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Listen to stuff you should know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, welcome to behind the ******** the podcast that I continually failed to introduce. Correct. Like a professional. Which is particularly shameful this week because our guest is a very professional voice artist, Mr Paul F Tompkins. Hi. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. Paul, you are the voice of a lot of characters that that that a lot of people enjoy. I think most famously to me at least, is, is Mr peanut butter to be fair and also the voice of a lot of characters that people hate. That's true. That's true because if you're really achieving as an artist, a lot of people are going to hate anything that you do. That's the, that's how you know that you're doing it, right? Exactly. And today we're talking about. A truly historical success of a creative mind. A man hated by 10s of millions of people and who should be hated by billions. A man who was done, I would say, incalculable harm to the future of human life and all life on this planet. Mr Rush Limbaugh. Correct. Oh yeah. Paul. What? Do you have any kind of history with Rush Limbaugh? Like, in terms of your upbringing and stuff? I don't know much about how you grew up. Yeah. Do you know what? I forgot that I forgot. First of all, I forgot how long he's been around. Yeah, and I remember watching him in his. Earliest days on TV. Hmm. And watching that show, like, as a goof, the way I would watch, you know, the Morton Downey junior show or Wally George or whatever and just, like, who is this clown? And he's like, doing this, this sort of, you know, what seemed like a character, you know, at the time. Because he, I think he fancied himself an entertainer and had a show that had little skits in it and stuff like that. And I I thought he was just ridiculous. And so I watched him. Ironically. And and then things just got worse. Like I I sort of got tired of it. I remember getting tired of it and like, OK, this is just like the same thing over and over again. And it's not it's not pushing that that button in my ironic pleasure center anymore. So I just stopped watching. But he despite despite my my jumping ship, he continued to do what he was doing. He lost the. All left Tompkins demographic, but he kept the my parents and everyone that raised me demographics. So yeah, what was your upbringing? Particularly political, would you say? Not? You know what? Not super political. I was raised. My family was a a lower middle class, big Catholic family. In Philadelphia, in in a sort of suburb called Mount Airy. And we were both of my, my family was like lifelong Democrats, you know, Philadelphia Democrats. And so that was kind of it. Like we were just sort of, you know, like a conservative liberal family and. Yeah, I I we we didn't talk a lot about politics in the house growing up. And that was kind of it, but I knew that we were, we were Liberal Democrats, you know, who were weirdly enough guided by, guided by, I'm not even going to say faith. I think we were guided by my parents sort of morals were they were greatest generation depression babies and they voted straight Democrat. But they were not like even though we were Catholic, it was like we were not single issue. Voters, you know, yeah, but they. But my family was, my parents were brought up with the the same sort of prejudices that people of their generation were brought up with, you know, but but yeah, politics did not figure in. It was like when I got, when I got, you know, a little older and out of the house and everything, that's when I started, you know, investigating my own politics. And it was like a long journey, you know, that is very exciting. To me, just because you're you're you. You came from kind of more of a, you know, a liberally background and your introduction to Rush Limbaugh was kind of watching it as a character, right? Yeah. Yeah. I grew up very conservative. My parents were also lower middle class, verging on poor in when I was like kinda little a lot of economic anxiety, but extremely conservative. Yeah. I would say, like, our family religion was conservatism. And so Rush Limbaugh was caught whenever I was driving with my mom or my dad. Rush was on we would, we would, we listened to him, my parents. Talked about him. So my upbringing with him was that this guy is like the prophet of of what's what's right, you know, both in the political sense and in the moral sense. Right. So I'm very excited about this, and I'm excited that you know who Morton Downey junior is because we're gonna be talking about him a bit too. Absolutely. So, yeah, Rush Limbaugh is. It's hard to oversell this guy's influence on our current state of, like, I think it would be fair to say we're kind of like verging on civil conflict right now between the right and left in the United States for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So yeah. And I think Rush Limbaugh has a huge might be the man most responsible for that. I, I I totally agree that his influence cannot be. Is it overestimated? Like, yeah, it cannot be overestimated. It's like I I the day he died, I tweeted that laugh. I tweeted if I had to say something positive. I guess if I had to say something positive, I'm glad Rush Limbaugh lived long enough to get cancer and die. And then that got that got picked up by foxnews.com. They did a roundup of, you know, liberals celebrating cheering Rush Limbaugh's death, which really was just like, hey, if you wanna harass some people, here's here's who to harass. And I had people, I had people in my mentions on Twitter. Like saying things like. Uh. You better pray you never meet me like like people implying violence because I said I'm glad Rush Limbaugh is dead. I had somebody call my call my house and say Rush Limbaugh contributed far more good to society than you ever will find. God, my God for Rush Limbaugh, this guy. But I mean, this guy had a show. He had a show. He wasn't a legislator. He wasn't. He wasn't. Like some some sort of freedom fighter. This guy just had a show where he said mean things. Yeah, where where he repeatedly celebrated the deaths of his enemies and made half a billion dollars doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, let's let's get into Russia's life. So the first thing I learned about him when I started digging him into him, that maybe might be the thing I learned about him that surprised me the most. Russia's not short for anything. Russia is a full a full first name. And in fact, Rush Limbaugh is the third Rush Limbaugh in his family. Right. They are very proud of that name. His grandpa rush senior was born and raised in Bollinger County, Missouri. So he and I are both Missouri babies. He grew up into a world that was changing rapidly. Rush Senior saw an electric light for the first time when he was twelve. He took his first railroad trip in 1904 to see the world's Fair. Real name. Saint Louis thought that. Yeah, he. I always thought that was like one of those, you know, he was like, I choose that. That is the most shocking thing about him. He it. Rush Limbaugh is not only his full name, it is the only name. This family seems to give their first born son. Hey, if it ain't broke, yeah, if it ain't broke. So Rush, Rush Senior became a lawyer. He opened an office in Cape Girardeau, MO, and he basically never left the town again. He retired in 1994 at the age of 102, which I mentioned because it suggests that all those cigars Rushmore whereas are Rush Limbaugh smoked. Saved us about 32 years more of his show. Sweet. I'm sorry, did you say he retired at 102 in 1994? Yeah. And then how long did he live after that? Did he get to. I think he died. I think he died immediately from what? Yeah, like he's one of those guys who worked until he died, basically saying some people are like that. You know, somebody, maybe his his greatest son was like that. So Rush Senior was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives when he was 40. His main political issue was fighting FDR and the New Deal, which shouldn't be surprising to anybody, right? This is deeply, deeply embedded in the Rush Limbaugh line. In 1936, Rush Limbaugh Senior was a Republican delegate at the Republican National Convention, where he helped nominate Alf Landon for the noble job of losing to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in an election you don't nobody, nobody was better at campaigning than FDR. It was never a successful. Thing to run against that. I know somebody had to be his Washington generals. Yeah, Alf Landon, the Washington Generals of Republican politics. So my main source for the early life and family history of Rush Limbaugh is a fairly comprehensive, if I would say kind of fawning, biography of Limbaugh by Zeev Chafetz and Zieve. It's a weird first name. ZE apostrophe EV Chaffetz. He notes that over the course of decades of lawyering. Rush senior quote. Quietly, but inevitably became well to do, which is an interesting way of phrasing it. Just like there was no stopping it, he just got it was kind of a way of making it seem like he just, he didn't really wanna become rich, he just became rich. You know? That is the most suspicious sounding phrase. I don't know, long time, inevitably, quietly and inevitably got rich anister my God, it it is very sinister. So Rush Junior, who is our Rush Limbaugh's father, was born at some point. Quick Googling. Obviously, he had been born quick Googling. Didn't return a date. He's the only Rush Limbaugh without a Wikipedia page. Which I guess kind of a kind of a shot to him. I could have probably found it out if I'd really dug into it, but it doesn't really matter that much for our purposes. Yeah, he did what he had to do. He gave us rush. He gave us our rush. Yeah. Yes, our rush. Our rush. So Rush Junior is only important for the impact that he had on our rush. He was a World War Two combat pilot, which is undeniably rad. You gotta give him that. Hmm. And his biography notes that he maintained a military crew cut for his entire life. He was heavy set and top data out at about £300, which earned him the nickname Big Rush. Ohh big rush man. One of those nicknames that you you cannot combat like it's no like no we're you're big rush for sorry big rush. Sorry big rush you you can ask politely. It's not gonna happen. Why you in a big rush? So big Rush became an attorney. Sorry, that's what you tell people. Like, because I'm always rushing around. I'm always rushing around. Yeah. So big Rush became an attorney, like his dad and his brother, who eventually went on to become a federal judge. A big rush was a powerful orator and often gave speeches in the town of Cape Girardeau, doing during holidays. His very conservative politics influenced these speeches, and his most famous one was a tearful, hagiographic speech about our nation's saintly founding fathers. Again, you can see he clearly had kind of the same. Gift of gab that our rush has. And I, I you have to admit, if you want, if you know anything about our Rush Limbaugh. He was an undeniably talented broadcaster. He was very good at what he did. That's why he had the impact that absolutely. Yeah yeah. Now our Rush Limbaugh, rush Hudson Limbaugh the 3rd to give his full name, was born in Cape Girardeau, Mississippi on January or Missouri sorry, on January 12th, 1951. By all accounts, he had a financially comfortable upbringing with a brother and a parent who loved him, baby. Rush spent his childhood and by being a steady diet of his dad's rants about scummy liberals and evil, conniving communists. One of our Russia's childhood friends recalls of big rush of his dad quote, we'd go over to his house sometimes just to watch him watch the 6:00 O'clock news. He'd sit in front of the television drinking black cherry pop, eating popcorn and just railing at the Anchorman and the reporters. He'd yell at Dan rather. They're all typical liberals and rather is the worst one of the bunch. And we try to keep him going, you know, Mr Rush, what do you think about this? Mr rush? What do you think about that? Sometimes he'd say kinder, that was this. Friends