 So let's talk about Rush Limbaugh. Yeah, Rush Limbaugh, the giant, the talk radio show giant, really a person who created the medium, who changed media and political commentary in the United States forever. It will never go back to the way it was. He was an entertainer. He was a commentator. He attracted tens of millions of fans. He was funny. He was serious. He was angry. He was upset. He was a lot of different things. But he clearly and unequivocally, and in ways that I think are quite profound and that people will be analyzing for decades to come, he completely changed the media landscape of America. I mean, if you think about pre-Rush Limbaugh, there was no real constant, ongoing political commentary. There really wasn't Fox. CNN was there, but nobody really watched CNN. There was a, you could subscribe to magazines, newspapers. You could read editorials. But there wasn't this media existent that we've had over the last 30 years, really. Since Rush, where you turn on the radio and you stay on the same channel and you hear ongoing commentary on politics for hours and hours and hours and hours. And maybe you get home and you turn on Fox and you sit down Fox and you hear ongoing political commentary for hours and hours and hours and hours. And maybe over the last 10 years, five years, 10 years, some of that has been replaced by Facebook and Twitter and online commentary has moved to Facebook and Twitter. But the whole attitude of constant, ongoing politics, commentary just didn't exist. C-Span is not commentary. Somebody asked when did C-Spanic start? I'm not sure. Sometime in the 80s. But it was never commentary. You'd watch the proceedings in the House, the proceedings in the Senate. There was, you watch the news. You got your local newspaper. You may be subscribed if you're conservative to the National Review and to commentary in a few other magazines. And you read articles. You read our ads by George Whale and by Bill Crystal's father, Irving Crystal and others. And that was political commentary. But Rush turned political commentary into, if you will, spectator sport, into entertainment, really into entertainment. And if you remember, there's a famous line Rush used to have, let me quote it exactly, said, people turn on the radio for three things. Three things, write these down. They turn on the radio for three things. You guys listen to YouTube channels for three things. Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment. And what Rush was a genius at is turning political commentary into entertainment. And he truly was, and this is why he was as influential as he was. He was truly brilliant at it. He could engage an audience for three hours with very little script. I mean, he had a staff that helped him prepare but with very little script. And would talk and entertain and be funny and engaging, particularly in the early years. And keep a conversation going. He'd really have guests. He really took calls. It was just him talking into a microphone. He didn't have a co-host for three hours every, single day. That's hard work. Now, I know, because I tried to do something like that. And those of you who are young and who only have heard Rush Limbaugh over the last, let's say, five, six, 10 years didn't really experience Rush Limbaugh at his peak, at his height, at his best, as a radio commentator, as an entertainer. I mean, that's the early 90s when he was at his best. Now, look, I never agreed with Rush on many, many things. He was always, some extent, a political hack, a defender of Republican politics, a conservative and a piece of religion, even though you never got the sense that he was very religious. Jennifer reminds me that Walter Williams periodically would guest host a show for Rush when Rush was on vacation or something. But in the early 90s, Rush was really funny. I mean, he had some great segments that were unbelievably entertaining, powerful in the way he made fun of the left. But in a fun kind of way, not in the vicious, angry, hateful, and maybe they deserve it, but vicious, angry, hateful way that I think he sure evolved into. But in the early 90s, it was fun. There was the tuna. You remember the tuna commercials? You know, Johnny come and eat the tuna. This tuna has dolphin in it. Oh, you know, this tuna is dolphin-free and I think they keep complaints of the tuna doesn't taste quite as well as good as it used to taste when it had dolphin in it. And he'd make fun of at the time there was this big environmental scare about, oh, tuna cans have dolphin in it. Dolphin meat because they kill some dolphins when they catch the tuna. And there was all this hysteria about it. He made fun of the, he had this environmentalist corner that he used to start out with the chainsaw, starting up the chainsaw, the big sound of a chainsaw. So a big sound of a chainsaw and chopping down the trees and he would go into his environmentalist corner, which were typically good, engaging and often funny. He had the a condom bungee cord. I can't even remember why he did condom bungees, but he had a condom bungee, making fun, I'm sure, of sexual promiscuity on the left. But he was good at what he did. And to the end, he was good at what he did. And I think in the 90s he had integrity. He tried to try to shape the conservative movement and he had an impact. And he was also generally in the 90s, he was a Reaganite type of conservative. He was positive. He was optimistic. He was energetic. He had a positive view of the future of this country. He made fun of the left, but he never had this attitude of viciousness towards all of his political opponents. He dealt with callers beautifully and brilliantly