i think a lot of people in conservative media are realizing the internet is going to celebrate when they expire. that must be an awful feeling. never too late to be a better person.
— Peloton InfoSec Analyst (Incident Response) (@CalmSporting) February 17, 2021
One thing that’s surprised me over the last 36 hours: Nobody seems to have mentioned that ‘Rusty’ Limbaugh, fortunate son, avoided serving in Vietnam because his doctor said he had a pilonidal cyst. Literally, a hair across his arse. I guess the Vietnam-war-at-home era really *is* over.
I just saw someone saying that Rush was playing a character, and I can’t see how that’s in any way exculpatory. Playing on peoples worst fears and hatred and racism cynically as a cash grab? That’s…even worse.
— Courtney Milan ?? (@courtneymilan) February 17, 2021
“You know how to stop abortion? Require that each one occur with a gun.” -Rush Limbaugh
People donating to Planned Parenthood in Rush Limbaugh’s memory via @quentquarantino’s IG page have raised over $30k so far. https://t.co/FCxALVsENM
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) February 18, 2021
I suspect they did and thought it was funny because they are also bad people. https://t.co/4iRJYJyPoc
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) February 17, 2021
Wish people could honor Osama bin Laden for transforming Lower Manhattan without being cruel https://t.co/StSKmBxfF9
— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) February 17, 2021
"Limbaugh was good in the beginning but then he sold out" pic.twitter.com/glI2NN5WKF
— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) February 18, 2021
Rush Limbaugh had a regular radio segment where he would read off the names of gay people who died of AIDS and celebrate it and play horns and bells and stuff.
— Paul Elliott Johnson (@RhetoricPJ) February 17, 2021
When it comes to powerful public figures de mortuis nihil nisi bonum is bullshit in any case, but it's PARTICULARLY ridiculous in this case. The Robin Williams reaction is particularly callous and revolting https://t.co/eFOb6Z70l5
— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) February 17, 2021
He spent his last few months on this planet spewing hate and misinformation and undermining our democracy. So basically continuing what he did for the entirety of his public existence. https://t.co/oywIuewyyz
— AdotSad (@AdotSad) February 17, 2021
Every conservative pundit praising Limbaugh as funny should have to tweet out their favorite Limbaugh joke so we can see what we're missing. C'mon guys, put it on Twitter.
— Aaron (@BobbyBigWheel) February 17, 2021
Are we allowed to appoint Limbaugh’s successor now or do we need to wait until the next election?
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) February 17, 2021
Because he never said anything new, over the last couple of decades…
“The Rush Limbaugh Show” will remain on the air, using archived segments and clips primarily featuring the late talk-radio host’s voice, the show’s distributor said https://t.co/vbmE4jMnwM
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) February 18, 2021
From a longer thread:
Rush Limbaugh will be remembered as one of the most consequential figures in the history of American conservatism, because he reflected and shaped the world view of the post-Reagan GOP base more than any other single person. https://t.co/R2TwS27lgj
— Seth Cotlar (@SethCotlar) February 17, 2021
Rush descended from a well-off and well-connected family in Missouri, but he played the role of “pissed off Joe Six Pack” really well. He’s a perfect example of “plutocratic populism.” https://t.co/eUSIiffk07
— Seth Cotlar (@SethCotlar) February 17, 2021
Limbaugh’s cruel bigotry and aura of aggrieved entitlement was a feature, not a bug. In an era of shifting social mores, Limbaugh gave his listeners permission to be a-holes and be proud about it. He perfected the schtick that would get Trump elected.
Limbaugh’s buffoonery actually shaped my politics in a significant way, though not in the way he intended. Between 1992 and 1997 I made several, 10-hour drives between Chicago (where I was in grad school) and central PA (where my family was). I listened to Rush each time.
Rush was still a fairly new figure in the political universe at that point, but he was becoming a big hit with a certain segment of the population with which I was experientially familiar, angry white people. I totally got why his bit resonated…and it wasn’t good…
Rush sounded exactly like all of the right wing lawyers, dentists, and real estate agents in my hometown who’d sit around at the Country Club bar and complain about black people and feminazis, and then climb in their Lincoln town cars and drive home drunk.
