Rush Limbaugh passed away yesterday. He was truly an icon of the modern conservative movement, and a groundbreaking radio host who effectively created the modern talk radio format as we know it now.
More to the point, on a personal level, I don’t believe I would be where I am today if it weren’t for Rush and his first two books. I mean that 100%. I was a teenager in the ‘90s, in a little desert town called Lake Los Angeles which had no lake, one stoplight, and was a two-hour drive from Los Angeles.
Rush helped me learn to think. Not merely accept the orthodox view of something, but to ask questions and look for the why? “Follow the money” he’d remind listeners. He talked about leaving his safe job with the Royals to move to California and work in radio. “Don’t be afraid to chase your dreams” he’d tell us. To a teen wondering if I could escape Lake Los Angeles like so many of my peers didn’t, that was music to my ears.
His first two books: The Way Things Ought to Be, and See, I Told You So, are still treasured items in my personal library. Despite being over twenty-five years old, the contents therein have aged remarkably well.
In light of current events, it’s worth remembering that things looked really bleak in February 1993. Bill Clinton was president, and the Democrats had commanding margins in both the House and the Senate. On a national level, the Republican Party looked defeated and weak. In just a few short months, First Lady Hillary Clinton would embark on her bus tour touting her new government health care plan. This was the days before social media, before cellphones were even common. Email was barely a thing. A lot of what we heard happening in other parts of the country to resist Hillarycare and the Democrat agenda came only from Rush.
Only a year later, propelled by frustration over Hillarycare, anger over the first Assault Weapons Ban, and a revolutionary party platform called the Contract With America, Republicans would sweep into control of both houses of congress, a position they hadn’t been in for forty years.
Rush always said he wouldn’t quit until everyone agreed with him. He didn’t quit, but that damn demon cancer finally caught up to him. I guess it’s up to us now, the Rush Babies, Rush Grandbabies, and Rush Great-Grandbabies, to take up the challenge and fight the good fight. I’ll be honest, things look pretty bleak. There are times when I think that maybe the Rod Drehers and Any Rands of the world are right, and withdrawal, or going Galt, is the only logical strategy remaining for us.
But I’m not ready to surrender. The Man Himself said it best: “It’s never time to panic, folks. It’s never, ever gonna be time to give up on our country. It will never be time to give up on the United States. It will never be time to give up on yourself.”