RUSH: Another Politico story: ‘President Obama: ‘Fear and Frustration’ Drive Voters.’ It’s the old bitter clinger argument here. ‘President Barack Obama said Americans’ ‘fear and frustration’ is to 
blame for an intense midterm election cycle that threatens to derail the Democratic agenda. ‘Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument do not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared,’ Obama said Saturday evening in remarks at a small Democratic fundraiser Saturday evening. ‘And the country’s scared.”
So now we’ve moved on from it being Bush’s fault to our fault because we’re scared and we’re scared because we’re stupid. What is this business about science and argument and facts? Democrats never use science or argument to get elected, they never argue policy. They don’t even risk telling us what they really want to do. They lie. The opposite of fact and science is what Democrats use to get elected. They rely on feelings and slogans like hope and change, and then they proceed to rule against the express will of voters once they’re elected. But the voters are finally starting to catch on, even Obama’s supporters, because his rhetoric doesn’t match. He fixed it, out of the ditch, nothing’s getting any better, and we’re told that this is the new norm. Ten percent unemployment is the new norm.
This is Sarah, Springfield, Illinois. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. If I sound shaky, I apologize, I’m nervous. I’m so honored to talk to you.
RUSH: You don’t sound shaky and you don’t sound nervous at all. You don’t sound like you’re jiggling in the slightest.
CALLER: Oh, not jiggling like Michelle Obama, but anyway, that’s another story.
RUSH: I knew she was going to say that, that’s why, see, Pavlov’s here, all I had to say was jiggling and I knew that you were gonna mention Michelle Obama. Do you think she’s gaining weight, too?
CALLER: Yeah, but I’ll tell you exactly where it is, it’s right around her rear end and her thighs but, you know, that’s exactly where it went, but some women gain weight there. It’s okay. It’s obvious she has put on a few pounds. The reason I’m calling, though, I’m so excited for November 2nd. I’m so excited, you know, my father-in-law refers to it as flushing out the pipes in a clogged toilet. I think it’s great. I’m so excited. But as you’ve said just a few minutes ago in the blame game and Obama blaming other people and blaming Bush, now the American people, I’m just really afraid that this is going to get him reelected in two years.
RUSH: Why? In the midst of what looks to be very exhilarating victory, why, then, do you proceed to the negative?
CALLER: Well, I proceed to the negative because I’m trying to think long term, and I’m thinking are the problems that we’re all having now really going to be solved in two years? And, if they’re not, you’re still going to have a bunch of people out there who are unemployed who are going, ‘Okay, well, we gave the Democrats a shot, they screwed it up. Well, now we’ll give the Republicans a shot, they screwed it up,’ and Obama will be there and saying, ‘See, I told you so.’
RUSH: Well, now, I know that that’s right. The Republicans could not say a word for two years, and Obama’s gonna blame them for stopping and opposing his agenda, which, of course, is aimed at fixing all that’s wrong, which is a fat out lie.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: I know that he that’s what he’s going to do. But you’d have to agree here that for this big victory to occur, if it does, there has to be a level of sophistication and understanding on the part of the voters, and then to think that Obama’s gonna get away with convincing them he’s not in the White House, that the Republicans are running the show, you’re going to have to rely on the voters losing this level of sophistication in two years and falling for another trap.
CALLER: But, if they’re still in the same boat that they’re in now, I think they could fall into the trap, and that’s my concern. I think people vote the way that — they’re having a tough time right now, so they’re gonna vote everybody out right now that they want to get out just to try to make their life better, and I agree. I agree. I mean I’m in the Bobby Schilling district, we’re in the Phil Hare race, it’s terrible here in Illinois. But I’m afraid, you know, two years from now my neighbors who are unemployed, well, they’re still going to be unemployed, you know, if the economy hasn’t been fixed and, well, maybe Obama can fix it again, maybe Obama will be out there going, ‘See, you voted the Republicans in and they still didn’t fix it.’ I just feel like it’s a deadlock and we’re going to be stuck with him another four years if we’re not careful, that’s just my concern.
RUSH: Whoa. I cannot believe what I’m looking at. I don’t believe what I’m seeing. Pardon me, I’ve not lost track of what you were saying.