name you're gonna be the first Dutchman on the moon. I don't know exactly what he meant by that, but he was trying to be friendly. I liked him, but he was a harsh taskmaster with his sons. It's an odd comment. That's so weird. He's so, so Rush has a has a a brother or Russia has a brother. He has a brother. David was his younger brother. No, no, no. I think that's the oldest. The oldest son is the rush gets the rush name. Yeah. They didn't do a George Foreman. Yeah. David becomes like a lawyer, doesn't really leave Cape Girardeau and is like, you know, he's he's he, unlike his brother, has a family, has like a wife that he's, you know, stays with and all that stuff. Did he quietly? That inevitably become wealthy, I think, yeah, I think he was bored wealthy. He and his brother were both born rich as hell. So and and our Russia's brother David provided an even more telling glimpse of kind of what their childhood was like under big rush. My dad stood out. Sometimes he provoked people who didn't agree with him to violence. Once, for example, he was in a bar slamming FDR and a couple guys jumped him and beat him up. I never did ask him the details of that one, but it was a couple guys, not a fair fight. I know that much. I have to assume he deserved to get the **** kicked out of him. 100%. I'm gonna guess he was saying something like the people who got screwed over in the Great Depression deserve to starve to death. We shouldn't be helping them. That's gonna be my guess. And he got the **** kicked out of him by some WPA guys. Something like that. If your name is, if your name is big rush and two guys go after you, I think that's a fair fight. That's a fair fight. You're big, you know? Yeah. He's got a little rush. He's 300 pounds. They're probably about $1.50, you know? Fair fight. Exactly. Fair fight by mass. Thin from being poor. Yeah. That's so our Rush was born into the Eisenhower years, which will probably always be remembered as, like, the high point of both capitalism and the United States. This period of peak American exceptionalism imprinted itself deeply on Russia's growing brain. His father was made a special ambassador to India's legal system. Their family got their first television. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because he was, I think it means, you know, India's was newly independent in the Eisenhower years, right. They had just. The UK had just left. They had just partitioned with Pakistan. They're developing their own independent legal system and they're a democracy that was heavily based, at least initially, on the US So the President like picked guys who were established lawyers like Big Rush and also established Republicans to be kind of help set up the Indian legal system. Wow. That's that's kind of what happened. So yeah, his his father's big man in Republican politics. Rush grows up seeing in the period where America is undeniably like, like, literally is half of the global economy, right. That's a very significant thing for him. So the family in the 50s gets their first TV, but radio is still the dominant method of entertainment in those days, and Russia's childhood and early adolescence coincided with the birth of rock'n'roll and the absolute peak of cultural relevance for DJ's my dad. Grew up at a pretty similar period of time. He's like seven or eight years younger than Rush, and he he grew up. The only thing my dad ever wanted to be was a DJ, and he was at a radio DJ for like, 20-30 years. You know, that was like the coolest thing that you could do, right? You didn't have Spotify, you didn't have the Internet. People learned about new music from DJ's who were kind of like picking what they were gonna play on the radio. It was like the absolute raddest thing you could be. And that's what rush like he he idolizes these big DJ's of the time, and that's all he wants to be. Or basically, his entire young life is a DJ. Yeah. Now, when Rush was three, Brown versus the Board of Education was ruled on by the Supreme Court, which led to the integration of US schools. Now, Zeev Chafetz doesn't write anything specific in the biography about how Rush senior talked about race to his son. I I have not. We don't get any of that information. And I'm not necessarily blaming Chaffetz for that because I think the Rush family is very PR savvy. They don't talk about it. You know, I don't know who he would have gotten that info from. Right, but our rush would have definitely picked up on the great deal of conflict in Cape Girardeau over racial matters. Missouri is an odd state, and that it is both Midwestern and southern. During the Civil War, it was split between Yankee and Confederate sympathizers, and the town that Rush grew up in had monuments to the dead of both sides. There was tremendous resistance to the idea of integration of schools in Missouri and in Cape Girardeau and Jozef. Chaffetz, to his credit, writes about this quote. In 1952, Kate built its white. Students and new School Central High Blacks continued to attend Cobb High School, but the Supreme Court and basketball changed that. Cape Girardeau took its high school basketball very seriously and sometimes contended for the state title. The 1953 team was expected to be a powerhouse, but word got around that the kids from Cobb were even better. An informal game was arranged between central and Cobb High, says historian Frank Nickel Cobb. One. Shortly thereafter, Cobb mysteriously burned down. Black students went to school in churches and private homes that year, but a more permanent. Solution was yeah. That's the kind of town he grows up and the black kids win at basketball and they burn their school down. Wow. Yeah. Cape Girardeau is a very racist town. And kind of more to the point, like, we don't know exactly what what Russia's dad would have said about any of this. We don't know that he would have supported the burning down of the Black school. We don't know that he wouldn't, though. That's right. And, you know, the the Conservatives were definitely more on, they don't integrate side of things right now. A compromise, a compromise was eventually reached in Cape Girardeau and the compromise was that black kids would be allowed to attend Central High, but they would be put in special classes that were taught by former teachers of Cobb, the school that had been burned down. This was kind of integrating by not integrating. So there were black and white kids in the same school, but not in the same classes. And this is the way things were in Cape Girardeau when Rush Limbaugh started school. So, yeah, that's you. You can infer from that what you will based on some of the things Rush Limbaugh says and does later in life. I think we're missing some important information about what his dad thought about black people. Yeah, I don't remember him ever being concerned as to the investigation of that fire. I don't think he was burned down. Cobb High School, he might have done it like that. Is rampant and irresponsible speculation on my part, but also. The only reason I think he wouldn't have is that he wouldn't have been able to run away from it. In my from what I can tell, he didn't do well in that fight is all I'm saying. So Rush had an upbringing that would have been fairly standard for a rich kid of his era. He played basketball, he did chores, he had plenty of friends. He was not an overly active kid. He did not like sports. He hated his one year in the cub. Scouts rushed the ball, hates the outdoors his entire life. Umm. He did not like school, but he was popular largely because his family was rich and had a huge basement with a pool table and a bunch of other luxuries the kids rush hung out with during this time. Give us some of our best hints about the darker elements of his childhood, one of them told Zieve Chaffetz. Quote Russia's dad didn't suffer fools lightly. He was always very disapproving of Russia's ambitions to have a career in radio. Russia's mom was a kind, gentle person, but his dad could be pretty rough. He was not above calling down Russian David in front of their friends, and when he did it, there was a string of expletives attached. I saw that happen many times. So kind of abusive, not, I don't think by the standards of the time and I haven't heard any, that he was like beating his kids or anything, but kind of mentally abusive. Again, probably more or less in line with what most most men of his social class would have been like to their kids. You know, I don't think this was abnormal. I mean, how many, how many of these guys were born out of the, the, the sort of ritual humiliation by their fathers? In front of an audience. Yeah. I think most of them. You know, it's like it's such a it's such a common thing that I I'm. I guess I'm just glad my dad was a guy who didn't say anything ever. Yeah, it's better than humiliating you in front of your friends when you say something he disagrees with. So every one of Russia's early friends that I've seen interviewed is very consistent about the fact that he was not political from an early age. He rarely if ever talked politics, and he did not express strong beliefs. One of his friends even remembers him as a particularly good debater in school because, quote, he could argue either side of a proposition without missing a beat. When he did express political opinions, they were generally conservative. One friend noted that the only time he saw child Rush express a strong political sentiment was after the 1960 presidential election. When Rush was nine quote, Rush wrote wrote on a drywall. Kennedy one darn, Nixon lost. Shucks. So. Grows up conservative because his dad is conservative, but it's clearly politics is not a big part of his life from an early age. He's not like Ben Shapiro, right? We're from the get go. He's being sort of. Like focused into becoming a political commentator? That does not happen with Rush Limbaugh, right? He's more from the darn shucks school of the Darn shucks school political commentary. Yeah. So Rush got his first gig at age 13, working at a downtown Barber shop. He later told his biographer that he liked the gig because it gave him a chance to talk to adults, who he preferred to his peers. Because I didn't think kids were interesting. When it came to girls, Rush was as awkward as you'd expect. He was bad at sports heavy set and not at all smooth. In his 1993 biography, the Rush Limbaugh story, biographer Paul Colford recalls one particularly embarrassing incident during a game of spin the bottle. When Rush was a teenager, he spun the bottle. And it stopped at and it stopped pointing at the prettiest girl at the party, which is how she's described in this anecdote quote. She looked at him and gasped. Couldn't do it. Not with him, that is. And everyone in the room witnessed this humiliation. It was a wound he would nurse forever. Ohh you. Yeah. It's nice. Ohh thank you biographer for that. And it's one of those things, you know, I, I think there's. I I'm sure it had. This has an impact on the kind of man he becomes. But also, I think most of us have a moment like that where we have a crush on some person of the opposite or the same sex, and they're not into us. And it's horribly embarrassing. It's a pretty. And most of us don't grow up to destroy civil society and the environment, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've all been there. And Rush was there, too. Obviously, this is a part of whatever toxic Stew gets cooked up at him, but I don't know how. Like, it's one of those things I think you can kind of lean too much on. So This is why he was always forever humiliated by this thing. And that's why he became the man he was like, well, we all have that in our past and we all don't do this ****. It's very much like the the original origin story of Lex Luthor that. Yeah. Superman blew out his hair. Superman. Superman was responsible for him going prematurely bald. And he he became a super villain because of. Yeah, yeah. And you know there are a lot of other bald men in that world who don't become supermen, right? Yeah. So big Rush wanted his son to become a lawyer or to do something else with a similar sort of gravitas, right? The