Rush, like those guys, was an elitist bully. He thought he was better than most other people, and he didn’t even have the integrity to even try to tell the truth to his “dittohead” fans. He was a mean-spirited huckster who built a politics that harmed his working class listeners…
Here’s an archive of 5700 of Rush’s shows from 2005 to 2017, in case anyone’s interested. https://archive.org/details/rush-l…
So for all of those “conservatives” out there saying how formative Rush was for them. This is what they’re referring to. THIS is what people loved about him.
He gave conservatives permission to take pleasure in hating their fellow Americans who weren’t like them, and then to call such behavior “the pinnacle of American patriotism.”
Jerzy Russian
Several thoughts come to mind:
FelonyGovt
The world is much better off without him.
Jerzy Russian
I was just about to run that Matt Taibbi tweet through Google Translate, but then I said to myself, “Self, why bother?”.
NotMax
FYI.
Keith P.
Hopefully, he’s shoveling shit in hell.
Danielx
Honestly.
Fuck that guy.
Which should be a rotating tag line
If it isn’t already.
patrick II
Part of what Limbaugh did might have been for show, but the racism ran to the bone. He was fired from NFL Football broadcasting because he couldn’t stop himself from saying that Donavan McNabb was overrated because “the media has been very desirous that a Black quarterback do well.” He believed that.
piratedan
well Rush styled himself as an unapologetic irredeemable asshole who had a belief that white guys should be in charge because…. white guys had always been in charge and if you weren’t a white guy, well then fuck you. If you were a woman, then you either better be putting out or making him a sammich, preferably both and if you were a POC, well you could do his yard work but don’t expect to be paid a lot.
He peddled this shit relentlessly and could rarely be shamed or backed down from it because it would be “weak” and as such, there’s never been any compromise with his ilk and the GOP adopted this mindset as their reason for being. Couple this with Uncle Rupert crafting their alternate truth paradise, we have a lot to unfuck. Hope that we can find a way to topple the soapbox and start to reintroduce reality to these folks. Gonna be a long hard slog restoring the old ethical substructure, being a grasshopper was a damn sight easier than being an ant.
Baud
Reagan, Gingrich, and Trump are all politicians of the same tradition.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Asshole smoked to own the libs and got lung cancer – republicanism in a nutshell
the pollyanna from hell
I worked construction and other heavy labor jobs for twenty years or so, and I hated the workplaces ruled by talk radio, but I entertained myself by cheering on Rushbo’s creative contributions to the practice of Marxist analysis, which I explained to any co-worker who thought I had potential as a right-thinking ditto-head.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
So Taibbi has always been a sexually assaulting ass hole.
Who could have known.
Jager
@Keith P.:
There’s an old Norwegian joke, the Old Norski arrives in hell, the devil takes him to a field of waist-deep shit. Thousands of people are standing around drinking coffee. The Norski thinks, “this isn’t too bad.” Then the whistle blows and Satan says, ‘Coffee break is over, back on your heads!”
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Btwn Dump, Rush, and Newt they had 10 wives.
Party of multiple family values.
Anotherlurker
I have been celebrating the death of limbaugh since yesterday. I actually tried listening to rush once. I immediately found him and his schtick repellent. Since Regan I have tried to understand “conservatism” . I read the 1980 republican platform. I read up on trickledown economics. I tried to debate republicans.
All I got out of these outreach attempts were condescending brush-offs telling me that I “just didn’t understand” basic economics and that my liberal views were counter to the American Way. These arguments deteriorate to out and out hostility to my views. Further, these views evolved to hatred for all liberals.
It took me almost 30 years to finally say “fuck conservatives” and view the entire GQP as Nazis.
Every conservative death makes the world a better place.
West of the Rockies
Limbaugh on MNF was terrible, but so was the other rightwinger Dennis Miller. Why did MNF insist on having a rightwing color commentator anyway (to go with yee-haa singer Hank William’s Jr.)?
Jay
Hungry Joe
One thing Limbaugh never did, once he became established, was engage in any kind of debate in a public forum, or even agree to be interviewed by anyone who could challenge him. I suspect it goes back to a 1993 appearance on the Letterman show. Near the end of a long interview Letterman pounced: “Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and ask yourself, ‘Am I just a bag of hot gas?’ “ Limbaugh was stunned; he blinked, blinked again … and that was the last time I can remember seeing him in anything but a friendly, controlled environment.
Ruckus
Someone on twitter was giving me a hard time because I said I was glad he was gone. They took umbrage because he died of cancer. We did several times back and forth about it and said that I hadn’t mentioned how he died, only that he was dead and that I’m glad about that. He not only made the world a worse place he took delight in it. I’d like someone to tell me that if religion is about being better people why do so many that have a religious bent, hate so much of humanity? 60 yrs since I read the bible and I’m still trying to figure that out.
