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RUSH: Here are the questions. Serious questions. No, I’ve got my own answers, but if I give you the answers… When I say what I think about something, there’s nothing left to be said, usually. So I’m opening these questions up. Do any of you think that the Republican presidential candidates and/or the Republican Party itself are being harmed by Donald Trump and his campaign, his behavior, his public persona today?

It’s a serious question. It’s not rhetorical. It’s not loaded. It’s just a genuine question I want you to ponder. Many of you probably already have. Do any of you think…? I can word it differently: “How many of you do not think…?” I can word it any way I want. There’s no trick here. I’m not trying to lead anybody to any opinion. I’m trying to extract genuine opinion. Do any of you think that Republican presidential candidates and/or the party itself are being harmed — the brand — by Donald Trump?


Here’s the next question: Are any of you surprised by the utter lack of any public protest, anger, uprising, against the assault on our traditional culture that was affirmed last week by decisions of the US Supreme Court? If you put it another way: What is your reaction to the apparent public acceptance of all of these seemingly overnight shifts in our culture and society? Why is there no objection, anger — uprising, if you will? Why does there seem to be practically blanket acceptance for all of this that ten years ago would be unthinkable?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Again, do any of you think that Republican presidential candidates or the party or both are being harmed by what Trump is doing? What he’s saying, how he’s saying it, where he’s saying it, not backing down. And the next question… This is, to me, an even larger question, although they’re both really curiosity points to me. Are you surprised by the seemingly total lack of anger, opposition, upset against this all-out assault on traditional/time-honored American culture?

Gay marriage, transgendered rights, whatever it is. Boy Scouts, bad. Everything else, good. It’s been going on for years now, and at every stage, there’s acquiescence. There isn’t had any uprising. There isn’t any anger. There isn’t any protests. There aren’t. Aside from some GoFundMe campaigns to raise money. I mean, you have a photographer’s store or bakery shop shut down, destroyed by the sewer on Twitter. And aside from the GoFundMe campaign on Twitter, there’s nothing else.

What is your reaction to the apparent public acceptance of all of this? Mitch McConnell is on TV, “Hey, gay marriage is the law of the land! We have to shut up and move on.” The left never reacts that way to anything that happens that they disagree with. They never accept “the law of the land.” If it’s the law of the land, they set about trying to change it or bully people to not living accordingly or what have you.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We’ll start with Silvana in San Diego. Glad you called. You’re up first. It’s good to have you, hi.


CALLER: Hi, I’ve been listening to your program since 2012 so I’m kind of new. But I love your program and you have really, really helped me a lot. Anyway, my answer for the Trump question is — and I’m an immigrant myself. I’m a legal immigrant to this country. He is wonderful. He is not inflicting any damage to the Republican Party that hasn’t been done so far by the Democrat Party itself, by the media, which I consider to be propaganda ministry. Goebbels would have been proud of the Democrat Party —

RUSH: Wait just a second. Silvana, you just uttered a profundity here and you just went by it so quickly. I don’t think you may know how profound what you just said is. He isn’t inflicting any damage on the Republican Party far less than what has already done by the media and the Democrat Party.

CALLER: Yes. And I also add to that group, the leadership of the Republican Party. I’m extremely disappointed with the leadership from Mr. McConnell and Mr. Boehner. We are wasting years. We have wasted years. They have done nothing for the party, but demoralize. I’m very demoralized because nothing seems to be working. And every time I look at the Republicans, they are on the defensive. You do not win fights by crouching down and always having a defensive posture. You have to go on the offensive.

And that is what Trump is doing. He is lifting people up. He is saying, “Hey, somebody out there is not afraid to tell it like it is.” And, by the way, I actually called the Macy’s yesterday. I left a message over there for their — they call it publicity department, I believe. And I told them, “First of all, he did not say anything that isn’t factual. Number two, you have a problem with the man who is using his freedom of speech to tell how he feels and what he thinks, but you don’t have a problem selling products from somebody else who was perhaps in prison for insider trading.”

RUSH: I’ll say, you’re pretty loaded here.

CALLER: I’ve been loading up for years.

