For a variety of reasons dating back to 2006, I rarely listen to Rush Limbaugh anymore. By happenstance, I did catch his opening monologue today. The subject matter is obvious, and he expressed many of my thoughts in the wake of these bloody slaughters over the weekend in El Paso and Dayton.
"I have to tell you, I’m just sick of it. I’m sick every time one of these happens. I mean, the first time of any note was, you know, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing. I wake up, Bill Clinton is blaming me. And from that point on and probably prior to that, from that point on, every time one of these things happens, what do we do? We hear the initial report and we’re just devastated. We hate it. We hate that this is happening to our country.I've said it before, the great tapestry of our society is being pulled apart one thread at a time. There are no easy answers. Limbaugh dove into a deep monologue about many of these issues, and regardless of what you think of Limbaugh, he gave thoughtful examination to all of them. It's worth the long read.
Then the next thing that happens is we have to hear that we, because of what we believe, because of our religious values, our political values, that we’re responsible for it. So that begins a cycle of people either cross-blaming or defending themselves. And it’s just a never-ending cycle that does not change. And, as such, we never even get close to the root of this, we never get close to it.
We never get close to explaining it, to understanding it. It just is a repeating cycle here that, at the end of it, there’s just ongoing heartbreak added to frustration. The first thing that happens, you know Trump’s gonna get blamed, and Trump gets blamed. I’m convinced that if they could, they would stop Trump’s rallies.
If you read certain tweets and certain messages today, the left is portraying Trump’s rallies as white supremacist rallies where these kinds of shooters are getting this idea to go ahead and do it, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth! There is no white supremacy movement here that is in any way representative of even a tiny minority of the American people. And yet the media, the Democrats try to portray white supremacy as the base of the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s support.
What are you supposed to do with this? Well, you have to refute it, because they’re out there trying to make the case and they’re trying to make the case Trump’s rallies — that’s gonna be coming up. You watch, somebody’s gonna suggest Trump’s rallies not be allowed to happen now because that’s where all this is coming from. Never mind the fact that if you look at the manifesto of the shooter in Dayton you find a total deranged leftist progressive. But I don’t even want to use that.
It’s gotten very frustrating to have to join the pattern on all this. But it’s almost a must. It’s almost a must because of the oppressive — I’ll give you an example. I don’t want to play the sound bite yet. I’m not there yet. But yesterday Mick Mulvaney was on Meet the Press with F. Chuck Todd. I’m just looking for the number here on the roster because I just want to read his question to you..."