The Dangerman
@Jerzy Russian: Hmmm. Worse MNF hire, Rush or Dennis Miller? Imma gonna go with DM. Mainly because I don’t remember RL other than he had a bug up his ass about McNabb. I wonder why. Hmmm.
Miller was just painful to listen to during those games.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So it was an ironic death; the blow hard poisoned himself just to be a brat and choked to death as his lungs died. Also, that would be a slow and painful death, even better.
Sm*t Cl*de
Limbaugh was a maggot. Now he’s multiple maggots.
Jay
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Ah yes, Dennis Miller, the alleged conservative comedian. The big Miller moment for me was one time he was on the Daily Show to promote some show of Miller’s and was utterly horrified at out much more enthusiastic Jon Steward’s crowd was in compared to Miller’s.
mrmoshpotato
OT – I think the Zodiac killer is also a drug trafficker.
mrmoshpotato
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Smoked to own the libs, then lung cancer owned him.
Mary G
My mom moved into a 55+ coop when I went off to college and said that in the afternoons when she walked the ground all she heard coming out of people’s window was Rush. They had almost all been brainwashed and she one by one let them go. It was always the husband, but the wives went along.
He is responsible for getting me involved in politics. In 1992 when Barbara Boxer was running for the Senate, she came to Orange County to give a speech and had to give up because a bunch of assholes stood in the audience shouting “Feminazi” at her. I made my first $5 contribution to her that day.
patrick II
@Hungry Joe:
I remember that. I also remember Limbaugh saying something negative about Hillary’s appearance and Letterman responding with (paraphrase) “how apt, coming from such a fine figure of a man”. Rush was still at about 280 at the time.
Starboard Tack
There’s an old phrase that fits. Rush was “as funny as a crutch”.
tokyokie
On the day that the Florida secretary of state confirmed George W. Bush as the winner in 2000 election, Limbaugh did a special weekend edition of his show. I stopped by a convenience stores in a predominantly Black neighborhood that day, and the white clerk was playing Limbaugh’s show loudly, smirking at the customers who were giving him grief. I looked at the guy — overweight, unskilled, not especially bright, around 30 — and wondered which was worse: Playing Limbaugh’s show to piss off his customers (had I been his boss, I’d have fired him on the spot), or his thinking that Republican policies were actually going to materially help him.
tokyokie
@Starboard Tack:
The way I heard that one “as funny as a rubber crutch.”
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
I wonder who will be the high bidder for the toilet paper concession at Limbaugh’s grave site.
People are going to be taking dumps there all day long.
lgerard
@Hungry Joe:
this too
There was a small scandal a few years back when it was revealed that many of the iHeart radio shows used paid actors reading from scripts as “callers”
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@lgerard:
That reminds me:
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
Let’s remember Limbaugh in his own words…
“just another dead doper. and a dirt bag”.
LevelB
I used to travel extensively throughout the south for.my job, and the nature of my work was such that I had to drive everywhere. The government vehicles I drove did not even have AuX jacks, so we just listened to local radio stations.
I can’t remember when I first heard Limbaugh, and really was unsure at first about what he really was. I think the broadcast that clarified it for me was the one where he said young teenager Chelsea Clinton was dog ugly.
That started my move to the left, which continues to this day, which is the kindest thing I could say about him.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@lgerard: Figures the Rush was a coward. I really don’t get guys like that, pick fights with people and then are horrified when they get into a fight.
Shalimar
@Jerzy Russian: Limbaugh was part of the Sunday pre-game on ESPN for a few weeks, not MNF. I remember it, this was before the networks each had their own pre-game so ESPN was the only option if you wanted non-church before the games, but I hated Limbaugh too much to actually watch his appearances. He made it through his first show but was fired after Week 2 or 3.
TriassicSands
Once, traveling in northern New Mexico, I turned on the car radio and typical of radio back then, all I could get was AM and on that it was either Limbaugh or some religious nutjob. Somehow, an environmental engineer had made it past Limbaugh’s screener and he proceeded to utterly destroy Limbaugh and his lies and distortions. He caught Limbaugh completely off guard, which may have explained why Limbaugh didn’t cut off the caller immediately, and the caller made a complete fool of Limbaugh. I wouldn’t be surprised if the screener was fired, because Limbaugh was defenseless when confronted with expertise and the truth.
