Monthly Archives: February 2021
Rush Limbaugh is gone and The Presidential Medal of Freedom is Officially a Joke
{With the slightest of modifications, the below was posted in February of 2020}
Rush Limbaugh died this week. One of the worst and most damaging public figures ever to disgrace modern media is gone. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is now officially a joke. You can note the decline in American culture and the thorough degradation of public political discourse by drawing a line punctuated by those who have received the Presidential Medal of Freedom– Edward R Morrow, Jonas Salk, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks– to the current recipient Rush Limbaugh.
Perhaps no person is more responsible for larding American political discourse with hate, factual distortions, and the death of civility than Rush Limbaugh. He is Donald Trump lite. Limbaugh came first; he set the stage and established the context for Trump.
Limbaugh is a rank racist who wanted to make sure that the core of the Republican Party identity was white. Trump’s preoccupation with Obama’s birth certificate was an attempt to de-legitimize Obama, rooted in the fundamental racism of Rush Limbaugh. Trump went after those young black men (the Central Park Five) brutalized by the police with a fury and a determination that thoroughly exceeded what was justified. But these young men were black and that made them an immediate threat to Trump. Rush Limbaugh was blatant about portraying the other side (Democrats) as not a respected adversary but a dangerous enemy that must be eradicated. The other side was, as far as Limbaugh was concerned, irredeemable and must be eliminated. The only appropriate response is to burn with hatred.
Limbaugh continued his racism by labeling any piece of legislation from Obama as left-wing extremism designed to get what they deserved. This played on the fears of the populace by suggesting that an angry minority group was trying to overtake the political process. Notice how frequently Trump compares a legislative item of his own to Obama or the “previous administration.” Trump is more interested in delegitimizing Obama than he is in his own agenda. Again, this betrays his fundamental racism that he can’t avoid.
Limbaugh taught Trump that you can call people names and then laugh about it as if these things were harmless. Limbaugh cruelly told a joke about Chelsea Clinton who was 13 years old at the time. Trump is nothing if he isn’t callous, crude, and feeling deserving of the right to label somebody. He learned well from Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh created the subculture of talk radio. A subculture characterized mostly by anger, name calling, and the belief that anything someone believes strongly enough must be true. The Limbaugh subculture has devolved into narcissism and cults of personality fueled by the talk radio subculture’s big brother – Fox News. Any sensible concept of truth has evacuated. Just as Limbaugh successfully twisted the perceptions of journalism and media, Trump has convinced large portions of the population but most of the news is “fake.”
Just when you think Trump can’t do anything more offensive or crude, he awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh.
Trump will fade away
There seems to be a lot of gnashing of teeth about Trump returning to politics, building his own party, or running again for office. But Brookings got it right when they identified nine possibilities for Trump’s future: fail in a leadership grab of the Republican Party, unite his MAGA supporters into a political operation (good luck with that), continue calls for insurrection, start his own communication company devoted to misinformation, become the next Sarah Palin, get convicted by the GOP, disappear in a swamp of criminal charges, go to jail, seek refuge someplace else.
I would not worry about Trump’s future influence. He is finished and will not be a significant player in the future. Granted, he did get 73 million votes and that sounds like an indicator of a popular person who could generate a following. But it won’t happen and here’s why:
Trump’s base is small and extreme. They do not represent anyone except for a collection skin heads, racists, and angry macho guys who are full of misinformation and confusion about what it means to live in an American democracy.
Donald Trump is actually quite disliked by most Americans and he leaves office with a 39% approval rating along with polls showing that the majority of Americans thought the Senate should convict him and disqualify him from holding future office. Even though he was not convicted the final vote count was the most bipartisan in history. Trump will be remembered as the instigator of a coup that came close to assassinating the country’s leaders and seriously disrupting the government. He has the lowest approval ratings of any president since 1945.
Most Americans now see Trump as a vulgar talk show host who was completely ineffectual and unprepared to be president. The stories coming out of the White House by former staff members are striking in their embarrassment of Trump. He never demonstrated respect for those around him by actually learning something. And it has always been clear from the beginning of Trump’s campaign that he had a distorted sense of reality and little experience in any sort of institution building. This included the debates in which he just tried to disrupt his opponent or use a tactic that substituted bluster and aggression for deliberation.
Talk of building another party, a Trump party, is a pipe dream. Constructing such political movements requires coordination, effort, and management skills that Trump certainly doesn’t have and is not interested in acquiring.
Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud have further detracted from his credibility. His inflammatory rhetoric has been cited as a contributory factor to the armed insurrection at the US Capitol. His childish hold on the claim that the election was stolen is additional evidence that Trump lives in an alternative reality. He believes he can construct the truth just because he says it.
Trump’s victory in 2016 was an aberration and he even made it to the primary ballot by a lucky confluence of circumstances which included an overcrowded primary that split votes and made it easier for him to stand out. He is a defeated one-term president who won in 2016 by a razor thin margin. In 2016 he had a very unpopular opponent and help from Russia and the FBI director. He lost the popular vote and won three key swing states by a hair. They were easy to turn in 2020.
Trump may parade around for a while as the charismatic deposed leader but soon no one will pay attention and he will fade away – as it should be.
Peace and Conflict Politics 