Rush Limbaugh, a chat radio pioneer who saturated America’s airwaves with merciless bigotries, lies and conspiracy theories for over three many years, amassing a loyal viewers of tens of millions and remodeling the Republican Party within the course of, has died, his spouse revealed at the beginning of his show on Wednesday. He was 70 years outdated.
Limbaugh introduced in February 2020 that he had been recognized with superior stage 4 lung most cancers.
Former President Donald Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the course of the 2020 State of the Union, calling Limbaugh “the greatest fighter and winner you will ever meet.”
Perhaps no second higher encapsulated Limbaugh’s legacy, nor demonstrated the immense affect he got here to wield in Washington.
The medal was a simply reward: Trump’s ascension to the presidency couldn’t have occurred with out Limbaugh’s model of right-wing media.
The trendy Republican get together usually functioned with Limbaugh as a fulcrum. President Barack Obama’s former chief of workers, Rahm Emanuel, once called Limbaugh “the voice and intellectual force of the Republican Party.” Limbaugh would at instances therapeutic massage the failures of the get together and its leaders, dismissing apparent coverage or political failures as merely a part of liberal conspiracies.
But he additionally helped set the agenda. When a Republican politician selling racist and sexist insurance policies may solely use a canine whistle, Limbaugh supplied a bull horn — he was, for instance, an early progenitor of the racist birther conspiracy principle about Obama that Trump would later use to gasoline his political profession.
For many years, Limbaugh was related to the far-right fringes of the Republican Party. In 1995, solely days after Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal constructing in Oklahoma City, President Bill Clinton issued a blistering attack at a speech in Minneapolis through which he mentioned the “nation’s airwaves … spread hate, they leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable. … It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior.”
Limbaugh vehemently protested the characterization, assuming that it was about him — which in all chance it was. “Make no mistake about it: Liberals intend to use this tragedy for their own political gain,” he mentioned on the radio afterward.
People did take up Clinton’s cost to talk in opposition to Limbaugh’s type of “reckless speech and behavior,” however with out a lot success. While remaining a controversial determine and at instances struggling promoting boycotts and derision from the mainstream media, lower than 25 years, moderately than be condemned by one other American president, Limbaugh was given a medal.
Decades Of Hate
A full accounting of Limbaugh’s lies and exaggerations; his racism and his misogyny; his homophobia and his Islamophobia; and his sheer cruelty may fill books — and have — however even a cursory overview of his lowlights makes his prejudice clear.
In 2003, he was pressured to resign from ESPN after stating that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was solely receiving reward as a result of the media was “very desirous that a Black quarterback do well.” In 2004, Limbaugh mentioned the NBA ought to be renamed the T.B.A. —“the Thug Basketball Association.” He then added: “Stop calling them teams. Call ’em gangs.” He equally whined that watching the NFL was like watching “a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.”
Once, after arguing with a Black man who known as into his present, he told the caller to “take that bone out of your nose and call me back.“ Another time, Limbaugh asked his audience, “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?” whereas discussing the Black civil rights activist and politician. Limbaugh as soon as ludicrously asserted that “if any race of people should not have guilt about slavery, it’s Caucasians.” He invited a visitor on air who sang “Barack, the Magic Negro” to the tune of “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” In 2016, he read an essay on air that had been penned by a widely known white supremacist.
Limbaugh’s radio profession was additionally one lengthy train in misogyny, maybe finest summed up by his thesis that “feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.”
In one in all his most notorious episodes, he known as Georgetown University legislation scholar Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” in 2012 after she testified in Congress in regards to the significance of girls gaining access to contraception.
Nearly each marginalized group or minority bore the brunt of Limbaugh’s bigotry. Once, whereas talking in regards to the genocide of America’s indigenous peoples, Limbaugh said, “Holocaust 90 million Indians? Only 4 million left? They all have casinos, what’s to complain about?”
Limbaugh regularly mirrored white nationalist speaking factors when discussing Latino immigrants, whom he described as lazy and depending on the federal government. He called migrants at America’s southern border an “invasion.”