Limbaughs were big men in Cape Girardeau. They were kind of like the the the primary, like the most prominent men in the entire town. And he big rush wanted his son to follow in his footsteps and do something respectable. Didn't have to be a lawyer. Go into politics, do something important, right? Do something that he can brag about to the other rich guys. Now, the fact that young rush only ever wanted to be on the radio infuriated. His father, for his part, rush seems to suspect that his love of radio was born in part from his hatred of school. Quote my mother would be fixing me breakfast and I'd be listening to the guy on the radio. He'd be having fun, and I was preparing to go to prison. God, I mean join the club rush. Yeah, we all hate school. It's trash, everybody. It never occurred to me too related to the guy on the radio. Like, how come he gets to have fun this year? Grown adult and I have to go to school? Yeah I mean there's a lot of kids. Let's I'll, I'll take my adopted hometown, Portland, for example. A lot of kids there who hate school. They don't destroy the entire planet, they just break Starbucks windows on the weekends and that's much healthier. Rush, you can just buck up a Starbucks if you if you're nursing some rage at the the educational industrial complex or whatever. So despite his irritation, big rush clearly did love his son. And when little Rush was 16, his dad used some of his local clout to get his son a part time job at the local radio station. Wow. Rush started doing what you today call internship. You know, fetching coffee, cleaning up, handling odd tasks here and there. And eventually he was allowed to actually introduce and play records on air. The summer before his senior year of high school, Big Rush paid for his son to attend A6 week radio engineering course in Dallas. This was a big moment for Rush. He was away from home for the first time, living in a boarding house. He started smoking cigarettes, thank God. And he got a license that allowed him to actually. And he got a license that allowed him to actually run the radio without adult supervision. Once he had this station, management let him hang out alone all weekend and weekdays after school playing records and for the first time presenting himself to an audience on air. So he gets started and this is one of those things. His dad. Clearly there is some abusive elements of their relationship. His dad is is not supportive of Russia's radio career, but also is like his dad is doesn't think it's a good idea, but also enables him, right? Like, not. Just gets him a job, but pays for him to get educated. So we get this is not a guy. I'm sure you know, he had his frustrations with his father. This is not a guy who grows up with a dad who just doesn't get him and refuses to support him. This is a very supportive upbringing. This kid has must, even though his father's not. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so, uh, rush, you know, becomes kind of famous within his, you know, the teen set at his town because he's the guy with the radio show and in high school and he was not at all political at this point. His most well known bit involved reading the Daily beauty tips that The Associated Press sent out back then, which he like and he would like. Kind of mock the beauty tips because he thought it was silly that the AP was sending out daily beauty tips, which is fair. It is. That has a silly thing for the AP to do now. Russia's professional. Fatal at this point was a guy named Larry Lujack, a Lujack, a Chicago DJ who was famous for his sense of humor and comedic stylings. Rush leader called him the only person I ever copied. Lujack was known for audibly shuffling papers during his monologues and different bits, a tactic Limbaugh copied and used repeatedly through his decades on air. And as in kind of like his signature bit. No, no, no, he wasn't a bit, but it was like a thing he would do to emphasize that. Like, I've got evidence or. You got information here, you know, it was a thing, rush, and it was a big Rush Limbaugh thing. You know, it's it's how you convince people who maybe aren't that credible that you you have good information, right? Like, look, I have papers. Yeah, he's been handed, he's been handed to this ream of paper that has information on it. So it's true. But but Lujack was not a political guy, right? He was just, he was not. And he ******* hated Rush Limbaugh. Cause when Rush got famous in the early 90s, rush was like, yeah, Larry Lujack is the only man I ever copied. And they asked Lujack about it and. This response is basically **** that guy. Bless you. Bless you, Larry. Good man. Yeah. Yeah. You can't you can't pick who finds you influential, you know? Yeah. So back in those days, again, being a radio DJ was pretty much the coolest thing you could do, and Russia's side job made him very popular at high school. He even signed autographs on a few occasions. The work was intoxicating, and Rush seemed to know at once that this was what he wanted to dedicate his life to doing. Obviously his ambitions did not make his father happy, and during Russia's last year of childhood, his dad would constantly yell at him for wanting to waste his life on the radio. No amount of paternal ill will was enough to pull Rush Limbaugh away from his dream. Though he was miserable at home and his father with his father, after graduating, he enrolled in a local college just to please the old man. But he couldn't actually bring himself to go to school very often. Sometimes his mother would drive him to college just to make sure that he went. Rush came of age during one of the most exciting and tumultuous periods in U.S. history. I mean, he's he's literally becoming an adult in like 1968. I think, like some **** went down that year. You know, there's a lot of teenagers doing some exciting things now, given how Rush turned out. You might expect him to have been active and involved in the politics of his time, but he was not. And to hear him tell it now, or to hear him tell it when he related this to his biographer, the civil rights movement in the Vietnam years basically all passed him by. He never attended political rallies. He only dimly remembers hearing of Bobby Kennedy's death when Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated. His radio station asked him to help send out news reports for the local NBC affiliate. Because there were uprisings all around the country, and Rush did this, but he didn't actually engage with the news. He was not, actually. Interested in what was happening. He was just interested in kind of the business of how news was disseminated. Right quote, this is what he said later. I remember talking to them about the broadcast business, NBC. I was 17, playing records on the radio, not commenting on news. I don't recall feeling any concern. So that is how again a lot of privilege. There are massive race based uprisings in the number of U.S. cities. Hundreds of thousands of National Guard troops are called up as after the civil rights leader is is assassinated, the country is on the. Brink of open conflict and Rush Limbaugh. I don't give a ****. Like, I just wanna play my record. See? You know? Wow, he's just a rich white kid, you know, in the middle of Missouri. He doesn't give a ****. It's so wild to think about someone being alive at that time. Yeah. And not having a strong feeling either way about anything that's going on. Yeah. He's not, doesn't even have strong, hard right sympathies. He just doesn't give a **** about it. Right. That is like a kind of privilege that I can't even begin to fathom. Yeah, and it is important that, like, he's not just taking the right wing side of things were like, Yeah, Martin Luther King. He was a comedy. He just doesn't care. Like, none of this even makes it into his mind. Like the idea that you would say Martin Luther King. Who is that again? That. Which guy? Bobby who got killed. You know what? Dimly aware that dimly aware was assassinated. Yeah, it's it's quite a thing. Ohh, so I'm going to quote now from a write up in the New York Times that ably summarizes Rush Limbaugh's early 20s quote. Love of radio eventually won out over formal education and he dropped out of a local college after a year, appalling his parents. Then began a long checkered odyssey. Typical of Radio, Limbaugh held and lost jobs in several cities, working under different names. Broadcast styles. He was rusty Sharp and Jeff Christie. He was a DJ, a newsreader, a talk host. In each place, he developed components of what would later emerge as the Limbaugh style in Pittsburgh. He was a prankster, convincing listeners that he could see them through a new experimental picture phone. So he's kind of like a a a drive time morning DJ. Like a hey yeah, we're gonna. I don't know, I can't do the DJ voice, but like, playing like sound bits and doing doing gags like, he's very, like, not even really a shock. Shock yet? Because he's not like combat that has. That's like starting to evolve in this period of right. Yeah, I did find some audio from run of Russia's very first broadcast in 1974 while he was still in Pittsburgh. And I think it's interesting because in it you can hear rush in mid transition from that drive time DJ voice to the voice of the Rush Limbaugh who would help breed a modern American fascist movement. So here he is on WXZ solid rock and gold show. So without further ado, here is Rush Limbaugh. 1974 also appearing with Shannon not opening the show. Be Billy cooks, rainbows and gypsies. See the exciting David Dolphin, rated PG, now showing at the Ardmore Drive in Bellevue, Bethel said of my Camp Horne drive in Carnegie cinema and Cinema World, Day of the Dolphin Offshore at the Hampton Plaza, McKee Cinema Oaks, Penn Hills region, and Rochin theaters. See day of the Dolphin now at these Sewickley, South Hill South Park Drive in South Hills, Drive in and Sunset View Drive in. I certainly hope you people are writing all of this down. Don't miss. The other dolphin it is now showing so. Very silly as all radio from the 1970s sounds today, right? Yes, most radio today sounds, but also like there's you would never have guessed based on his early performances that he was going to become what he became, right? No, I mean, look, he has undeniably great voice. Great voice, yeah, very good at imparting information, like actual factual information. This movie is for sure playing here at this time. Day of the dolphin. Absolutely. Yeah. I can't wait to see it. Yeah, it's the exciting movie day of the dolphin. But the the that he's just straight reading things that you cannot misinterpret in any way. Yeah, if if only he'd stuck to that. But yeah, yeah, I I. It's so I I guess, I I don't want to get ahead of us and get ahead of ourselves, but the idea that this guy would not be content doing just this is like what? When does it the idea that it turns like, I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, I'm sorry, we'll we'll get to that, but. I I think it's fair to say this is what he loved and he would have been perfectly happy if he could have made a good we're we're getting the kind of like a Hitler at art school story where like, yeah, maybe if he'd gotten to keep being a drive time radio DJ, things would have been better. You know, I had a I had a conversation with a friend of mine who who also does podcasts and radio and for neither of us it is our thing, our first thing. But we shared a we we had a conversation where we we shared our love. Of being good at reading copy. Like when you have to do ads there is something that's weirdly satisfying about like ohh I sound like a guy on the radio like I'm doing a good job at reading this and making it sound natural and whatever and it's like they're like there's isn't that enough is enough that there's there's it is a good feeling when you nail an ad read yeah it's. I mean I think I think everyone who does a who who who does a job that like I think it pretty much everyone. Who has worked there is a joy in professional competence of any type of, you know, if you're working, you know, if you're like, if you're, if you're running like the