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RUSH: This is a story I found that just fits in almost precisely with a theme of mine in the past weeks on this program.

And if you’ve been listening steadily for the last couple of weeks or three or longer, you know that one of my focal points has been the status, the state of American culture, American society, and is it really as gone and lost as it appears, has it truly been corrupted with no moral guardrails restraining any aberrant behavior anymore? Is it just a free-for-all out there with no foundation of morality undergirding it? And, you know, it came up a number of times yesterday in the context of analyzing the reaction to Trump and Drive-Bys’ surprise or lack of surprise depending on what the incidents are.

But the best way to remind you is that whenever the media reports on something controversial, there’s always this assumption that a majority of the American people also feel the same way. So if there’s outrage say at Sarah Palin, the presumption is that whole country is outraged. If the gay Mafia attacks a pizza shop in Indiana, the presumption is that the entire country thinks that pizza shop should be shut down. And it’s an image that is created by the media as they report these things.

What it serves to do is dispirit and depress people into thinking that there aren’t any ground rules anymore. There’s no stopgap, there’s no bottom, there’s no floor to this perversion and wickedness. “It just happens, and the worst part of it is that most of the American people agree with it,” is the presumption, the assumption that is included with reporting. So here’s a story in the Washington Post: “Americans Unhappy About the Left’s Social Issue Wins.” Washington Post, folks! “Liberals have won a series of victories on social issues. Most Americans aren’t thrilled about it.”


Now, this is a point that I have been making steadily and steadfastly for quite a while now, and it is what I’ve been saying as well. As well as making the point, making the observation, I have offered the opinion that I don’t think we’ve reached the tipping point. I don’t think a majority of Americans now support the kind of wickedness and perversion that’s happening in our pop culture, all over it.

I made a big deal about this yesterday and the day before. I just don’t believe when the media reports these things with this expecting presumption that the majority of the country also agrees with it. That’s true. Despite the media’s claims to the contrary, according to the Washington Post here, it’s actually the left that’s pushing social issues. That’s another point that I have made.

By the way, did you hear what the Planned Parenthood reaction New York Times story? They finally have said something about it. You know what it is? “Campaign of Deception Against Planned Parenthood,” New York Times. Everybody’s been waiting for the Times to erupt and check, see how the Times is going to report this, and everybody has been waiting for noted Democrat politicians to speak up about this.

In fact, A.B. Stoddard of TheHill.com and who appears on Fox, says if some Democrats don’t speak up about this Planned Parenthood thing soon, they’re gonna be in trouble. Thereby indicating again a vast majority of the American people do not come close to supporting what Planned Parenthood is doing here with their baby chop shop activities, selling baby body parts harvested during abortions. That kind of cultural rot, that kind of depravity that is taking place.

I’ve grown weary of even some friends of mine — Republican friends of mine, but even not friends — coming up and saying, seeing them say, “We’ve got to stop talking about the social issues! The social issues are killing us. Gotta stay focused on the economy and taxes. We’ve gotta drop this social issues. We’re getting killed.” I’ve always maintained, “It’s not us. We’re not pushing social issues. We get up every day, we see things that we believe in under assault, and we defend them, such as human life.

Human life to me is more than a social issue. It’s about sanctity.


We get up… We are minding our own business, we get up, we see a record number of abortions taking place, and then we find out what Planned Parenthood is doing with their abortions and the aborted babies! If we get repulsed, and we talk about it, somehow we then get blamed for injecting social issues in the campaign. Well, this story in the Washington Post makes it clear, as I have opined, that it’s actually the left pushing social issues and that conservatives are only being told to shut up about social issues so the left doesn’t have any opposition.

Exactly what I’ve been saying. It’s right here in this story that the left doesn’t want to debate. They’re not interested in hashing things out. They are oriented specifically toward eliminating opposition. In fact, many in the public don’t even think there is an opposing view since they seldom hear it because the Republicans are so reluctant to speak up about social issues anymore. The irony is, the opposing views are usually embraced by a majority of the American public. All of that is in this little story in the Washington Post.