The world is a better place today.
Freemark
@Sm*t Cl*de:
A piece of shit that big should at least be good fertilizer.
Freemark
@LevelB:
@LevelB:
I actually saw that bit on TV. As a young idiot I thought some of what he said made sense and was entertaining. Never watched it again after he called a 12-year-old girl a dog on national TV. The good news is I think that made me turn away from the dark side for good.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@patrick II:
He actually managed to fuck up his dream job by making that statement shortly into the first broadcast – I remember it well because I was watching it and remember how awkward it was, particularly for the other guys on the crew.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@The Dangerman:
To Miller’s credit, he actually had multiple games. He managed to not get fired for his calls his first game.
lowtechcyclist
On January 7, Rush Limbaugh had this to say about the January 6 insurrectionists:
So that was Rush, six weeks before he exited this life. It was no act; this was his belief set. He was pro-insurrection. A traitor, willing to cheer people tearing down this country because they were on the same political side he was on.
rollSound
@West of the Rockies: to be fair, Dennis Miller got the MNF job in 2000, and didn’t out himself as a rightwing fuckwad until after 9/11.
raven
He paved the way for wide swaths of aggrieved Nam vets to forget how much they hated “draft dodgers” to embrace fucking assholes like Newt, Trump and himself.
raven
@lowtechcyclist: Yea, cheer people on, not actually DO anything himself.
evodevo
@Ruckus:
Well, as for Xtianity, it’s been there since the beginning…there were intra- and inter-religion massacres in the second century AD clear up to the present…but the hatred for anyone but their own has been revved up by right winger preachers/megachurches/culture war freaks to a high pitch over the last 30 years…the intersection of Newtonian political shit-stirring and evangelical nuttiness is unmistakable…
lowtechcyclist
Man, J.D. Vance:
Find me such a person, J.D., and I’ll consider honoring him.But did Rush Limbaugh “change[] media forever without being cruel”? No, he changed media forever BY being cruel.But just for shits and giggles, I checked out Vance’s Twitter feed. I figured the author of Hillbilly Elegy was more conservative than me, but might have some nuance to it. No, he’s just another right-wing shitposter on Twitter, telling lies about Biden’s immigration proposal, boasting about being on Laura Ingraham by retweeting a Fox News attack ad, shit like that.Then he has this reaction to the Texas disaster:
That, you fucking idiot, is because everybody on your side of the political spectrum is just like you: no Republican, no conservative anymore, gives a damn about making things work, or understanding how things work. Really the only thing they’re capable of doing is getting people angry enough about bullshit that they can hold onto enough power to keep Democrats, who actually DO care about making things work, many of whom have spent their lifetimes trying to understand how to make things work better, from actually FIXING shit.
It’s that simple.
ETA: Should also mention that it’s worth reading @onesarahjones’ takes on Hillbilly Elegy. She was born and raised in SW Virginia, and has done a pretty good job of dissecting both the book and the movie.
Geminid
@raven: John Bolton once explained his multiple draft deferments by saying, “I wasn’t going to fight for South Vietnam just to see Ted Kennedy turn it over to the North Vietnamese.” Classic post facto justification and scapegoating.
raven
@Geminid: And Newt said it was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time him.
MomSense
@Jerzy Russian:
Matt liked the mysogyny. He probably found it funny and made him feel better about his attitude towards women.
Kathleen
@Baud: I think the acceptance of Rush by many in the media (“He’s really a talented entertainer” or “listen to Rush to get the pulse of Real Heartland Americans”) was the beginning of injecting right wing hate into mainstream media, which is why I refer to “Mainslime Media”.
SFAW
@lowtechcyclist:
Should be a rotating … tag? Well, anyway, you’re absolutely spot-on
ETA: And I’ve never read J.D. Vance (other than twitter), but … fuck him.
Booger
@lowtechcyclist: “Elegy is entirely true to Vance’s book, which is the worst thing I could say about it.”
Burn.
Uncle Cosmo
@Geminid: Maybe The Walrus started to develop a distaste for the military life honestly even before he Walrusized. Bolton (a firefighter’s son raised in modest circumstances in SW Baltimore City) attended HS at the McDonogh School (class of 1966), which at the time was an all-boys military academy.