CALLER: That’s okay.
RUSH: I’m looking at something on TV that I don’t quite believe. I understand your fear here. Nothing’s gonna get done, no substantive changes are going to take place in terms of the economy and so forth that the Republicans can be able to stake claim to, correct?
CALLER: Correct, that’s how I feel.
RUSH: And so you think the voters, it only took ’em a year and a half to sour on Obama, so another two years to sour on the Republicans, go back ’cause the media is going to be on his side. So let’s assume that that’s pretty accurate, what would you advise the Republicans to do knowing full well this could possibly happen?
CALLER: Well, that’s what I’m calling you for. I will never vote for Obama. I mean it’s pointless. The hope. The change. I mean gimme a break. I don’t like this hope or change. I don’t like it at all, but it will come back out, ‘Yes, we can’ in two years and hope and change and change what we got going on right now, and whose in charge right now, the Republicans right now are running the House and Senate so blame them for your problems, don’t blame me.
RUSH: No, no, it’s very, very simple, very simple theoretically. All the Republicans have to do to ensure that they do not get blamed for any lack of progress is to see to it that they make every effort in the world to stop this, to keep talking. This conservative ascendancy must continually be sold, it must be supported. The people who are going to invest in voting Republican are going to have to see something. Now, they are going to be limited because of presidential vetoes in what they can do, but they will not be limited in what they can try, and they must try, and they must try with a lot of verbiage. They must announce what they’re going to try. They must continue to say that what Obama has done and wants to keep doing is unacceptable. They cannot rest. They cannot relax on their laurels. They cannot assume the country has moved with them. There is a fire in the belly of this country. The Republicans are going to have to keep that fire stoked. The people will. The people are gonna throw anybody out who does not stay focused on fixing this and turning this around, putting it in the right direction. I don’t care what party they come from, and I don’t care what they’ve done in the past. So, if the Republicans want to overcome what I think is an accurate strategy, the Democrats and the media are gonna try, they have to pretend the next two years they are still on the campaign trail. They are still campaigning. Obama is still the problem. Liberalism is still the problem, and there’s a long way to go.
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RUSH: I want to tackle what our previous caller said in a little bit more detail because it’s a good question, and I myself have advanced a theory that Obama will actually enjoy having a Republican opposition because in his own case, running for reelection in 2012, he’s gonna run against somebody. He wants to run against somebody, and he’d much rather run against Republicans than he would run against his own party, as evidenced by what’s happening now. His party’s in charge of everything, it’s gone to hell, and he can’t really run against it, so now it’s people that are stupid, that don’t understand what he’s trying to do, Bush left him a big mess. No Democrat is running around on Obama’s agenda trying to get reelected. They’re not saying, ‘Look what we did, give us another two years so we can finish the job.’ Not one Democrat’s saying this, not one. Most of them are running away from it. Now, there are two primary things in answering what’s going to happen the next two years. The first thing is, ‘What’s Obama going to do?’
Now, remember I have told you these ranking Republicans believe that Obama is gonna moderate. I don’t. I don’t think Obama is gonna try to compromise with the Republicans. He’s not going to compromise at all. He’s not gonna give them an inch. The only way Obama would go along with any Republican idea is if it is a RINO Republican idea that essentially equals compromise on the basis of him being agreed with by them. So what will Obama do the next two years? He’s going to continue to press his agenda. That’s why he is there. He is there to remake this country. He has a chip on his shoulder about this country, whatever the reason. There can be no doubt now Obama does not like this country as it was founded. He is hell-bent on making this country pay the price he thinks it must pay for our imperialism or colonialism or whatever crimes we’ve committed as a nation since our founding. He has no interest in compromising with Republicans. He’s going to continue to advance his agenda. So that alone provides the Republicans with a simple opportunity: continue to oppose the agenda. Very simple.