and amazingly. But something turned. It started really under the Bush administration where he became an apologist for everything Bush did. Post-911. He criticized any critic of Bush on any issue and he would go after them. And he started to become angrier and more depressed and more pessimistic. Then of course with Obama, he really turned vicious. But the real turning point was Trump as I think the real turning point for all of the Republican and conservative politics was Trump. Rush started out being very skeptical of Trump, mildly criticizing him after the early debates. And he got a big pushback from his listeners. And you could tell, as somebody very aware and alert as he was, to his audience that he was taking note. And as his audience pushed back, he changed his tone completely towards Trump. And soon he became one of Trump's biggest supporters, admirers, and he took on the tone of Trump. The angry conspiratorial world is coming to an end, vicious attitude. And as Trump won and as Trump was successful in rounding up support among Republican party, really dominating support among Republican party, Rush became a bigger and bigger and bigger supporter. Just as Mark Levin did, maybe the biggest extreme in terms of shift was Glenn Beck who literally campaigned against Trump in 2016, was anti-Trump in a way I was on his show during that time when we had a conversation about Trump and he was viciously anti-Trump. And he too was convinced by his, he lost a huge amount of his audience. Ultimately, he really lost this whole TV network, he lost his prominence as a conservative radio talk show host and a video talk show host, Glenn Beck did, because of his lack of support of Trump. And as a consequence, he had a shift. He had alter. He had a completely turn. And again, Glenn Beck became one of Trump's biggest supporters. So sadly, I think Rush ended angry pessimistic conspiratorial. I never got the sense of conspiracies. Again, anger and defeat from him in the early days. But he certainly reflected that in old days. I listened to him a little bit in the 90s. I never could listen a lot. Who has three hours during the day to listen? I'd listen in the car when I drive to campus and back as a student and a little bit when I was a professor. But the hours would never fit when I was working. I was working in the evenings. I didn't want to spend listening to politics, still don't. He, I listened to him a little bit in the years, later on, segments here and there. His just ability to command the medium, his ability to command his audience was always impressed me. Even when I disagreed with him, I was amazed at how good he was at his craft, how competent he was, how engaging he was, how he held that audience. So, in spite of our differences, I have an immense respect, had an immense respect for him. Sad to see him passing away at a relatively young age for these days. But he did smoke, he did smoke cigars, well late and he did die of lung cancer. So it's sad where he landed up. But that's where conservatism and the Republican Party landed up and it's sad for all of us that that's where conservatives and the Republican Party landed up. So it is where it is. I think Rush to Logics and symbolizes kind of that shift. He started out as a Reagan optimist and ended up as a Trump pessimist, as a Trump conspiratorial just pragmatist. One of the last things I remember us saying was that, oh, yeah, deficits don't really matter. We just make a big deal out of it when Democrats are in power, but we know it doesn't really matter. I don't know that he ever thought that when Democrats were in power, but it was one of his ways to rationalize his support of big government Trump. He started out, I think as a football or baseball commentator, sports commentator on local radio, I think it's Sacramento. Yeah, Jennifer says he was real hypocrite about drugs. He wanted them illegal, but then got away with illegal things himself, including drugs. I mean, he was part of this opioid epidemic. He was taking painkillers for a long, long time. And you know, this is a guy who knows better and can afford to get treated for it, can afford to go off of it, but did not kick the habit for a long, long time and stayed on those drugs. But yeah, I mean, I think like a lot of conservatives, the hypocrisy is there. Again, my great admiration for him was as a professional, as a pro, as somebody who pulled this off. I remember when Lena Peacock tried to do, well, did a radio show, but tried to do it daily, three hours a day. Just, I think he tried two hours a day initially. And how hard it was and how exhausting it was and how difficult it was for somebody like that to just be able to do it day in, day out, like cock works and keep his audience, grow his audience, pretty impressive stuff. And he did provide me with quite a bit of entertainment and interest in those early days in the, I'd say early nineties. So, you know, it was sad in spite of our differences, in spite of his hypocrisy, and in spite of how he ended up politically, ideologically, philosophically. He was good at radio, he was good at radio. What we need today, what I called a new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think. Meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, whims, or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of the stare, cynicism, and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist, broods. All right, before we go on, reminder, please like the show. We've got 163 live listeners right now, 30 likes, that should be at least 100. I figure at least 100 of you actually like the show. 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