RUSH: Let me ask you one quick question. You said you’re a legal immigrant. I would think people like you would be among the most angry of all the illegal immigrants.


CALLER: Yes, because we did everything by the book. There is a law and we followed the law.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: Now we see people just kind of waving and smiling and doing stuff —

RUSH: They know they’re gaming the system. They’re getting away with gaming the system. Well, look, I’m glad you called. You’re up first and you carried that flag extremely well. I’m very proud of you and honored to have you in this audience. That’s Silvana from San Diego, California.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

Earlier in the program, I asked the audience a couple questions. We’re taking phone calls from people. If you choose to address it, you’re more than welcome to. First question: Do you think the Republican Party, Republican presidential candidates are being harmed by Donald Trump? His behavior, his comments, his presidential campaign? Serious question. I’m not including my own opinion in that, so don’t infer anything. I seriously want to know what your thoughts are.

The next question: Are any of you surprised by what seems to be a total lack of any public protest or anger, and certainly there is no uprising, against what can only be described as a full-fledged assault on traditional American culture? It’s been going on for years but it codified last week. It came to a head with the Supreme Court finding a constitutional right to gay marriage, which is now opening the doors to any kind of perversion of the definition of marriage you can concoct. There doesn’t seem to be any public protest. There doesn’t seem to be any anger, certainly no uprising against it. What’s your reaction to that?

And along those lines, a story from TheBlaze.com. The headline is all I’ll give you now because I’m going to head to the phones. “The Shocking Proportion of Americans Who Believe That ‘Religious Institutions or Clergy’ Should Be Forced to Perform Gay Weddings.”

You don’t believe it?

“A new survey conducted in the wake of the Supreme CourtÂ’s legalization of same-sex marriage last Friday found that 19 percent — or one in five Americans — believe that ‘religious institutions or clergy should be required to perform same-sex marriages.’ More specifically, 26 percent of Americans under the age of 40 believe that churches and clergy should be forced to preside over gay nuptials.

“The survey, conducted by the Barna Group, a polling firm that studies religion, also found that 94 percent of evangelicals oppose legalization of same-sex marriage, with only 2 percent expressing support for the measure.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s AJ in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hey, AJ. Welcome to the program.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. After 23 years, I finally made it through.

RUSH: Well, I’m glad you made it. That’s persistence.

CALLER: Do you want an answer to question one also, as far as Donald Trump?

RUSH: Whichever one you want to answer the most.

CALLER: Well, as far as Donald Trump, no, he’s not hurting the Republicans. His speech is a breath of fresh air.

RUSH: All right.

CALLER: And as far as number two, let’s face it, liberals have infiltrated every crevice of American lifestyle preaching their views. Particularly in high schools and colleges where the young heads of mush, they don’t want to buck the system and be an outcast. So many of them just, you know, have embraced either Libertarian or Democratic views. And as far as conservatives, let’s face it, you know, we are working people. You know, liberals will pay people to protest. I can’t take off a day and lose a day’s pay to go to a protest. But the thing is, they have their propaganda machine, whereas the conservatives, we do not. We do not have —


RUSH: Okay. So let me cut to the chase. Are you saying that because of this infiltration that there really isn’t any serious opposition to the cultural shifts taking place because they’ve all been corrupted and the people that oppose are so cowed by political correctness anyway that there’s nobody to speak up in opposition because they’re either few in number or they’re afraid?

CALLER: Yes. I mean, most people who agree with what you and I believe are older Americans who, you know, really don’t go out and protest to begin with anyway.

RUSH: I understand that. I know in the question that’s always going to be a caveat. Anyway, I’m up against it on time here, AJ. Great brevity. I’m glad you got ’em both in here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I need to elaborate on something. Let me get to that first. I haven’t found a way to actually express what I’m talking about. Everywhere I go, the question I get from Republicans is who I think the nominee is going to be. Which is okay. It’s a natural thing to be interested in, and I am too.

But to me, that’s not even 40 percent of what people ought to be interested in. And I’ve got to find a way to explain to people what I mean by this. Because I think for most people, it starts and stops with a nominee that can win and how crucially important that is. I’m not denying that. But that’s all anybody ever asks me. Who do you think the nominee is going to be? Who can beat Hillary? You start throwing some names around and you get people’s reaction to it. And that’s always interesting, fun and sometimes puzzling as well.