The Washington Post even says at the bottom that many Democrats are unhappy with all of these social victories that the left is achieving. You know, which leads you to ask: Could it be that there are even some Democrats out there who don’t want to see America fundamentally transformed? Anyway, that’s another way of looking at it as well, but that story’s there, and we’ll spend some time with it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s some details from the Washington Post story on social issues. And, by the way, the authors of this piece, Peyton Craighill and Scott Clement. I’m just gonna tell you some Washington Post. And they’re reporting on the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll. Liberals have won a string of victories on gay marriage and health care reform this year, but a new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds a large majority of Americans are unhappy with where the nation is headed on social issues. Are you ready for this? Sixty-three percent of people say they are uncomfortable with the country’s overall direction on social issues these days. Four in ten feel strongly uncomfortable about the nation’s changes.

Now, how many of you are surprised? Honestly, how many of you are surprised? Remember my point here, and I don’t mind being redundant on this. As all of these things are reported — gay marriage, the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, every incidental little thing in the gay marriage story, such as what happened in Indiana with the installation there of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It’s classic. It’s classic.


Leftist activists move in, because, remember, they don’t want any opposition, either. When they win something, they’re never happy, because there is lingering opposition. There’s always opposition. That’s why the left is never happy. They never win anything one hundred percent, and very rarely do they win things by virtue of legitimate democrat vote, folks.

It takes activist judges and other similar things in order to inflict liberalism on our culture. It doesn’t happen by virtue of the democrat process. And gay marriage hadn’t yet happened by virtue of democrat process. Some people say it was on its way, but it hadn’t yet. The Supreme Court took care of that.

Same kind of thing with abortion — never voted on by the American people. But you take all these things — the Supreme Court decision, or the Indiana incident where there were three separate gay Mafia attacks on institutions, small businesses, what have you. The media reports all of those stories as though everybody agrees with the activists. The media reports all of these incidents as though there is very little opposition, and this is the new America, and this is just what everybody thinks. And so a lone, little pizza store owner, or a photography store owner, or a bakery get ramrod over by people, because everybody thinks that they’re a bunch of hayseed, hick minority members, and they’re old fogies, and it’s time for everybody to get with it. When in fact it’s the exact opposite.

The vast majority of the American people do not agree with what the left’s transformation of our culture is doing. They do not want it to happen. They do not support it. Sixty some odd percent in the Washington Post ABC news poll, with forty percent strongly opposing it. And, see, I believe the left knows this. I think the left knows they’re a minority. I think the left knows that most of those things are a minority. They get what they want by bullying, silencing opposition. But even after they got it, they’re never happy because of lingering opposition. And lingering opposition means that whatever gain they’ve just made is still vulnerable. And I think deep down the left knows that their opposition is actually a sleeping giant and if that sleeping giant ever gets mad enough and ever wakes up, then all of this that they have gained is tenuous.


Now, the Supreme Court can’t do anything about that. That’s why they’re so eager to get it. There’s even a story I had yesterday or the day before — massive disagreement with the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage. There’s not massive support for that position. There’s massive opposition to it.

So my point is, be of good cheer here on some level, because we’re not being ramrodded — well, we are. We’re being bullied, but it’s by virtue of a minority and their tactics. The country has not been lost yet. We’ve not gone over the cliff, or the tipping point, however you want to describe it. And this Washington Post poll goes even further and points out that a significant number of Democrats are uncomfortable with where all this is headed. Sixty-three percent of people say they are uncomfortable with the country’s overall direction on social issues these days.

The downbeat results in the aftermath of a series of landmark Supreme Court rulings earlier this summer runs parallel to how people see the nation’s overall direction. Sixty-five percent say it’s on the wrong track, almost the same exact percentage that say they don’t like the direction of the culture. Americans who see themselves on the losing side of these high profile debates are most negative about the nation’s direction on social issues.

See, my contention is that the social issues are a giant winning opportunity. And the left has been artful once again at convincing Republicans, RINOs, moderates, establishment types that they are losing because of social issues. And specifically, they are losing because of abortion. Yeah, they’re losing the Latino vote because of amnesty, and they oppose that. And they’re losing the women’s vote because they’re not feminists, they don’t support feminism, and they are not pro-choice. It’s just the opposite.

There is a golden opportunity, particularly as expressed in this polling data, for somebody who knows how to do it, to turn these social issues into a huge opportunity for victory, just like massive opposition to Obamacare. It was just waiting for the Republican Party to come along and coalesce with it, and it never happened, frustratingly never.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to stick just a little bit more on the social issues business. I think it’s important, folks. We’ll get to the latest Trump, don’t sweat it. And Ted Cruz making mincemeat out of the ICE director at a Senate hearing yesterday. It’s great. We’re gonna get to all of these things. Just hang in there and be tough.

