Rush Limbaugh's Ultimate Betrayal of His Audience

Source: The Atlantic | August 30, 2016 | Conor Friedersdorf

The talk-radio host claims that he never took Donald Trump seriously on immigration. He neglected to tell his immigration obsessed listeners.

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Rush Limbaugh is easily the most consequential of these hosts. He has an audience of millions. And over the years, parts of the conservative movement that ought to know better, like the Claremont Institute, have treated him like an honorable conservative intellectual rather than an intellectually dishonest entertainer. The full cost of doing so became evident this year, when a faction of populists shaped by years of talk radio, Fox News, and Breitbart.com picked Donald Trump to lead the Republican Party, a choice that makes a Hillary Clinton victory likely and is a catastrophe for movement conservatism regardless of who wins.

Now, some movement conservatives are frustrated.

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Had Limbaugh merely failed to foresee the future that would be forgivable, especially if he took responsibility for the failure. Instead, Limbaugh betrayed his listeners. And a call this week on his program is the quintessential illustration of his betrayal.

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The caller was named Rick and lives in Los Angeles. The subject: various positions Trump has staked out on illegal immigration, particularly a recent reversal where he suggested he may not deport everyone. Why didn’t the conservative media inform voters about the unreliability of Trump, who had only recently criticized Mitt Romney for being too harsh on immigration, during the GOP primaries, when he pledged a course that was politically and logistically impossible?

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Caller Rick should have concluded by calling out Rush Limbaugh. The Chuck Todd interview from August 16, 2015, is just as Rick characterized it, with Trump declaring that he wouldn’t split up families because the whole unit would be deported. The next day, August 17, 2015, here is what Rush Limbaugh said on his program:

He goes on Meet the Press yesterday and, have to tell you, the establishment is shocked, angry, saddened. He came off as presidential. He had a serious immigration plan. And the key to Trump’s immigration plan is that it almost dovetails exactly with public opinion on immigration. You know, it’s kind of stunning. We got 16 Republican candidates now, and there’s only one of them—only one—with a unique view or different view on immigration. It’s Trump.

It’s obvious that that issue is the foundational issue for Trump, and I think for Trump to blow this he would have to change immigration. He’d have to backtrack, which he’s not gonna do. But I’m just saying, all the other stuff … You know, “Is he conservative/is he liberal?” I still don’t think that people in what we call the establishment (some call it the ruling class) inside-the-Beltway get it.

Here is Limbaugh a few sentences later:

Sixteen people are running for the presidency, and 15 of them are perceived … I know they would argue with this, but 15 of them are perceived to have essentially the same policy on immigration. One of them is entirely different from the other 15, and he’s the one who’s leading. Now, don’t you think people inside the Beltway should be able to look at this and put two and two together and figure out what is causing this?

They can chalk it up to celebrity, they can chalk it up to pop culture, they can chalk it up to circus. But it’s not. It is due to substance and it is due to immigration, and with Trump releasing this comprehensive immigration plan yesterday … You know, all these questions of who’s a real conservative have been obviated here. Even that question, “Who is that a real conservative?” is up for grabs now.

As if that wasn’t clear enough, Limbaugh goes on to excoriate Arthur Brooks of AEI for suggesting that voters who believe Trump on illegal immigration are being duped:

Arthur Brooks yesterday is talking about (are you ready for this?) the low-information voters supporting Trump. I saw that, and I really stopped on a dime and did a double-take. Look at who they think low-information voters are inside the Beltway!

…The point is, look who they think the low-information voters are.  Look who the inside-the-Beltway people think the LIVs are. You people!  According to Arthur Brooks, you who support Trump are the mind-numbed, uneducated, uninformed low-information voters, and they are confident that you’re gonna see the light at some point. That’s what I meant about this been a barnburner weekend … Now, there are pieces being written by conservative intellectuals explaining who the real conservatives are and who the real conservatives aren’t and what makes a real conservative and what constitutes a fake conservative. And if you support Trump, you are a fake conservative, and you are dangerous, and somehow you’re gonna have to be rescued and brought back into the fold here. But you are under the spell of some Svengali (i.e., Trump).  