The Republicans, secondly, are going to have to make an ongoing, everyday effort to roll some of this back, to stop it, which includes talking a good game, sincerely, coupled with actions that they take. They cannot just sit back and go into a prevent defense and wait two years. Now, there will be gridlock, by the way, which is a good thing. The Republicans are gonna hold fast on their agenda, there’s no question. There won’t be that many RINOs to go along with Obama. His agenda is gonna be stuck, but he’s gonna continue to push it, because continuing to push the agenda is what’s gonna give him the opportunity to run against the Republicans for stopping his agenda. Now, he’s going to say as he’s been saying since the get-go that his agenda will save the country; that his agenda will fix the problems; that his agenda will put the economy back on solid footing. He’s going to say the Republicans are stopping him, standing in the way. Republicans are against progress, they are for special interests. You know the drill.
I really look at these next two years as a continuation of this last year. For the first six months to eight months, nobody in the Republican Party had the guts to oppose Obama on anything. After the first six months to eight months, they began to get a little bit more comfortable with opposing things in his agenda, primarily health care, cap and trade, the real huge far left stuff, and they held firm. The American people aren’t gonna change. This conservative ascendancy isn’t going anywhere. It will expect results. The people voting next month are going to expect performance commensurate with their vote, and if they don’t get it, they’re gonna throw the next bunch of people out in two more years, Obama and whoever else. We have reached a tipping point in the country. We have crossed a threshold. For the vast majority of Americans, this is not politics as usual where the Republicans win a couple times and the Democrats win, and we share power, we go back and forth. This is about saving the country. And any elected official who does not understand that his or her job is to save the country by opposing the direction Obama and the Democrat Party are taking it will also be defeated the next time around. It’s that simple.
I don’t believe the voters are gonna lose their sophistication. I don’t think voters are gonna lose their understanding of things. I don’t think voters are gonna all of a sudden become stupid or ignorant or forgetful. I don’t see them falling for Obama anymore like they did in the 2008 campaign and maybe the first six to nine months of his regime. Now, you and I, we never did fall for him, but you have to admit now for the opposition to Obama to be well over 50% a lot of people that voted for him and embraced him have now seen the light. They’re not gonna fade away. If he continues to push the agenda, if he continues to make people question what his real interests are, there will always be opposition. That’s not gonna change. I don’t think he can get this magic back where hope and change and sloganeering can all of a sudden win the day. I don’t think those days can happen again. That’s once in a campaign, once in a presidency. I just don’t believe that he can go back to recapturing that, not after it is now known what he really wants to do. The truth now will overshadow any dream, any fantasy, any platitudes that are offered up.
The Republicans, to the extent that they want to be reelected, are gonna have to understand and act upon the notion that it is the country that’s at stake here, the future of people’s families, their jobs, their children and their grandchildren, the debt, the spending, all substantive things. This election is going to turn on substance as much as any election in my lifetime has. Not platitudes and not slogans and not marketing and packaging. A clear majority of the American people are scared of where the country is headed and where the Democrat Party’s taking it, and they’re opposed to it. To the extent that the opposing party does not energetically try to stop it, the opposing party will pay the consequences the next election, in 2012, along with Obama. The sad thing is look at how expensive this learning curve has been, look at what it has cost us. Look at what it has cost us for so many people to finally wake up to see where liberalism will take this country, where the Democrat Party will take this country.
It’s taken trillion-dollar deficits, it has taken indebtedness and a national debt the likes of which can never be repaid, 10% unemployment with no promise of any significant improvement for years. Look at what it has cost. But because it has been realized, there’s no going back now. Any Republican who is sworn into office, let’s assume here that these elections do result in Republicans winning the House, a big majority, and let’s say it’s a 50-50 Senate. Any Republican who assumes office hoping that people understand he doesn’t really have the power to change anything is finished. Any Republican sworn into office next January hoping that the American people realize we can’t really repeal anything until we get the White House in 2012 is hopelessly lost. Any Republican who is hoping that the voters realize that they don’t really control the government is in for a huge surprise him- or herself, because the voters expect this to be stopped. And the one thing voters know is the Republicans will have the votes to stop it. May not have the votes to repeal, say, an entire piece of legislation like Obamacare, but the voters will know the Republicans have the votes to stop anything else Obama wants.