But I don’t know. To me it’s not even half the story who the nominee is going to be. I mean, I don’t know. I need to work on this, folks, because I don’t think the problems plaguing us are going to be fixed with an election, certainly not just one election. And I guess I get the impression that people think all we have to do is elect a Republican and things will be okay then. We’ll still have Obamacare, but that’s okay, we’ll have a Republican president. And we’ll still have the perversion of culture going on, but that’s okay, we’ll have a Republican president. We’ll be in charge. Everything will be okay as long as we have a Republican in the White House. Then it makes all that other stuff okay. And I just don’t see it that way.

But, again, that’s just me. (interruption) Well, that’s the impression I get. If a Republican presides over it, it’s not as bad as if the Democrats are presiding over it. It’s not that. It’s almost as though if we elect a Republican, then all this stuff doesn’t matter anymore. And that’s just not at all the case. I mean, who the nominee is in terms of what he’s going to do after he wins is more important than can he. Can the nominee win, that’s a no-brainer. You have to have that be the case. But what happens after that? And it seems to me that I guess most people’s objective is just beat Hillary, just beat the Democrats, and that alone equals victory. That’s it. And that doesn’t say a word to me.

Beating Hillary or whoever the Democrat nominee is, that’s step one! That’s not mission accomplished. I guess that’s what it is. I get the impression that a lot of people think mission accomplished if we beat Hillary or whoever the Democrat nominee is. That’s not even close to mission accomplished as far as I’m concerned. It’s just step one.

Anyway, the questions I asked the audience: Do any of you think that the Republican presidential candidates or the Republican Party are being hurt hard, irreparably or otherwise by Donald Trump in what he’s doing and how he’s doing it? And the next question — our last caller just addressed this, and it was, I thought, a very thoughtful attempt.

The question is: Are you surprised by the lack of any public anger, protest, uprising, refusal to accept the assault on traditional American culture that has been ongoing for years and was affirmed in one sense by the Supreme Court earlier? You could put it another way. What is your reaction to the apparent public acceptance of all of this? Because it looks to me — and these are not designed to be leading questions. I’m not trying to get you to answer in a way I want to hear it. I’m genuinely interested in what you think. But when I don’t see any opposition or hear any, I am left to assume that there is, for the most part, public acceptance of this. And I’m curious to know if that’s how most people see all of this. “Eh, it’s no big deal, Rush. It’s not a big deal.” If that’s the reaction most people have, I’m curious to know.

So there’s the two questions.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Barbara in Kent, Ohio. Barbara, I’m glad you waited. It’s great to have you here on Open Line Friday on Thursday.

CALLER: Hi.

RUSH: Hi.

CALLER: How are you doing?

RUSH: Fine and dandy. Thank you.


CALLER: You know, everything I ever learned about politics, I learned from you.

RUSH: Well, thank you.

CALLER: You’re the greatest teacher in the world.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: And I love you.

RUSH: Thank you very much.

CALLER: I also love Donald Trump, and the reason I’m calling is, I stopped shopping at Macy’s. Bingo, just like that. Stopped shopping. I closed my account. I could call every day and keep closing as far as that goes, just to let them know I’m closing it. Anyhow, the one question that you had, why you thought the Republicans, nobody was saying anything about anything.

RUSH: Why is there no anger, protests, uprising against any of this? I mean, it’s the culture being ripped apart.

CALLER: I don’t know. But in the first place, who cares about Emmitt Smith and George Pataki? That’s what I would like to know. They’re not saying anything because I think they’re standing by, trying to watch him get himself in trouble and then get kicked out of this thing or something. But I think he’s big enough and bold enough to stand his ground. He’s their biggest competition.

RUSH: You know, even if — and there are still a lot of people that says Trump is not a serious candidate, that he has something else up his sleeve here. Even so, if he’s not a serious candidate, he’s still showing the way, and he is providing the Republicans an opportunity if they’re wise enough to see it.

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