cash a cashier at a grocery store. Right. When you get really good at bagging, like it's this, ohh the, the, the kind of ecstasy of competence, right, where you can kind of lose yourself in a task, you know, and be like same as good at this thing as I can be, even if you don't like the job, there's a satisfaction in that one. And I think Rush was happy in this. Doing. He wasn't rich, he wasn't influential, but he was doing a thing he loved well and he was happy. In this in the in this. In the early 70s. So his early material in Pittsburgh is interesting to me because it's exactly the opposite of what you'd expect from him. One of his reoccurring bits was the Friar Shuck Radio Ministry of the Air, where he relentlessly mocked the radio preachers that he saw coming into the station on Sundays. He thought these guys were grifters and he hated them. The center of this bit was that no matter your problem, God would solve it if you'd send the radio preacher $100. That's interesting to me. And this is like a a real like running theme in his early career as he made fun of preachers all the time of the exact kind of religious grifters that later helped make him a wealthy man. It's very interesting to me. Yeah, there's also he also would read letters from fans and at one point he let read a letter that he said was from a A a young woman who wanted to be a DJ and was worried that her gender would hold her back. Here's what he told her on the air. This is interesting to me too. You just have to master 2 techniques and I'm going to explain them right now. #1 the use of microphone. To use it, simply turn the microphone to the on position and talk into it. The second, which is the biggie, is queuing up the record. Get the record you wanna play, take it out of the appropriate. Duck. Slap it onto the turntable, take the arm in the needle, place it on the outside editor of the record, then turn the record till you hit the hear the beginning of the record. Back it up 1/4 of a turn and when you get through talking the record will start. After you have mastered those two techniques, girls, change your sex. And you can interpret that a couple of ways, that about the mansplaining about how to turn on a microphone and then he goes, oh, wait, you can't do it. Well, that that I think there's two ways to interpret this. One of them is what you said, Sophie, that he was just being incredibly sexist. One of them is that he might, he might have been acknowledging anyone could do this job, but you won't be able to as a woman because of sexism in the industry. And I'm, I'm really not sure which one he was going for. There could be both. Yeah, it could be both. It could be both. There is a kind of lording it over, like. You know what? This is a dumb job, but you're still not allowed to do it. You're still not allowed to do it. Ladies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that's probably, probably accurate. It's probably a bit of, Robert, you know what all ladies are allowed to do? Products is is it add Sophie, is it participate in capitalism as consumers? Yes, it is participating. OK, realism. Well, ladies, stick it to Rush Limbaugh by engaging positively with the system he spent his life propping. Alright, ****. You know I didn't like the phrase. Stick it to Rush Limbaugh very much. Neither did I. Sophie, there's some maths. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for none of that. For anyone who hates their phone Bill, Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just $15.00 a month. Mint Mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying one or for a family. And it meant families start at 2 lines. All plans come with unlimited talk and text, plus high speed data delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can use your own phone with any mint mobile plan and keep your same phone number along with all your existing contacts. Just switch to Mint mobile and get premium wireless service starting at 15 bucks a month. Get premium wireless service from just $15.00 a month and no one expected plot twist at mintmobile.com/behind. That's mintmobile.com/behind. Seriously, you'll make your wallet very happy. At mintmobile.com/behind now a word from our sponsor better help. If you're having trouble stuck in your own head, focusing on problems dealing with depression, or just, you know can't seem to get yourself out of a rut, you may want to try therapy. And better help makes it very easy to get therapy that works with your lifestyle and your schedule. A therapist can help you become a better problem solver, which can make it easier to accomplish your goals, no matter how big or small they happen to be. So if you're thinking of giving therapy a try. Better help is a great option. It's convenient, accessible, affordable, and it is entirely online. You can get matched with a therapist after filling out a brief survey. And if the therapist that you get matched with doesn't wind up working out, you can switch therapists at any time when you want to be a better problem solver therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com behind today to get 10% off your first month. That's better helpp.com/behindbetter. Com behind hey Robert Evans here. It's been like two months since I got LASIK laser eye surgery and my vision still 2020. So many things about my daily life has changed. I don't have to worry about putting on a mask and my glasses fogging up. I don't have to take out contacts at night or put them in the day. I don't have to like, worry all the time when I'm traveling. Like, how many contacts do I have by I go swimming at the lake during the summer? Something I like to do, go to the beach or whatever. I don't have to worry about losing a contact or, you know, bringing swimming glasses or something with me. Everything is just easier. And getting it done was easy too. You know. I went in, I had my consultation. They told me I was a good candidate and then I went back in a couple of days later about it being about a boom. You know, my eyes were perfect. So LASIK Plus is a leader in laser vision correction in the United States. They have over 20 years in the industry and more than two million treatments performed. If you want to start your LASIK plus journey, you can get $1000 off when treated in September. That's 500 per eye. So visit my LASIK offer. Dot com to schedule your free consultation now. Uh, we're back. We're back from those ads. And, Paul, I can see the glow on your face that only comes upon a man's face the first time that he gets to help advertise the fine products and services brought to us by the people at Raytheon. Are you feeling good, Paul, about now? Now you are in inextricably tied to wonderful products like the R9X knife missile. Hmm. I yeah, as a boy growing up in Philadelphia. I I dreamed of advertising for missiles. That's what. That's what everyone wants to do, right? Yeah, since Cavemen painted on walls, they dreamed of Raytheon. And now we are in the privileged position of getting to sell their products, and I couldn't be happier. Here's what sucks. Raytheon is such a cool name. It it's a great it's so good. Yeah, I mean this in this ongoing bit. I do. I often like the R9 X missile I think is made by Lockheed Raytheon's guidance chips I believe are in it. To be fair, it's just the name. Raytheon is such a good shady defense industry. Yeah, like, it's the name of a company that ends the world, right? Like you're talking about like, like a, you know they're going to make a Skynet that kills us all at some point. Their name is just too on point to not be. Yeah. So back-to-back to Limbaugh. Rush was popular in Pittsburgh. And his bosses appreciated everything but his long windedness. They repeatedly sent him memos that stated shut up and play the records, and for a while he was content to mostly just do that. But in 1974, the economy took a nosedive and rush was fired. He had to move back home with his family, where he lived for seven miserable months. His dad repeatedly badgered him to move on and start a real career, but Rush was committed to radio, and eventually he landed a new gig in Kansas City, where he started taking listener phone calls for the first time. This was the dawn of the era of insult comedy, a sort of mean spirited comedy based on pranks and, you know, primarily executed by shock jocks guys, the body by Howard Stern. Really? Yeah. We entertained via austentatious cruelty hungry freaks. I ask you this, I'm sorry and I don't know. I don't know if you'll, if you'll know or not. Like talk, right, talk radio. How much of a thing is it at this point of people calling in to radio stations to have conversations with broadcasters? It's starting at this point, right. This is really kind of the birth of talk radio and and rush is on the ground floor of that, right? Does this, does it start with sports or does it start with with issues? I think it starts with issues. It starts with their. But before what we know is talk radio, you had had people who would take calls and talk about politics both on TV and on the radio. And one of the things that rush changes to skip ahead a little bit is that those guys had mostly been interchangeable, right? They were just sort of fielding calls and engaging with with callers, rush. And that kind of turns into, with these shock jocks, more of kind of a comedy based entertainment. You have these pranks, you have insults, you have all this stuff. So it kind of it it evolves out of a thing that had been going on for much longer, right? It's an extension of the idea of the original idea of the DJ was maybe a personality, but his main thrust was, I'm giving you this music that you crave and that's why you like me is because I'm gonna maybe get, I'm gonna maybe get tracks before other people get them and you're going to hear. You're gonna hear this stuff first, but there's still a thing of, it's not about my personality necessarily. It's mainly about I am the I I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the Santa Claus of music. I'm giving you these things. Yes. And that's why you like me. Yes. And I have access to them first and all this stuff. Yeah. Right. So Rush kind of as this, you know, he kind of sees the writing on the wall if he loses his gig as a traditional DJ because that is starting to become less profitable. Right. And there's, you know, in general. The economy's taking a *******? So he he he realizes that kind of the way things are going is more based around personalities and and comedy and entertaining people, and he starts to pivot to that. So this is, there's a a, A, well, an interesting quote that Russia himself wrote in one of his many interminable books about how he felt about kind of pivoting to insult comedy. Quote, I found out something about myself, something that was quite disturbing. I found out I was really, really good at insulting people. For example, the topic. One day was when you die, how do you want to go? I wanna go the cheapest and most natural way I can, one nice lady caller from independence MO said. My response was easy. Have your husband throw you in a trash bag and then in the Missouri River with the rest of the garbage. When I went home after after a day of this, I didn't like myself. Is that being, I don't know if that's being good at insulting people. Yeah, that's not really insult. That's just that's just being cool. Ready to insult people. Yeah, yeah. It it it is though. One of the things people will state, and I can't categorically say this, but it it seems accurate based on my recollections of the show, is even when people would disagree with rush on the air, he wasn't an ******* to them. Like he was not cruel to to his callers, to their faces, right. He would say cruel things about liberals, but when people would call in, he would not, like, call them monsters he would not like. He he he he seems to have genuinely not liked insulting people to their faces, or at least over like directly insulting people over over the the phone or whatever. While he was disturbed by this, he was not disturbed by racism, mainly racism against black people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's where we're going. At one point during his call in show, he claimed he had a black collar and he came claimed to not be able to understand the man's accent. Limbaugh hung up on this black man after saying take that bone out of your nose and call me back. Which is was this whole racist, or I mean, he says it was, we'll we'll get to that at another point, he asked his audience. Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson? Now, during a 1990 interview, after he'd kind of risen to political prominence, Newsweek asked Limbaugh if he thought these statements had been racist. He replied, you may interpret it as that, but I know, honest to God, that's not how I intended it at all. Gee, don't get me on in this one. I am the least racist host you'll ever find. Now, if we're going to try to analyze rush from the length of his career, I think we can say two things. He's probably being honest when he said that he felt bad about insulting callers because he did not continue to do that. He is probably being dishonest when he says that he's not racist because he continued to say incredibly ******* racist things about black people consistently throughout his entire career. Yeah, I mean the the the number one indication that someone is racist is when they say that the least racist I has that ever been said by him by a non racist person. Usually when somebody it's always got to be, it's always got to be not only am I not racist, I am the least racist person you're ever gonna meet. Like you don't maybe don't go that far. Yeah, because it's so, it's so easily disproved. Also followed by the I don't see color people, I don't see color. I would say I think most of the people I think I don't see color people tend to be performative Obama voters. The I am the least racist person in the world. People tend to have strong opinions on why they should be able to say the N word exactly. Like that would be the split between the right and the left version of that is yeah, yeah, yeah. And both of you are ******* racist, so shut the **** **. Give me Robert, right, yes, yes. She's she's found out about our opinions on Lichtenstein, which I refuse to apologize for in the ******* sweets. My God, the sweets. Yeah, you do. You do have issues with the Swedes. I have huge issues, particularly blue suede. What did UGA chaka mean? Why did you say that at the start of that song? OK, sorry. He's rush was. Rush was still, at this point in his career, completely apolitical. His roommate and close friend at the time later told an interviewer. He was scary smart about everything, but I can't recall us talking much about current events. He was funny, though. I was an audience of 1. Limbaugh's years in Kansas City were not super successful, and he seems to have recalled them somewhat sourly as the New York Times summarized, Limbaugh likes to say everything I did in Kansas City I failed at. He got fired from the station and quit radio forever to become an executive. The Kansas City Royals baseball team. Five years later, he quit the Royals, convinced his career there was stymied, and went back to radio, this time as a news commentator. Again, he got fired for being too controversial. Also in Kansas City, he married twice, both marriages eventually ending in divorce. What are the do we know? What? The sources of the what the what the type of controversies? Yes, we're about to get into that. Yeah. OK. Yeah, we're about to get into it. Sorry. Ohh come on. So it was in Kansas City where Rush Limbaugh, conservative commentator, made his first public appearance after getting pushed out of the Royals. No one really liked him there. He had one friend who was on the team and that's why he got to keep the job. And when that guy got traded, they pushed him out because they all hated him. So after getting pushed out of the Royals, he got a gig at KMBZ, a local station. He started satirizing what he considered to be a left wing caricature of of right wing political commentator. Right the initial right wing Rush Limbaugh was satire, and he was being purposefully controversial and unreasonably extreme in order to make a comedic point. This was a joke. Initially. This did not go over well with his middle of the road Mormon station manager, but it made Limbaugh popular with his audience. See, Limbaugh had caught on to the fact that radio was in the middle of a revolution. This was the era where the first big shock jocks, men like Don Imus and Howard Stern, began their ascent to stardom. I found a wonderful write up about this era on long reads, which argues that the first radio shock jock was a talk radio star named Joel Pine in the 1950s, and I'm gonna quote from this now. We might do an episode on Pine at some point, quote his unconventional style, dressed up to dress down pinkos and women's libbers and riff on rather than read reports. Was neither news nor entertainment. It seemed to be best described, while the New York Times and time both did anyway, as an electronic Peep Show. The personality Free Press at the time considered Walter Cronkite the most trusted man in America and Johnny Carson the funniest. But pine, with a syndicated show on more than 200 radio outlets, was the most Machiavellian when it comes to manipulating media. Icons of talk author Donna Halper told Smithsonian Magazine he was the father of them all. Pine briefly descended from his soapbox in the mid 60s. For a weeks vacation after bringing a gun to his show during the Watts riots, suggesting the world wasn't quite ready for his kind of conservative appeal. So Pine is doing the Rush Limbaugh bit in the 50s and early 60s, but America is not ready for that yet, right? He, he even 50s Americans like this guy's racist and like and a ******* lunatic. Yeah. So now, just so I understand Russia's this satire that he was doing. Yeah, the idea was. Here is what uh, left wing people think right wing people are like. And yeah, the point he is trying to make is they see us as they see the left wing sees the right wing as extreme and hateful and. You know, racist and and and close minded. Like is that is that the point he's trying to make? I I think so. Because he he, he he even says like it was a satire, right? Like that's how it's portrayed in his biography. That he was kind of his personality was satiric in nature and and that's kind of the only way I can interpret it is that he was trying to satirize what, like kind of the ***** right winger, you know? OK. But through the through the limbs of here's how the left sees them. I that's that was never said directly. Yeah it sounds like it's a it's a a protective phrase of like I was not satirizing these guys directly. I was not satirizing right wing people. I was satirizing how left wing people see right wing. Yes. That is how I have interpreted what I've read. Yeah. OK. Yeah. It's yeah. That does sound like a base covering kind of thing. Yeah, it a bit. I I do think he started not believing everything he said. It started as a joke and him intentionally to provoke controversy because controversy brings in listeners and gets, gets attention, gets word of mouth. That's why he was doing it. And the story of Rush Limbaugh is these, these kind of purposefully absurdly extreme satire becomes what he really believes and is, you know, yes. So he's he's an apolitical guy who's like, this is this is what this is what politics sounds like to me, I guess, yeah, I think so. And I I yeah, that that's how I interpret it. We'll we'll go we'll go over that more. So obviously pine, kind of the 1st right wing radio shock Jock had peaked too early. It kind of, I guess, to steal a phrase from the Nazis, shown his power level too early during the Watts riots and he got kicked off the air rush though, started getting political at exactly the perfect time. This was the early 1980s. Howard Stern came onto the scene in 84 Don Imus had risen to prominence in the 1970s. Imus was another guy my dad listened to a lot growing up. Imus in the morning was like a big part of getting ready for school. Don Imus is gonna be in the ******* TV. And you were like, this guy's having so much fun and I have to go to prison. I have to go to prison. This guy's having fun. He's talking about nappy headed hoes, which was like the phrase that he. I forget what it was in reference to, but like, that's what got him in trouble. It was a women's basketball team. Yeah, it was a women's basketball team. Because dynamic was also very racist, sure. So yeah, the world was still not quite ready for the Rush Limbaugh we knew during while. He was, like, starting to be political at KMBZ, but a diet version of what he would become was now acceptable. And one man who recognized the potential of Limbaugh schtick was Norm Woodruff, a consultant to the station who became the acting program director at Sacramento's KFBK Network. KFBK needed a new right wing talk radio host after firing. The previous one, a guy you mentioned at the start of this episode, named Morton Downey Junior. Morton was extremely popular and he was very extreme in his antics. This had allowed his local station in Sacramento to repeatedly draw national attention because he would say purposefully controversial things. This did backfire on Morton. Eventually, when he told a racist on air joke about a ******** which was a thinly veiled attack on a local City Councilman named Tom Chin, Downey junior was fired. And went into the world of television where he would somehow simultaneously blaze a trail for both Tucker Carlson and Jerry Springer. We will do an episode on him someday because he's a very influential guy. Absolutely. But his for today he matters because his firing, number one, his success proved that being a purposefully controversial right wing bigot was really profitable for radio station. And because when he got fired, Sacramento had a hole in the station's roster that they needed to fill with another. Racist right wing ********. Just one who was not quite as racist as Morton Downey junior Rush Limbaugh stepped up and said not being quite as racist as that guy is my middle name. For now. For now, eventually I will be much worse. So Rush Limbaugh moved to Sacramento. When he started at the station, his new boss, Woodruff, told him we want controversy, but don't make it up. If you actually think something, if you actually believe it, you can tell people why will back you up. But if you're going to say stuff just to make people mad, if all you want to do is rabble rouse, if all you want to do is offend and get noticed, that's not what we're interested in and we won't back you up. He was clearly lying. I think this was asked covering by the station, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But they would never would never, ever push back on his bigotry. But you know who does push back on bigotry? Paul adds. Yeah, the products and services that support this podcast. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for none of that. For anyone who hates their phone Bill, Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just $15.00 a month. Mint Mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying. Or for a family. And it meant family start at 2 lines. All plans come with unlimited talk and text, plus high speed data delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can use your own phone with any mint mobile plan and keep your same phone number along with all your existing contacts. Just switch to Mint mobile and get premium wireless service starting at 15 bucks a month. Get premium wireless service from just $15.00 a month, and no one expected plot twists at mintmobile.com/behind. That's mintmobile.com/behind. Seriously, you'll make your wallet. Very happy at Mint Mobilcom behind. Now a word from our sponsor that our help. If you're having trouble stuck in your own head, focusing on problems dealing with depression, or just, you know can't seem to get yourself out of a rut, you may want to try therapy. And better help makes it very easy to get therapy that works with your lifestyle and your schedule. A therapist can help you become a better problem solver, which can make it easier to accomplish your goals, no matter how big or small they happen to be. So if you're thinking of giving therapy. Try better help is a great option. It's convenient, accessible, affordable, and it is entirely online. You can get matched with a therapist after filling out a brief survey, and if the therapist that you get matched with doesn't wind up working out, you can switch therapists at any time when you want to be a better problem solver therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com behind today to get 10% off your first month. That's better helpp.com/behind. Better help calm behind. Hey, Robert Evans here. It's been like two months since I got LASIK laser eye surgery and my vision is still 2020. So many things about my daily life has changed. I don't have to worry about putting on a mask and my glasses fogging up and have to take out contacts at night or put them in the day. I don't have to, like, worry all the time when I'm traveling. Like, how many contacts do I have if I go swimming at the lake during the summer? Something I like to do, go to the beach or whatever. I don't have to worry about losing a contact or, you know, bringing swimming glasses or something with me. Everything is just easier. And getting it done was easy too. You know. I went in, I had my consultation. They told me I was a good candidate. And then I went back in a couple of days later about a Bing bada boom. You know, my eyes were perfect. So LASIK Plus is a leader in laser vision correction in the United States. They have over 20 years in the industry and more than two million treatments performed. If you want to start your LASIK plus journey, you can get $1000 off when treated in September. That's 500 per eye. So visit my LASIK offer. Dot com to schedule your free consultation now. So we're back, and at this point Rush Limbaugh has launched himself as a A A right wing shock jock and he is an instant hit Zieve, Chaffetz writes quote. The station let him go on the air solo, unencumbered by sidekicks or guests, and encouraged his highly personal right wing monologues. For the first time in his career, he was marketed heavily and aggressively. There were billboards around town showing a finger hitting a button, captioned how would you like to punch Rush Limbaugh? Rush was so pleased by these that he sent Brian a snapshot. Morton Downey Junior had been a big star in Sacramento with A5 share of the market, 5% of people listening to the radio. In a given 15 minute segment, Limbaugh tripled. That he was sharp edged but good humored. The new morning host espouses many of the same beliefs of his predecessor, Morton Downey junior, reported the Sacramento Bee. But he skates a little further from the edge of the hole in the ice. Rush was rewarded for his success with a 6 figure salary, an estimable income in the mid 1980s even by his father's standards. More important, for the first time in his life, he really mattered. He was invited to deliver speeches, just like big rush. He was an occasional commentator on television and wrote newspaper columns, politicians and celebrities. Brought him out. He and Michelle, his wife at the time, bought a new house and furnished it with products he he endorsed on air. So he's a hit. You know, this is the start of and it's really just almost straight up from there for his the rest of his career. Right. He finds his niche and he runs with it. Yeah. Again, he's a he's a very intelligent, talented man. Yeah. Anybody else still find the big rush part really funny? It is very funny. It's it's it's very fun. An hour in, it's still funny. Now, I have long argued that Sacramento is the very mouth of hell itself, and the fact that Rush Limbaugh first saw success as a right wing firebrand there serves to support my hypothesis again. His conscious decision as an entertainer was to be a satirical version of a right wing polemicist, deliberately exaggerating the things he did believe for comedic effect. The audience thought he was funny, but I don't think they got the joke, and there is some evidence for this when an Ohio evangelist police say there's a. A lot. A lot of evidence, yeah. So I think the the earliest evidence for this, I should say, is when an Ohio evangelist very publicly claimed that the theme song from Mr Ed held a satanic message when played backwards. You know, we're kind of talking about the satanic panic. During this rush found this ridiculous. And again, he had a long history of mocking the the evangelical religious right. So when he heard this, he told his listeners that a Slim Whitman recording also contained a backwards message of from Satan. Zeev Chafetz writes that, to his delight, many Limbaugh listeners took Limbaugh. Got his word and flooded the station with phone calls promising to destroy their Slim Whitman albums to keep the Devil out of the house. Rush considered this a hilarious plank prank. He did not apologize or as far as I know, correct the record. So we see in this he's joking, right? He is not he again, his whole history is mocking these people. Yeah, he does not believe this, but he doesn't correct people because it gets he realizes, oh, they're engaged. They're destroying stuff. That means I have power, right? I think he even found it. Kind of. It might have been. Something that kind of addicted him to this, this idea that, like, I can make, even if I'm deliberately being absurd and lying, I can make people take action based on those absurdities. That's gotta be addictive. And I I think it is for him it is absolutely undeniable. And and especially like if you spent time on Twitter and if you've ever been like I have on occasion, deliberately stupid on Twitter and gotten sincere replies to something that is so obviously a joke, so obviously a joke. Absolutely is fun. There's no way around that. There's no way around that. Seeing people take you at your word when you say something that's so patently absurd is it's joyful. It does give you like a real jolt. And there's a, this is a bit of a different case, but I think there's some similarities. So last summer, you know, I was covering a lot of the protests in Portland, OR, including doing a lot of live streaming. And very early on they, they, the police put a fence up around the police station and there would be marches where like a couple of 1000 people would March to the fence and somebody would like touch the fence and the police would tear gas like 6 square blocks of traffic. And I started calling it the sacred fence. And the joke, like the comment that I was making is that the police are endangering. Lives of thousands of citizens to protect a a fence, right? Because it's sacred to them, right? Yeah. That went viral within the city. And there were dozens of protests at the sacred fence, as everyone called it, including numerous attempts to tear it down. And I know that the way that I framed it had a significant impact on a lot of people getting hurt, damaging a fence, getting arrested. And it it it was both kind of intoxicating, and it also scared the hell out of me. It was one of the reasons why I pulled back. To some extent on some aspects of my coverage because I got really worried about the kind of impact that you can have on people by doing that sort of thing. I didn't want to be. It was very concerning to me. But it was also I'd be lying if I said there wasn't an element of it that I wanted to do more stuff like that and I I didn't, but I wanted to, you know, but and that's that that is the key, the key difference of you know, you seeing something that catches catches fire in a forgive the the phrasing, but catch fire. In a in a charged situation, and how easily people can glom onto something when everything's so churned up and then realizing like, ohh, words have power, I have to be careful rather than words have power. Here we go, here we go. Let's use it to sell gold. Yeah, so. Russia's domestic life. While he's enduring all of this professional success, his domestic life, life with his. I think she was his second. I think she was his third wife, actually. I don't know. He had a couple. He had a lot of wives, I think. Actually, no, this was his second wife. His domestic wife. Life with his second wife at this. Was less than joyful. He was famous and popular, constantly feted for dinners and invited to big events. And his wife, Michelle, was much less successful. She quit her job to be his assistant, but she hated the work. God, she horrible. It's a nightmare. That's great. That gives me the EEG. Yeah. Yeah. They were not a good fit. Michelle loved the outdoors. Rush Limbaugh despised them. Two of his colleagues tell a story from around this time of how they convinced him to go rafting once. That, I think, is telling about Rush Limbaugh's personality. So this is one of Russia's friends talking about at the time they took Rush Limbaugh on a on a rafting trip in whatever river it is that goes through Sacramento, quote. It's a very, very mild ride. Bob gave Russian Ore and told him to observe. Ohh, you're gonna really love this if I love the opening they yeah. You have to know before I start the story. You have to know this. We're on a baby river. Yeah, yeah. Bob gave Russian Orr and told him to absorb the blow of the Canyon wall to give us a little spring back into the current rush. Panicked, stuck the ore out, his arm stiff as a board and upon impact he fell overboard. We got rushed back in the raft and the next day he spent the entire 3 hours of his show. Talking about his horrendous whitewater grapple with the grim Reaper. What a ******* baby. Ohh. I've had people ******* shoot at me and I've had people show me with artillery and I've never spent three hours talking about it. We ******* baby. Yeah. Ohh. So Sacramento is where Limbaugh started picking up what would become a voluminous list of mostly self-inflicted nicknames. He was El Rushbo the all knowing, all caring, all sense of sensing, Maho Rushi. He was also a harmless little fuzzball and the epitome of morality and virtue. He started claiming that his show was hosted by the EIB, or Excellence in Broadcasting Network, which did not exist. This joke mainly served as a vehicle for rush to express his grandiosity. He declared himself on the cutting edge edge of societal evolution, swore that he was serving humanity and had himself introduced as having talent on loan from God. His opinions were quote, documented to be almost always right 97.9% of the time by the Sullivan Group, which also did not exist. And again, he's joking. And also at a certain point he starts meaning all of this very literally, yes, right. Like that's kind of how narcissists. So it may surprise people to know that rush to hear that Rush Limbaugh's career was launched into the stratosphere in Sacramento because California is, to most people outside of California at least, a bastion of liberal politics. Now you actually live and spend time in the state, you know, like for example, if you've ever been to ******* I don't know what is that Orange County, right? Or if you've been up near Redding, there's a **** look like there are more right wing Californians than there are right wingers than there are in like a number of U.S. states. Right. Like California has a ton of right wingers, and it has a long, powerful conservative political tradition. California gave us Ronald Reagan. It gave us Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, in one of the most surreal turns in political history, is now among the only rational voices on the right in the United States. Yeah. So yeah, California has a powerful right wing. And yes, they are, especially in the last 20 something years, overwhelmed by the much more numerous liberals and leftists. But in this fact is one of the hints to rush Limbaugh's rise. You see, Sacramento is located kind of north of the center of California, not far from some of the most productive farmland in the country. It is also not far from North Central California places like Redding, which are right wing strongholds. The Conservatives who live in these areas tend to be very extreme in their beliefs. And that's partly a response to the liberal and left wing like government that they