An opponent of marriage equality — which he suggested was “perverted” and “depraved” — Limbaugh argued in 2016 that legalizing homosexual marriage would result in bestiality. “What happens if you love your dog?” he mentioned. He as soon as referred to transgender folks as being mentally unwell.
Throughout the Nineteen Eighties and ’90s, Limbaugh additionally regularly denigrated those that had been HIV optimistic, saying one of the best ways to cease the unfold of the virus was to (*70*) He spoke out in opposition to federal funding to struggle the virus too, calling it the “only federally protected virus.”
His Father’s Son
Limbaugh’s journey to turning into one in all America’s foremost bigots started in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the place he was born to a distinguished native political household on January 12, 1951. His father, a lawyer and Republican activist, would sternly lecture about politics within the residence and rant in opposition to communism. Limbaugh later known as his father “the smartest man I ever met.”
At age 14, Limbaugh says his dad and mom purchased him a Remco Carevelle hi fi, which enabled him to broadcast on AM channels inside a couple of hundred sq. ft of his home. In highschool, Limbaugh labored as a DJ at KGMO, a neighborhood radio station co-owned by his father.
“Even when I was a little boy, I dreamed of being on the radio,” Limbaugh advised biographer Ze’ev Chafetts. “In the mornings getting ready for school I’d hear the guy on the radio, and he just sounded free and happy, like he was having a wonderful time. That’s what I wanted, too.”
Limbaugh enrolled at Southeast Missouri State University however dropped out after a 12 months to pursue a profession in radio. Throughout the Seventies, he labored at totally different radio stations in Missouri and Pennsylvania however was usually fired after clashing with administration. He finally landed a gradual on-air gig in Sacramento, California, earlier than getting employed to host his personal present at WABC in New York, which remained his flagship station all through a lot of his profession.
As his fame rose, Limbaugh favored to clarify his success by claiming he had “talent on loan from God,” nevertheless it was a Reagan-era Federal Communications Commission coverage shift that allowed Limbaugh to achieve nationwide infamy and create the mildew for contemporary right-wing media stardom. In 1987, the FCC abolished the decades-old Fairness Doctrine which mandated that TV and radio broadcasters current each side of controversial points. This meant that stations had been now not required to characteristic opposing views, and as a substitute radio hosts like Limbaugh may spend hours spouting off right-wing fallacies with out problem.
Decades earlier than on-line extremists and pro-Trump trolls used memes and ironic detachment to make their far-right beliefs appear much less repugnant, Limbaugh’s employed the identical technique. He popularized cartoonish phrases resembling “Commie-Libs” and “Feminazi,” whereas additionally claiming that abortion represented a “modern day Holocaust.” He used mocking voices and affectations as he belittled girls’s rights, Black activists and the homosexual neighborhood. His persona as an absurd blowhard gave audiences an excuse to brush off Limbaugh’s mainstreaming of far-right views as a part of an act — simply Rush being Rush, or El Rushbo, as he was usually known as.
Becoming A National Star
The finish of the Fairness Doctrine allowed for Limbaugh’s model of unhinged right-wing rhetoric and shock jock persona to turn out to be a media phenomenon. By 1990, his nationally syndicated present aired on 300 stations ― a quantity that greater than doubled over the subsequent 4 years.
Limbaugh’s rise turned him right into a ubiquitous cultural determine within the Nineteen Nineties. Limbaugh’s voice echoed for hours a day on syndicated radio stations across the nation; he appeared on journal covers and in newspaper profiles. His success made him right into a curiosity for the mainstream media, however little of the protection correctly grappled with what Limbaugh was doing to radicalize his listeners.
As his radio viewers grew, Limbaugh obtained his personal half-hour tv present on Fox in 1992 and created a prototype for prime time opinion reveals hosted by proper wing pundits like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. The present’s govt producer was Limbaugh’s longtime buddy Roger Ailes, who would go on to launch Fox News in 1996 and run it for twenty years till he was fired for widespread sexual harassment.
Limbaugh’s political affect made him beloved amongst Republican Party elites. When the GOP received the House for the primary time in 40 years in 1994, Republicans known as him the “majority maker.” At then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s victory get together, they sold “Rush Limbaugh for President!” T-shirts.