Now, look at the Planned Parenthood story, for example. The clearest evidence of where this country is on social issues is right in front of our eyes. Now, based on this Washington Post/ABC News poll, a long-held belief of mine is confirmed, and that is that social issues, done the right way, are a big winning issue for Republicans, conservatives, whatever. It’s the Democrats who are vulnerable on it and I believe always have been.

Now, I realize some of you establishment Republicans and some of you RINOs in the audience literally think I’m crazy. I assure you I have a better handle on this than you do. You’re coming at it from a position of defensiveness and fear. You talk to your friends who agree with you on gun control and on social issues, abortion and so forth, and you are not representative, just like the Democrats are not, you’re not a representative of a majority thinking in this country. You may be among the richest, but you are not among the majority of thought in this country.

Planned Parenthood’s a classic illustration, what we’ve learned this week about the butchery that goes on in Planned Parenthood. Where are all the Democrats standing up applauding it. Where are all the Democrats on TV telling us that we better get with it and understand what this really is, that this is a great cultural advance for America, that this is gonna lead to the discovery of who knows how many diseases, who knows how much life will be prolonged because of the great work of Planned Parenthood. Where are the Democrats standing up telling us this? Where are the Democrats standing up defending Planned Parenthood?

You don’t see it. They’re nowhere. Now, if the Democrats own the social issues and if the social issues were a giant Republican vulnerability, this wouldn’t be a big deal at all, because a minority of people would be the ones concerned about it. A majority wouldn’t be bothered by it at all. And yet I can’t find a Planned Parenthood spokesman, other than the New York Times, which has a story today: “The Campaign of Deception Against Planned Parenthood.”

Even Steny Hoyer, to show you how bad it is, he will not endorse what they’re doing. “House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he rejected the ‘premise that Planned Parenthood is harvesting fetal organs’ at his weekly pen-and-pad meeting with reporters on Tuesday. On Monday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood, the nationÂ’s largest abortion provider, after video footage of Planned Parenthood executive Dr. Deborah Nucatola discussing fees for fetal tissue was released.” Selling intact body parts from babies killed in the womb.

Hoyer said, “Look, I donÂ’t accept the premise that Planned Parenthood is ‘harvestingÂ’ anything. Planned Parenthood is doing very, very important services for literally hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of women as relates to their health. I know there have been controversies, national controversy over these tapes. … I havenÂ’t reviewed the tapes, but IÂ’ve read articles on them. And, certainly, the Congress, as I understand it, will be having hearings. … But IÂ’m not going to jump to conclusions.”

What does this mean? He’s not endorsing Planned Parenthood. He is denying it. He is denying that what we know is happening is happening. And that, to me, is the clearest evidence that you could get of where the majority of thinking is on Planned Parenthood and this issue, and it’s not with the Democrats, folks. And it hasn’t been. It hasn’t been in a long time, if it ever was.

But the Republicans have been tricked into giving away their strength countless times. Do I need to review the ways? Just to remind you, I’ll give you a couple. How about the idea that you have to win the independents to win the presidency. If you don’t win the independents, you don’t win the moderates, you don’t win the presidency. What did that do? There’s not a Republican consultant alive who doesn’t think that. You know what that manifests itself as?

You have candidates running for the presidency seeking the votes of 20% of the population. That body of thought thinks that 40% of the country’s gonna vote Republican no matter what; 40%’s gonna vote Democrat no matter what. That leaves 20% undecided and whoever gets a majority of those wins. In the process the Republicans take for granted their base or even run against their base in some examples, thinking that’s what they have to do to win.

Another one, amnesty. There is no poll, there is no evidence that a majority, not even close to a majority of Americans supports what’s going on with immigration. And yet the Republicans have been tricked — and I’m being charitable when I call it tricked — into believing that they can’t win the presidency without the Latino vote. Okay, so they can’t win the presidency without a majority of independents, which, by the way Romney got, a vast majority of the independents in 2012, he lost big. You can’t win without the independents.