live under. They see, and this is not, they are not entirely or even largely wrong in seeing this. They see themselves as oppressed by many of the rules liberals in the cities put in terms of things like gas taxes. Right. If you're living in, if you're a farmer, you know, in central or Northern California, a gas tax that is reasonable for people in LA, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento is a a hardship on you and you're not contributing to the kind of pollution in the cities that the gas taxes are meant to fight. You know, the strict gun laws and stuff it there. There's a lot of things reasons these people have to be angry. And Rush Limbaugh became their voice. So these, these, this kind of infuriated very radical right wing who hates the Liberals and left that govern California have a voice in Rush Limbaugh. He obliges their sensibilities with a ceaseless stream of attacks on liberal California. And that's what makes him huge is because there's millions of right wingers in California. And Rush Limbaugh becomes like, yeah, he's their voice, you know? It it it you could. You might even be able to argue that nowhere but California could have produced Rush Limbaugh as he became yeah, so I'm going to quote from the book Rush Limbaugh and army of 1 here. He mocked the multicultural style of California by proposing to keep Uglow Americans off the streets. Militant feminists became feminazis, the green movement was full of environmental wackos, the American left became commie pinko liberals, and the residents of Rio, Linda, CA were synonymous with stupidity. A ringing delete, delete, delete introduced news updates on what he regarded as the absurdities of liberal activism. Liberals, of course, hated him, which he found inspiring. When they attacked him as a dimwit, he responded by claiming that he was so much smarter than his critics that he could Vanquish them with half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair. Before long, Rush was too big to stay in Sacramento, which is again the very mouth of Hell itself. He was introduced to Ed McLaughlin, the former head of ABC Radio who had started his own big radio. Company based out of New York City, McLaughlin had listened to Russia's show and decided it had the potential to go national. He offered Russia partnership and after some haggling, Russia greed. He moved to New York and made the EIB network a reality. Rush was 37 years old at this point in 21 years into a career of doing almost nothing but broadcasting on the radio again. The voice of the so-called Populist American right never did anything but radio. Really? Yeah, in 1988. We launched a new version of the Rush Limbaugh show, this time for an audience across the nation. It's sort of hard to find his stuff from the late 1980s, but I found this guest appearance he did not long after in 1991 on another colleague show for the same network. It gives you an idea of where his radio personality was by this point and of how he presented himself, right, of how he kind of introduced himself anytime he was coming on the air. So that's that's we're gonna play this now. This is kind of the birth of the Rush Limbaugh we all know. We all know now one of radio's great broadcasters, and he's with us today in the studio, invited him Rush Limbaugh this morning. Thrilled. It's about time. You know, I smoke a little dope to get ready for this in here, and I'm ready to go. Man. Type one goal. Type one brain behind your back. Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair. Well, I'll tell you one thing as I use my talent on loan from God. Man, I heard you got a little loan from ABC captains when you renegotiate your contract. No, I loan them some money and I brought you a gift. Los Angeles Times. Great. Have a good time. Well, I wowed them there, didn't I? Nice to have a big article on how you flopped in the New York Times 6 minutes before 9:00. O'clock you started out with just as like a small group of stations on your start with 56, an hour of 337 with the weekly audience about six and a half million. Average quarter hour come of 1,000,000 seven. Most listened to radio talk show in America and that means the universe. That's that's Rush Limbaugh at kind of when he he goes viral for them. What do you think about that, about that, how he presents himself on here? What does that say to you? It's so. Is so the the fully formed version of him that yeah that I first experienced and like he's really going for it like he's really, he's really like he's so aggressive in it and and like saying I'm going to come like clearly the the intention is. I'm gonna come on your show, and I'm gonna take it over and I'm gonna. I'm gonna be the, the, the, the. I'm gonna be the alpha here. I'm gonna dominate you with this the the LA the present presentation of the LA Times is because why that guy got fired from the LA Times. Yeah. I mean, like, no, I think he he'd been in Los Angeles and they savaged him in a review. Right, right, right. OK. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's you know, it's that frankly, it's like it's all the **** that I hate. Yeah. Yeah, it is, it is, it's it's so it's it's aggressive, it's mean, it's, you know it. It's he's also correcting him on one of his, you know, 8 catch phrases. You know, you have to get a ride. I say it like this every time. This is the way it goes, you know, it's just it's a drag, it's a drag, it's it's a drag. It's also I think there's a thing that he's doing here when we talk about all these phrases. Half my brain tied behind my back. Uh, you know the. I've got all these different phrases that were that he he continuously used for decades. I I don't wanna, I don't know. I hope this doesn't seem a little pompous, but I I kind of make a comparison between that and like the Iliad and the Odyssey, right this like the way that anytime you've got Homer introducing it's always like, you know the there, there's certain phrases. And anytime Achilles comes up he uses the same kind of phrases, same couple of phrases to introduce him, these descriptive phrases to introduce a character that are repeated constantly throughout the because it's a because it was a spoken story, right. That's supposed to deliver it. That works. It gets in people's heads. They associate those phrases with those characters. Russia's kind of do. This is an old tactic, but it works. It's the same thing Trump does with his impulse insults. Crooked Hillary, right? Sleepy Joe. These are effective tactics. And that's what Russia's doing to to inculcate his followers primarily with this idea that he is a genius. Right? And it again, he's joking, but he's also not because this **** buries itself in your brain. He's he's. He's knows what he's doing. It's it's he's a very savvy person. Yeah it's like when you when you people like that that that understand the the importance of branding over having an actual thing to say like it honestly it the the what you what the content is secondary to the presentation of here's who I am I'm going to tell you through repetition this is my whole thing. It's like they're you know, comics that to me it always makes me think of comedians that majored in marketing. In college. Yeah. And then it's like, OK, but are they actually that funny or did they just are, are they able to really sell themselves so well? You know, that that the content is secondary to the image. You, you have two kinds of people who really are able to build a following. You know, people who are able to build a following because folks genuinely just enjoy that, the work that they're bringing into the world. They like their personality. They like what they're doing. And then you have folks who are able to build a following primarily because they do cult leadership, right? Yeah. That's the. That's what the marketing comedians, right. That's what. Yeah, this is cult leadership. This is how you do it. Yeah, we do a little bit of that here, but look, we're all guilty a little. We're all guilty a little bit. And I'll be guiltier when I get, I don't know, a couple of 100 people killed by the FDA in my mountain top compound, which I, you know, is always the goal. Paul, you're very welcome. If you would like to have an armed standoff with the. It's how you know you're successful. That's how you know you're successful. When a three letter agency burns you down by anyway. I don't need to Waco this time. Yeah, I wanna do love. EPA. I want the EPA to get this stamped. That's a good one. Yeah. Wow. I'm so impressed. Maybe we could took an almost an hour 20 for Robert to mention Waco. Good job. Yeah, I'm getting you know I I realized that was Waco going a lot trying to cut back. You know get a little less Waco in the diet and here he is. First Waco. But we'll we'll we'll talk off air Paul, about synergizing our cults in the near future anyway. So Rush did not tone himself down at all after. Who went mainstream? In fact, he grew more extreme, and he seems to have quickly forgotten that he was ever practicing satire. In 1990, at the very height of the AIDS crisis, Rush launched a new segment on his show, the AIDS update. And I find it interesting how different sources report on this. Yeah, when Limbaugh died, it was obviously a a big story. The fact that he done this AIDS update, and it was in fact Limbaugh AIDS update was like the second or third most Googled term alongside his name the day he died. Snopes and Newsweek both published prominent. Fact checks on this story, but see if Chaffetz's biography of Limbaugh came out well before Russia's death and before the AIDS updates were really talked about. All that much outside of, you know, the Community they most impacted and not. I think it's interesting how Zieve wrote about it, not knowing that this was one going, one day going to become a significant story. So this is how Zieve wrote about the AIDS update after an act up demonstration at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City that disrupted a mass Limbaugh chastised militant homosexuals for their disrespectful behavior and shortly thereafter. And broadcasting irreverent and tasteless aides update segments produce introduced by Dionne Warwick's. I'll never love this way again. In his traveling stage show the Excellence in Broadcasting tour, he did a bit when he put a condom over the microphone to illustrate safe speech. So that's how the AIDS update was kind of framed by Zieve before it was a big story. Now here's how Snopes characterized it in their Fact Check after Limbaugh died. And I think it's and before that. But like already that doesn't sound good. That no, it didn't. I don't think Steve is trying to whitewash. Yeah, I think. That he just doesn't see it as a big story. Yeah, even just plainly stated. That is, it's terrible. Yeah, it's terrible. Yeah. And it sounds worse when Snopes goes into more detail on this. Yeah. Quote. At the height of the HIV AIDS crisis, the Rush Limbaugh show featured an AIDS update in which Limbaugh joked about an epidemic that had claimed more than 100,000 lives between 1981 and 1990. Specifically, Limbaugh targeted gay men who had died. In addition to joking about their deaths. Limbaugh reportedly played songs during the segment, including kiss him goodbye, I'll never love this way again and looking for love in all the wrong places, snopes.com uncovered an interview in the Cedar Gazette from 1990 in which Limbaugh said the segment was politically oriented and based upon my reaction. What I consider to be extremism in the political mainstream by a group of people. Per The Cedar Gazette, Limbaugh said his target is not AIDS victims, but militant homosexuals who blame church and government officials for the epidemic. The AIDS update is meant to offend them, Limbaugh said. Damn right. According to a 1998 Los Angeles Times article, it was a popular segment, but it also created outrage among AIDS activists, something not helped by Limbaugh repeat reportedly saying gays deserved their fate. Mocking the horrific deaths of gay people isn't something that will get a conservative. Video host fired today, so obviously this was never more than a mild bump in Limbaugh's career back in 1990. And it says a lot about where the right would go that a segment dedicated to mocking joyfully the deaths of people he disagreed with was popular, right? That would become the mainstream for Republicans now. In 1990, it was still a thing he had to apologize for, and that year is the year he became officially famous. 