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It would be absurd for a listener to come away from the segment with any conclusion other than that Limbaugh believed Trump was taking an earnest, substantive position on deporting illegal immigrants; that other Republicans should follow suit; that Trump wouldn’t reverse himself; and that it is, in fact, an insult to Trump voters to even suggest they are being misled by the billionaire’s candidacy.

After another break, Limbaugh told his audience that the Trump position on immigration was both the only rational position for a Republican Party that wants to avoid an influx of illegal immigrants that end up voting for Democrats, and a position that an outright majority of Americans actually support. He said that if not for Beltway elites, it is the immigration policy that the United States would have, and speculated that Trump might cause everyone to adopt something similar.

He could not be more clear that Trump meant what he said:

The American people haven’t seen anything like this. It’s a teachable moment here. Standing up for what you believe after you say it and doubling down on it is rewarding. All of this so-called political correctness has been a myth.

Oh, it’s there. But the fact that the American people on a majority basis buy into it has been a myth. So that’s why the me-toos are now going to start springing up.

And he was clear that he agreed with Trump.

“It’s a validation of what common sense has always thought.  Fight back against some of this stuff! You’ll be rewarded,” Limbaugh said, before characterizing the hardline on immigration as a principled stand that amounts to an endorsement of America: “And not just for the sake of the fight. That’s not what this is all about.  The inside-the-Beltway people are even mischaracterizing this. The purpose of the fight is what it represents, the standing up for principles, the standing up for the American way of life, the standing up for the very way the country is founded.”

This is the man who now has the chutzpah to claim, “I never took him seriously on this!” And he says it’s not a flip-flop as Trump adopts the positions of his erstwhile opponents.

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The poetic justice in all this is that some of the movement conservative intellectuals who surely feel angry at the consequences of the host’s inexcusable betrayal never took Limbaugh totally seriously, but never shared that publicly either. They empowered Rush Limbaugh just as Limbaugh empowered Donald Trump.

Will this do lasting damage to the talk radio host? I’ve certainly never seen Red State commenters go after him like this before:

“When millions of your listeners heard you explain away Trump’s idiotic positions and vile attacks on real Republicans as ‘brilliant’ tactics, they interpreted that as your approval and support,” one of those commenters wrote, “and you have known this from day one. When he lied every day, you co-signed the lies by focusing only on how brilliantly he was manipulating the media narrative. When he engaged in unscrupulous tactics that you’ve spent decades criticizing the Dems for, you cheered.”

Said another, “There should be no amnesty for those messengers who have spend decades preaching conservative values, only to abandon us when we actually had viable candidates who represented all that Rush and Co. had long promoted. No forgiveness.”

Said a final commenter on that Red State post, “We had a golden opportunity to defeat Democrats this year and you along with Hannity, Ingraham, Drudge, and others built up Trump throughout the entire primaries. You folks had that magical tingle up your leg every time he uttered his immigration nonsense. The Wall is also another Trump made up fantasy just like the deportation of 11 million illegals. You clowns made him and now you clowns own him. Conservative talk radio is gone.” If only that were so—it would be the best thing to happen to the conservative movement in years.

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  • Discussion
  • Consistent August 30, 2016 at 11:58 am #9666

    Consistent August 30, 2016 at 1:00 pm #9667

    ConservativeGranny August 30, 2016 at 1:58 pm #9672

    Look how many people Trump has taken down with him.

    The bottom line is these so-called “conservative” media types can be just as naive, stupid and corruptible as the rest of the human race. Therefore, they are expendable. Nothing special there.

    We’ve come full circle. We have to rely on ourselves to find out what the truth is.

    Consistent August 30, 2016 at 8:17 pm #9677

    slhancock1948 August 30, 2016 at 11:15 pm #9678

    Almost as soon as Trump announced, he met with latinos who “helped” him see another view point, so he was waffling from the outset of his campaign. I commented to that effect MANY times on FR, but was shouted down like anybody else who dared to expose Trump’s lies. He changed on immigration from the outset. When questioned about it, everybody upheld his former view and even he said he was mischaracterized. Ted Cruz said that anybody who trusted Trump on his immigration stand was going to be fooled.

    Pray for righteousness to be restored and for the peace of Jerusalem

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