The only way Obama will get anything he wants is either Republicans caving and agreeing with him or him going outside the Constitution and doing it by some sort of executive fiat, by ignoring Congress. Want cap and trade? Fine. Here’s how it’s going to happen, we’ll have the EPA do it. Congress, you don’t matter. That’s the only way he’s going to be able to get things done, which is what he’s going to do. Folks, he is who he is. He is the most radical leftist ever elected to power in this country. He’s not going to stop. If he were gonna moderate, he woulda done so after Scott Brown won that Senate seat in Massachusetts. He woulda given up on health care or he would have moderated his proposal to get a couple, three Republican votes. But he didn’t. He kept plugging away at what expense, to what expense? His own party, his own party has people whose careers are now over because they voted for his health care bill. Democrats have ended their political careers. Does he care? No.
Is this somebody who is going to moderate and compromise with Republicans? No. This is somebody who is gonna go extra constitutional to get done what he wants to get done. This is what’s in store for us. The Republicans, the opposition, whoever they are, are going to have to do everything they can to stop any further advancement of the Obama agenda. That’s what’s crucial in the next two years. Before something can be turned around, it has to be stopped. Something in motion has to be stopped before it can go the reverse direction or turned before it can start going the opposite direction. It can’t happen overnight on a dime. But the Republicans are gonna make a huge mistake if they are going to rely on people understanding that until Republicans win the White House, they really can’t do anything, because the expectations are that they can stop it. The expectations are that the Republicans can stop any further agenda advancement by Obama, at least legislatively. And if he goes extraconstitutional, if he tries to do all this by executive order or some sort of use of executive power that’s not permitted or defined in the Constitution, they better caterwaul like they’ve never caterwauled before. They better shout for the mountaintops. They better start investigating, issuing subpoenas.
It’s crunch time. The American people are serious about this and the Republicans need to realize it. The fact that there are some people who are thinking that the Republicans are gonna cave and somehow Obama’s going to succeed in blaming them for all of this disaster, that ought to wake Republicans up left and right. It ought to wake ’em up. Do you realize there are people who think that Obama’s gonna succeed in blaming you for all this mess. That’s how little confidence some people have in ruling-class Republicans. So they’ve got their work cut out for them. They’re going to have to be energetic. They can’t just occupy the House as a majority and think by fiat Obama’s stopped. It’s going to be a lot of work. They’re going to have to roll up their sleeves, because the real work is going to begin after the election. We’ll find out if they’re up to it. And if they’re not, people who are will be elected in 2012.
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RUSH: As we pointed out on numerous occasions, ladies and gentlemen, the real and present danger to America is not Obama. Obama is a common person in this country. The Democrat Party is full of Obamas. The real clear and present danger is that we have a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like Obama with the presidency. The question is have we learned our lesson? We’re about to find out. Have we learned our lesson? This is the starkest wake-up call this country has ever had. This is the clearest indication of what the Democrat Party will do to America if left unchecked. This is the clearest illustration yet. And I find it interesting — well, it’s interesting, but it’s not surprising — that people using experience still believe that the people can be tricked ultimately into believing that this economic mess is indeed the fault of the Republicans even though the Democrats have run this country since 2007. Starting with Pelosi, the Democrats in the House, Dingy Harry in the Senate, then Obama gets the White House in 2009. That’s when he’s immaculated.
The Democrats have run this country into the ditch, the exact opposite that Obama and the Democrats are saying about the Republicans having done so. I mean we’re in the mess we’re in precisely because of one thing: liberalism, socialism, Marxism, whatever you want to call it, the abandonment of market capitalism is why we are where we are. The assault on market capitalism, free-market capitalism is the reason why people are thinking their opportunity for prosperity and economic advancement is dwindling by the day. So, with this obvious explanation of why the Democrat Party, liberalism, Obama — and it’s all around the world, the evidence that it doesn’t work and is failing — still there are people who live in mortal fear that in two years’ time the American people can be convinced that all this is because of the Republicans.
I understand the fear. The media, the Democrats have gotten away with it time and time again. But never before has there been this clear and stark an illustration of where Democrats will take the country. So it’s gonna boil down to elected representatives of the people who are going to be elected this November taking the ball and running with it and understanding why they’ve been elected and what is expected of ’em. And don’t worry, folks, they will be reminded each and every day. Don’t worry about that.