1990. He had his first live TV appearance on June 2nd when C-SPAN did a special on talk radio. And yeah, so this is like he he does kind of have to sort of say that he regretted doing this, that he felt like he was kind of attacking people who like he. He was like, I didn't mean to be mocking people who had died. I was trying to attack these militant activists. And so I stopped to work. So far. Still alive. Yeah. Yeah. Who are so far still alive for the moment, yeah. Anyway, that. So he does a TV appearance on C-SPAN in 1990 on June 2nd, which is kind of his first big TV. Appearance and then the New York Times is a big profile on him. From that quote, with its characteristic attention to production values, the network simply set up a camera inside a spare WBC 77 studio in New York and let the self-proclaimed most dangerous man in America role cut to a schlub in a cheap white dress shirt, black tie, and hastily Barber shop helmet of hair already wiping sweat and grumbling about the TV lights planted behind his desk and mic, interrupting the station's young newscaster Kathleen Mahoney. She's trying to do her five minute top of the hour update. Oddly for 1990, while wearing a mask because, as she explains, the host had warned her it could be dangerous to let his listeners identify her on TV as a liberal feminist. He was only joking, Limbaugh insists. You said wear a bag over my head, Maloney says. Limbaugh keeps threatening to yank her mask off, complimenting her beauty and interjecting impatiently. The news just holds up everything here. I'm trying to make the news worthwhile. There's a lot in there. Jesus Christ. That's his. That's a New York Times reported as a span appearance. Yeah, he's like both saying you should cover your face because my listeners will harass you for being a liberal feminist and also take off that mask. Let everyone see your pretty face like he's he's simultaneously both threatening her and and sexually harassing her. It's wild that that it's good. It it seems there's something about that that seems so modern. Do you know what I mean? Yes. Yes. Yeah. That could he because he he he brought he created the modern, right, you know? Yeah. So you can see it, you know, in 1990. That's what he's doing. Yeah. Now, 1990 is, as I said, also when the Gray lady published their first full feature dedicated to El Rushbo. The article is fascinating and valuable, since it seems like few copies of his early 1988 to 9192 episodes exist. So this New York Times right provides us with several fascinating insights into how Russia's show evolved during this. And more to the point into where American conservatism was about to follow in his wake. At one point, a critic calls in this is again the New York Times, writing about his show from an episode. We don't have anymore. So at one point in the show a critic calls in and tells Rush quote, I believe you are doing a great disservice by using the program to convince people that if poor people are not successful, it is their fault. You were just a paid advocate of the rich and you despise the poor. Now that's very accurate. The author of The New York Times article notes that perhaps due to his guilt over his crueler shock jock days, Russia's very polite to his liberal callers. And this is what the New York Times writes as Russia's answer. You misunderstand. End point there is nothing wrong with being rich. It's not evil. Most rich people earned it by virtue of hard work. This has always been the country that people come to because there has always been a chance for opportunity. And if you start punishing the people who bust their tail to be prosperous, then you're going to unmotivated people to try that. I am not a paid defender of the rich. I am a proud promoter of the American Way of life. Yeah, what are the? I guess that's a thing. You can just say that most rich people earned their money. Like, yeah, it's it's a it's objectively untrue. But yes, you can say that actively untrue. But I guess if you if you are born to wealth, but then you also get a job that makes you even wealthy, yeah, that's like, that's hard work. I mean, look at Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, all guys who were born too well, they were born crazy rich. They weren't born with **** you money, but they were born into wealth and then they were able to get **** you money because of the. He and there's a lot written about that. You know, Bill Gates having access to a computer in an era when basically no one did. Yeah. Bezos being able to secure a huge loan from his parents in order to help start his first business. Elon Musk also getting a loan from his dad to start a business. You know, it's the way it always works for these people. And they they spin that as self-made, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Because in their mind it's true. Because in their mind it's true and they do work hard. And if you work hard, you can convince yourself that you've earned it as opposed to like, I worked hard, but it only like I can say. I worked hard. I can also say I am only financially successful because I got lucky and I know other people who worked as hard as I did who have not been nearly as financially successful. And it's not because of a lack of talent. It's because I gotta break that they didn't. You know that. And leaving, leaving that, leaving that part out is how you were able to convince other people that that that the majority of people who are the majority of people are wealthy, did through hard work. Yeah, it's nonsense. So that New York Times piece reveals that by 1990, Rush was already popular enough to draw massive in person crowds, and this was unheard of for a talk radio personality. Today we're well acquainted with right wing thought leaders who can draw thousands upon thousands of fanatically loyal followers to in person gatherings. But Rush was really the first from the Times quote. There are towns where he is unheard of, unheard and unheard of. And then there are places like Tampa where the announcement of a Rush Limbaugh stage show sold out the 2200 seat. With Eckerd Hall in four days, the occupants of those seats are out of them and cheering when Limbaugh appears in a three piece tuxedo. They're like the crowd for a country Western concert, says Dan Wooley, the halls director of operations, after sizing up the crowd in the lobby. Surprisingly youthful and more beer than wine drinkers. You're gonna have fun tonight, Limbaugh tells them. And at the same time you're gonna learn some things. Pacing constantly, he does some jokes that poke fun at the Japanese and the liberal media. One of his jokes is that Judgment Day comes and the Washington Post article banner reads World ends tomorrow. Women, minorities, hardest hit. It's like, that's the, you know, you see what he's going for there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See what he's going for? Sure. Yeah. Later in his live show, Russia engaged in a popular bit wherein he brings a ***** ** **** to a modern art gallery. And the joke is that, like, modern art is so dumb that if you, like, poop and take, like, right, you, it's very obvious. This is it. You can find Ben Shapiro making the same. Basic joke decades later and the the gist of it is that gist of it is that you know liberals are so dumb they'll stare at **** if you tell them it's art. The Times introduces this bit and then moves on to something that I found chillingly relevant. Quote art criticism is a Limbaugh staple. He believes there is a culture war going on between those upholding decent values, conservatives and the kami Lib hordes trying to devalue human life and worst, undermine private enterprise. Limbaugh Sermon on Art brings out the evening's only heckling A female cry of. Censorship? Ohh No, Limbaugh protests. He never spoke that word. But seconds later, he allows that. Censorship isn't really so bad. It has been used throughout this nation's history as a means of maintaining standards. What? Ohh, doesn't means of maintaining standards, yeah. What the **** is he talking about? What he's talking about is threading the needle that the right is now the sit like right the mate I went to, I was in *******. I I took a concealed handgun course in Texas because I'm getting my out of state permit so I can be armed in more parts of the United States because of all that is like going to cooking school in Paris. Yeah well, and and the thing started with like a 30 minute lecture. From the instructor on cancel culture like this is the big thing within the right. I know, I know, I know. Wow. This is the big thing within the right now and it it Limbaugh is starting both like saying like well the Liberals wanna like censor us, wanna wanna cut out all ideas they disagree with and then he put he moves on to saying but also it's OK to censor people sometimes right? Because this is what the right believes it's cancel culture if you if people don't like it and if they suffer financial consequences for being racist. But it's not cancel culture if they go out of their way to censor left wing and liberal voices, which they do through things like school books right now. Objectively true. Well documented. This is how the right works. Absolutely. I know no one listening is gonna disagree, but it's frustrating, but it is, it is absurd. The idea of of, you know, like it's it's cancel culture if you if you compare. Being conservative to being a Jew in 19 late 1930s Berlin to like, it should be illegal to give the finger to the flag. Yeah. It's amazing. And that, Paul, is the end of part one of what is going to be like 3 hours of talking about Rush Limbaugh. Wow. Way more time than he deserves. But Howard, he had to do it. I mean, he deserves this much time. Not in a good way, but in a we need to understand what this man has done to us all. Absolutely. And it's also if you're, if you're willing to go to bat for Rush Limbaugh because you think it's mean that somebody is glad that he's dead. Let's lay it all out. And here's here's why some people might, might not be so sad that a human life has been loss of evidence. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Evidence both that he deserves to have his death cheered and also that he loved laughing at people's deaths. Yeah. Yeah. You're honoring him in a way. Yeah, you are. You are. It's what he would have wanted. But you know what I want right now, Paul? I want you to plug your plug cables. Well, let's see if you can find me on social media at PF Tompkins. On Twitter and Instagram, I have a bunch of podcasts going on at any given time. Freedom. Which I closed with Lauren Lapkus and Scott Ackerman and stay off Hopkins, which I co-host with my wife. We started a podcast during the pandemic and unfortunately we are still doing it. And I do. I do shows the first live streaming improv shows the first Monday of every month with my friend Lauren Lapkus, and that all those tickets can be found at all F tompkins.com/live. Awesome. Well, Speaking of cancel culture, this episode is now over and thus cancelled because of the libs. It it's it's done. Bye bye. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams, let's break or handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization. Of your podcast, go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Hey, I don't know less. Listen to stuff you should know more. Join host Josh and Chuck on the podcast packed with fascinating discussions about science, history, pop culture, and more episodes. Dive into topics like was the lost, city of Atlantis Real? And how does pizza work? Say goodbye to I don't know. Because after listening to stuff you should know. You will listen to stuff you should know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Alex. 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