Now you can’t win without the Latinos, and the only way to get the Latinos is back off of this immigration talk. The Republican Party gets talked into beating itself. Organizations like the Chamber of Commerce have been taken over by leftists, and they give money to the Republicans under false premise, and the Republicans end up sabotaging themselves. They’ve done it on social issues and are doing so.

I think this is monumental, what this Washington Post poll has revealed. And it could not come at a better time, because the vast majority of the American people, I think, have been convinced that they’re in the minority, when they’re not. They’ve been convinced by the mainstream media, the Democrat Party, you name it, that they are in the minority. Traditional American values, in the minority. Morality, minority. Guardrails on society to keep everything on an even keel, it’s a minority of people that think that. Only the squares, the nerds, the hayseed hicks believe that. And it isn’t true.

I’ll give you another example. You people remember the Equal Rights Amendment of 1972? The Equal Rights Amendment was another one of these issues, we were told, and this is near the beginning of the modern era of feminism. The Equal Rights Amendment, you know what it was supposedly was? The way it was positioned was, “It’s going to level the playing field for disadvantaged housewives.” The Equal Rights Amendment was going to get even with all those people that were using women in subservient traditional female roles and making money off of them.

Not paying them for work that they’re doing, and basically keeping them prisoner in the home. This was gonna take care of this. This was gonna get rid of all of that discrimination. In 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment passed both houses of Congress, and it was submitted to the state legislatures for ratification, and it seemed like it was headed for quick approval. This is the early, heady days of the modern era of feminism. But then a woman stood up and shouted, “Stop!” Her name was Phyllis Schlafly.

Phyllis Schlafly put together an army of women in opposition to it, and her point was that the Equal Rights Amendment was not about equality, and it was gonna do anything for disadvantaged housewives. It was going to totally disrupt and disorient American culture and tradition. Congress had set a ratification deadline of March 22, 1979. They gave it seven years to be ratified. Through 1977, five years after both houses passed it, the Equal Rights Amendment received 35 of the necessary 38 state ratifications. They didn’t get there.

But the interesting thing was that the proponents tacked on a couple of additional years when it was clear they weren’t gonna get to ratification. They just arbitrarily added a couple, three more years to it. I remember raising hell about it wherever I was at the time. I think I was working for the Kansas City Royals. (laughing) I had nothing to do with any of this, and I was raising hell about what they were doing back then. They just arbitrarily gave themselves three more years. What happened was, five states rescinded ratification before 1979.

It was in 1978. A joint resolution of Congress extended the deadline to 1982. But no other states ratified it, and it was just last week that some feminist somewhere stood up and said, “You know what we need? We need to bring back the Equal Rights Amendment.” They’re trying to resurrect it and get it going. Now, back when this all started, folks… Many of you not gonna be able to remember this; you either weren’t alive or you weren’t old enough.

When the Equal Rights Amendment was first passed and it was immediately being ratified by state after state, it was thought to be a foregone conclusion, a slam dunk, because the American people wanted it. By a vast majority, they wanted it. It, to this day, has never been ratified, because the majority of the American people never did want it. People started finding out what was in it. It had nothing to do with equal rights. It was all about the advancement of a far left-wing, radical left-wing agenda.

Women’s rights was just the phony label they attached to it to garner maintenance public support. It wasn’t about that. Like everything else they advance is never about what it’s called. We’re faced with the same circumstance here. We’re being told that gay marriage and whatever is happening with transgenders and all, that a vast majority (I’m sorry to use the phrase, but it’s what’s descriptive), that a huge majority of the American people support it, when they don’t. So it’s not time to cave or give up or think that you’ve lost or that we have lost the culture.

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Because there are more people who agree with you on this than there are who disagree. It’s just the people that disagree are the bullies, they are the new totalitarians, they have the media megaphone on their side, but they have not succeeded in changing public opinion. Now, they are getting what they want. I mean, gay marriage, they’ve got it. Whatever they’re trying with transgenderism, and who knows whatever else, they’re getting. I’m not trying to diminish the impact of it. I’m telling you the way they are getting is not through the democratic process.

They are not succeeding by persuading a majority of Americans to agree with them and support them. It’s happening against the will of the majority, which is pretty much everything with the Obama administration, too. There’s never been majority support for Obamacare. That was just sitting there as an issue waiting for the Republican Party to use to create a new coalition of voters over, because the opposition to Obamacare didn’t know any boundaries. It had Latinos in it, it had women in it, it had illegal immigrants in it.

