limbaugh who popularized the idea that hardworking white men were under attack in America. According to him, minorities and feminists were too lazy to work, and instead expected a handout from the government, paid for by tax dollars levied from hardworking white men. This, he explained, was “socialism,” and it was destroying America.
My first encounter with the now-deceased Rush Limbaugh that I remember clearly was in 1993, when he started running a daily TV show that ran 1992-96 that I believe he at first distributed to outlets free. I watched maybe 10 episodes altogether starting in January when Bill Clinton inaugurated President. Limbaugh was presenting his radio and TV programs at the time mainly as entertainment. He used the slogan “Lighten Up!” for a while to advertise the broadcasts.
I knew he had become an influential conservative commentator, and that whatever “entertainment” value his “political humor” contained, his fans took his political commentary dead seriously. In one episode, he ran a clip of Bill Clinton hosting some kind of religious event with Jewish kids at the White House, with the boys wearing yarmulkas. He showed a moment when some glowing embers fell onto one of the girl’s hair, which Clinton immediate gently patted out, with the girl apparently not noticing her hair almost got burned. And I wondered, what’s the deal? I know Limbaugh hates Clinton, and this was actually a sweet moment where Clinton was doing something any normal person might do. I wondered, is he trying to imply that Clinton is Jewish? Or that there was something wrong about stopping a young girl’s hair from catching on fire?
A couple of episodes later, he mentioned that the famous New York photographer Annie Leibovitz had done a photo shoot with Hillary Clinton. Limbaugh deliberately stumbled on the name, “Leib-o-VITZ”, and repeated it a couple of time. And I wondered whether he was just trying to say that Hillary was hanging out with a hoity-toity New Yorker with a Jewish-sounding name. It was more weird than anything.
In another couple of days, before a break he teased the next segment, which showed an interview with Bill Clinton with some reporter. When he returned from the break, Limbaugh said something along this line, “And now it’s time to look at the Bill Clinton interjew – oh, excuse me! *Interview*, I don’t know what’s wrong with me today, I meant to say *interview*.” I guess this kind of fake faux pas was part of the “political humor” he used for his fans to “lighten up” with.
But it told me everything I needed to know about Rush Limbaugh. And nothing he did in the 18 years since improved my opinion of him. That’s an example where that saying applies, “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.”
This is an article that the late, salty-talking Texas columnist Molly Ivins from a couple years after that giving her view of Limbaugh’s act: Lyin’ Bully Mother Jones May/June 1995.
In the meantime since 1993, the Republicans who won a House majority in the “Gingrich Revolution election of 1994 had named him an honorary member of the House of Representatives. (I’m not sure if that’s actually A Thing.) The incoming Republicans invited Limbaugh to speak at the freshman Republican orientation. (Thomas Rosenstiel, It’s Rush Night for GOP’s Lawmakers-in-Waiting : Republicans: Congress’ incoming conservatives enjoy red meat, apple pie at orientation dinner. But main course at love feast is talk show host Limbaugh. Los Angeles Times 12/11/1994)
Limbaugh told them that once they change the country, it might be a good idea to “leave some liberals alive.” The reason? “So you will never forget what these people were like . . . keep one Marxist and two liberals on the staff of every university so you can show your children . . . living fossils. Living fossils.” Ha, ha, political humor, lighten up, libs.
Trumpism didn’t start with Donald Trump’s Presidential candidacy in 2015. The only surprise is that it took them so many years to get to the point where they could send a lynch mob into the Capitol to kill people and prowl the halls of Congress chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” and “Kill the infidels!”
Yeah, when someone tells you who they are, believe them.
Alex Shephard writes on Limbaugh in Rush Limbaugh Made America Worse New Republican 02/17/2021: "Limbaugh was not merely bad for the United States, he was bad in uniquely terrible ways, and uniquely terrible right up until the end. He is near the top of any list of malign actors in the post-Vietnam period."
Also in the New Republic, Bruce Bartlett gives a bit of a confessional take to his obit, I Was a Rush Limbaugh Whisperer 02/18/2021. But you have to read down several paragraphs of whining about the Librul Media to get to actual criticisms of Limbaugh. This compliment itelf is pretty telling: "Limbaugh was also a blowhard, and his massive hubris was off-putting. But it was part of his schtick and one of the reasons he was popular." Bartlett says that this "blowhard" commentary in the late 1980s "was a breath of fresh air for conservatives—even those working in the White House—and an essential source of news." He even writes that Limbaugh " frequently had an intelligent spin on the news" (Gosh, I must have missed those!) He says it took him until 2006 to recognize that Limbaugh and FOX News had poor "news judgment." Bettter late than never, of course.
More obituary takes:
- Zack Beauchamp, Rush Limbaugh’s toxic legacy Vox 02/17/2021
- Rush Limbaugh: Pro-Trump mob “undoubtedly” included “some antifa Democrat-sponsored instigators” Media Matters 01/07/2021 (actually a news story rather than an obituary)
- Steve M., The Party of Reagan Was the Party of Trum, and Limbaugh was the Through Line No More Mister Nice Blog 02/18/2021
- Adam Epstein, Rush Limbaugh’s short-lived TV show was the gateway drug to Fox News Quartz 02/17/2021
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