But Limbaugh by no means totally tied his destiny to anybody politician, at all times staying centered on his personal success above all else. “I don’t define my success by who wins elections, because politicians are going to come and go, and I’m going to be around as long as I choose to be,” Limbaugh advised Time Magazine in 2008.
Like any profitable proper wing media star, Limbaugh had a monetary angle behind his vitriol and an urge for food to heart himself in controversies. He turned his infamy into excessive wealth: In 2008, he signed an an eight-year deal for his present value round $400 million. He purchased a non-public jet and a fleet of luxurious automobiles to usher him from place to put.
“I wanted to be the reason people listened,” Limbaugh advised The New York Times in 1990. “That’s how you pad your pocket.”
While he claimed to characterize the views of the common American, Limbaugh lived for years as a caricature of an East Coast elite in his luxurious rental overlooking Central Park in New York City. He bought the property in 2010 for $11.5 million, transferring primarily to a sprawling mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, the place he lived till his demise.
Meanwhile, Limbaugh used his platform to sentence insurance policies designed to truly assist working class Americans. He fervently opposed the enlargement of public well being care and mentioned an Obama-era health insurance program for low-income kids “ought to die.” He condemned taxes in opposition to the ultra-rich, resembling himself, and fled New York after the proposal of elevated taxes on millionaires.
In 2006, Limbaugh — regardless of as soon as saying that every one drug addicts ought to be convicted and “sent up the river” — struck a plea take care of prosecutors in Florida after being charged with prescription fraud. Limbaugh, who admitted to being an oxycodone addict, was accused of “doctor shopping,” the act of intentionally deceiving physicians as a way to obtain a number of prescriptions. Although Limbaugh had beforehand advised his listeners that “too many whites are getting away with drug use” and will all be despatched to jail, Limbaugh prevented time behind bars himself, paying a $30,000 high quality and agreeing to remain clear.
The President’s Ear
Limbaugh was nonetheless the preferred radio host in America by the point of the 2016 election. Although initially supportive of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) in the course of the Republican major, he grew to become a staunch supporter of the eventual nominee, Donald Trump. Limbaugh might be counted on to help the president throughout a few of the most disgraceful episodes of Trump’s sole time period within the White House.
In 2017 white supremacists, emboldened by Trump’s presidency, gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, for the “Unite The Rally” rally, the most important such gathering in a technology. A neo-Nazi rammed his automotive into counter-protesters on the rally, killing one individual. Trump initially refused to sentence the white supremacists, and Limbaugh swiftly got here to the president’s protection, blaming anti-racist activists for the violence.
It was a part of a sample for Limbaugh, who repeatedly tried to downplay white supremacists throughout Trump’s 4 years within the White House, a interval of rising far-right terror throughout the globe. After an avowed white supremacist massacred 51 Muslims inside two New Zealand mosques in 2019, Limbaugh speculated on air that the shooter “may in fact be a leftist” who shot Muslims “to smear” these on the appropriate.
Limbaugh was a detailed confidant of the president, and he and Trump went {golfing} collectively in Florida. The president typically known as into Limbaugh’s radio present, and Limbaugh claimed they spoke on the telephone weekly.
Their relationship culminated with Trump awarding Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the course of the State of the Union handle in February 2020. In his speech, Trump heralded Limbaugh as “a special man” who has impressed tens of millions of Americans by means of his “decades of tireless devotion to our country.” Limbaugh had introduced the day earlier than that he had lung most cancers.
The subsequent month, when the coronavirus pandemic started sweeping throughout the U.S., Limbaugh promoted conspiracy theories in regards to the virus and its demise toll. Despite that, Vice President Mike Pence, the pinnacle of the White House coronavirus process power, appeared on his present a number of instances throughout this era.
Limbaugh spent his remaining months on air downplaying the historic pandemic and spreading harmful medical misinformation, together with calling coronavirus “the common cold” and telling listeners “we have to remember that people die every day in America.”
On the day Limbaugh died, the coronavirus had killed greater than 488,000 Americans.
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