All kinds, every group of American you can imagine had people in it that oppose Obamacare, and Republican Party was just sitting pretty if it had just made a move. But they couldn’t because it was the Tea Party that came into existence, and the Republican Party wouldn’t dare be seen getting in bed with the Tea Party because they were conservative. The point is there’s a huge majority out there, and it’s part of what Trump is tapping into, I think. This is something the establishment does not want to consider and they don’t want believe, but it is the truth.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We start Twentynine Palms, California. Gabe, I’m glad you called. It’s great to have you on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. How are you doing today?

RUSH: Very well, sir. Thank you.

CALLER: Listen, I appreciated your prior comments, and we continue to be sickened by how low society is going. I saw a clip last night from MSNBC on Megyn’s show where they’re talking about how compassionate these mothers are to go in and have abortions so that they can donate their gestational tissue, which we all know are babies. But when they come to find out… I live in crazy California. Now that these mothers are finding out that their gestational tissue has been sold to the highest bidder, watch for the lawsuits for them wanting to demand their share of the profits from what they thought — what they were told — was being donated.

RUSH: Hmm. So you expect that to happen?

CALLER: I do. I’ve seen some crazy, low, evil things happening today, especially out here, and these mothers who are going in out of compassion, according to MSNBC —

RUSH: Well, no, wait. Wait, wait, wait just a second. That’s probably true because this is the way Planned Parenthood’s countering this. They’re countering this by asking for donations. “This is all for medical research. This is to find cures for horrible diseases! This is to prolong human life,” an ironic claim. You’ve got to admit, there’s a bunch of low-information people out there, and they fall for this. Everybody wants to matter.

Everybody wants to think they’re contributing to the advancement of the human race, even when they’re having an abortion. So Planned Parenthood can convince them that they are furthering humanity by doing this, then they’ll run right in there and feel good about themselves. But your point is when they find out that they are being misled and that the elements of their baby that’s been aborted are being sold, that they’re gonna file lawsuits?

CALLER: Oh, yeah. Believe me, the low-information voter is the perfect client for these attorneys. They’re gonna say, “Oh, they were duped. You guys are making money, and you’re selling it to the high bidder!” You know, they want their share, too. It’s just gestational parts —

RUSH: That would be… You know what? As I stop and think about that, Gabe, I’m struck by two things: How putrefying-ly sick it is, but you’re probably right. Typical low-information woman who thinks that she’s serving humanity then finds out she’s being screwed and wants her take, especially after what the abortion cost her, she’s gonna want her take of what they’re selling. She’s gonna want her Lamborghini, too, right along with Ma Richards’ daughter, who wants her Lamborghini. It’s a good point, Gabe. It’s a good point.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Sarah in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I’m glad you waited. Great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega dittos from a former skull full of mush.

RUSH: Well, it’s great to have you here. Hello.

CALLER: Hi. I’m calling because I just wanted to comment about the supposed 20% of moderates and independents that have to be won by either the Democrats or Republicans in order to win the elections.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: I don’t believe that they are truly moderates at all. I believe that they are very libertarian. I believe that they have what we all have, the basic human yearning for freedom, and they just want government out of their lives in pretty much every way. They want to be free to succeed by their own hand or fail by their own hand.

RUSH: Are you one of them? Are you a libertarian at heart?

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CALLER: I am. I am actually a Republican delegate here where I live and have been active within the party, but I am not happy with where the party has gone by any stretch of the imagination. And, you know, I think it’s why our Founders really warned against having parties. They didn’t want us to be loyal to a party. They wanted us to be loyal to our freedom and to our Constitution.

RUSH: Amen to that. Now, but I do have to politely disagree with you slightly about who traditionally the independents/moderates have been. I think… I’m gonna get in trouble for this, and I’m not trying to. I think the actual percentage of libertarians, identified libertarians in the country doesn’t get to 20%. I think traditionally the reason why the trick has been played on the Republicans is the dirty little secret is that moderates are just liberals that don’t have the guts to say so. That’s traditionally what they’ve been. I mean, why else do independents not like it when they hear a Republican criticizing Obama, and they’ll just run right back to the Democrat Party, but when the Democrats destroy Bush or criticize us, that doesn’t bother them?

I’ve never bought that.

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