Apparently he joined the MD Army National Guard on the 6-month/6-year plan after his 2-S student deferment at Yale ran out. Not any more “multiple deferments” than many of my (de)generation applied, and he did in fact serve.
A very good friend who was a year behind him at McDonogh informs me that he was already a far-right whackaloon then. (Yup, Students for Goldwater usw.) You could look it up.
Skepticat
Now, let’s just stop talking about him and let him go into the void he deserves.
JML
@rollSound: Dennis Miller wasn’t actually a right-wing fucktard until after 9/11 in fact. It’s pretty clear that he was something of a confusing mix of vaguely leftish & libertarian beliefs marked primarily by an ethos of “I’m smarter than any of our politicians”. He’s a classic example of someone who got the shit scared out of him on 9/11 and sold out to a right-wing Republican party that he decided would keep him safe and became the horrible right-wing troll he is today…who is deeply unfunny.
Rush was always the disgusting piece of filth he portrayed right up until his death. Taibbi seems to have completely missed the fact that having talent doesn’t mean you’re in any way an admirable person or that you should be given any respect for your use of those talents after your death. Yes, Rush was a skilled broadcaster who didn’t master the right-wing radio format: he basically invented it. It’s also one of the most destructive things to happen to our civil society in the modern era. (FoxNews is 100x worse) His “accomplishment” in the use of his talents was so harmful, so destructive that he deserves every bit of scorn heaped upon him in death.
He was essentially Minister of Propaganda for a movement based on lies, hatred, division, and cruelty. His relevance was reduced in recent years, but the roots of the poison he sowed are so deep it will take generations for them to be dug out.
chopper
@Hungry Joe:
i remember that interview. limbaugh was talking about how ugly he thought hillary clinton was and letterman said something like “have you ever looked at yourself?” and the audience cheered for like 5 minutes.
artem1s
The only good thing about Rush is he conveniently died so close to the event that was the pinnacle achievement of his life’s work. We can see the straight line that led from his hateful rhetoric to the violence at the Capitol. He, as much as Trump, caused the insurrection on January 6. He planned for it and primed his audience for it every single day of his life. It was his ideal of a perfect America in which know nothing white people would punish, terrorize, torture, and kill the ‘others’ that made Rush feel like such a small man. On January 6 everyone in the country saw how ‘funny’ Rush and his supporters could be. And the majority of America finally saw how dangerous it is to let bullies beg off taking responsibility for their their callous, indifferent and cruel behavior by claiming it is harmless, normal, patriotic, or ‘just a joke’.
That is Rush’s legacy and exactly what he wanted. His supporters are displaying exactly the same cowardice that every bully who is confronted with the truth displays when they try to cover up what he really was. Obviously they understand very well the damage he did to this country and are ashamed of it. Pointing it out is not cruel. It’s righteous and just.
artem1s
@JML:
I always got the idea he was jealous and pissed off about not getting the same attention other comedians who came out of SNL got. He never got the movie gigs and other big opportunities until he found a niche as a rightwing bigot. I think he did it to make money. Nothing more, nothing less. I think all of them were primarily in it for the bucks. They would have paraded around Central Park in pink tutus if they thought it would get them the same ad dollars. In the end, none of them were very talented and couldn’t adjust to a world that was sick and tired of listening to their schtick. Instead of figuring out how to adjust to Obama and Hope and Change, they decided to double down on W’s cruelty and indifference and ride the wave of hate and ad buys as long as they can make a buck off it. If you pay attention to who they choose as their targets, you see a pattern. Anything that might be competition for their brand and ad dollars gets scorched first. Scorpions gotta sting.
JWR
I saw a clip of Limbaugh on TV news saying that when he complained about The Libs tearing this country apart, he wasn’t talking about racism or misogyny, or sexism or any number of his many gripes, but Western Civilization itself!, meaning racism and misogyny and sexism and any number of his many other gripes.
And the racist, misogynistic, sexist people ate that shit up. Like a former co-worker, who once told me that if I didn’t listen to Rush, I really didn’t know what was going on. Smart guy, too. A pilot, and a great toolmaker, to boot. Proving to me that once brainwashed, intelligence didn’t have nothin’ to do with it.
fuckwit
Someone had to do it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ucj09t9ieeI
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@lgerard: I have to wonder if a man who was so homophobic and misogynist wasn’t deeply closeted? Marrying women as a cover, in a “This proves I”m straight!” way? It could explain mush of the hatred. It’s irresponsible to not speculate.