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RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, over the break, I combined some things. I combined pleasure, actually took a little time, I cut the cord. I wanted to find out about this cord cutting business and how it works and how — I know how it works technically, but I mean I watched everything on TV on my iPad Pro, including the NFL football games. I was able to watch Sunday Ticket for the Sunday afternoon games, the NBC Sports app, I watched the Sunday night game, the Patriots and the Broncos.

By the way, is Tom Brady ticked off. He said he’s never been more ticked off over the rules and the refs and stuff as he was after that game Sunday. We’ll get into that, too, as the program unfolds. I watched the latest Netflix series, Jessica Jones. It’s from Marvel, it’s 13 episodes, one hour each. I did not watch ’em all, no, I wasn’t that slothful, but I watched a lot of them.

Anyway, I watched everything I watched on my iPad Pro. I must tell you one of the reasons why. It was the only way I could smoke my cigars and watch TV. Well, we were in a really, really nice hotel suite, but the only place I could smoke in it was in one of the bathrooms, and the TV setup in there, you had to be in bed, and I hate watching TV in bed, I can’t do it, I can’t read in bed. Bed’s for — well, I don’t watch TV in bed. I just don’t do it. So I had a chair in there, and so if I wanted to smoke a cigar and watch TV I had to watch it on the iPad Pro.

But, anyway, let me cut to the chase on this. I watched a bunch of television shows that through the process of reading my tech blogs and I’m focusing more and more on reading things written by Millennials, TV critics, sportswriters and this kind of stuff. I’m really trying to get a handle on that generation. I have picked up on something that is, to me, upsetting and disturbing, and it’s very simple. Once I point this out to you, I think if you pay attention as you go forward you’ll notice it, too. It ties in with everything going on at college campuses today, student protests and so forth.

They don’t want to be upset. They want these safe areas. They don’t want anybody disagreeing with all these childish little, immature demands that they’re making. What I have noticed is, the more trauma in a TV show — the more personal trauma, the more suffering — the better. These young Millennials, they love television shows and movies depicting stress, posttraumatic stress disorder, trauma. The worse the better, the suffering. And the purpose of television these days, for them, is to demonstrate how to cope with all of this. And the reason that they enjoy this, I have concluded, is ’cause that’s what their lives are today.

I’m not saying all Millennials. I’m talking about these media-oriented critics, TV movie critics. I don’t know how representative of the entire generation it is, but it’s gotta be pretty sizable. The more trauma, the greater they think the TV show or the movie is, because that’s what their lives are now: Trauma and suffering and how to cope. And a great TV show to them is one that demonstrates how to cope with all this trauma and suffering. Now, you say, “What trauma? What stress?” There isn’t any! That’s the whole point. It’s made up. What have I always said?


“Well, it’s made up, but it’s real because they make it real. Psychologically, it’s real.” What have I always said about the Baby Boomers? The Baby Boomers, compared to our parents and grandparents, we had it easy. We had to invent our traumas in order to tell ourselves that our lives were tough. But we didn’t face anything like our parents and grandparents faced starting with… I don’t know. I mean, how far back you want to go? World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II, then Korea, then the Soviet threat, which they considered deadly real. They had to grow up by age 18.

They learned in their teenage years that life was about things much larger than themselves, and this generation can’t get past the fact that life is totally about them and about nothing else. It’s not them. It’s about their suffering; it’s about their comfort or lack of it. But the overall point or facet, I think, that I’m observing here is that to a lot of these young people, life is just misery. It’s just total misery. And there isn’t any escape from it. The only thing to do is to cope. So a television series, a television show or a movie that demos this gets great reviews.

I have read some of the most… Well, I mentioned Jessica Jones of Marvel. I watched it. I watched enough of it to know that… Look, I don’t want to be insulting here. I mean, actors are good and this kind of thing, but it just… Let me put it this way. The reviewers that I read think it’s the greatest television there’s ever been, without doubt. How about an10,000-word review? And it’s all analyzing the suffering and the trauma of the main characters and how they deal with it and the lessons the viewer can take from it. When I watched it, I just got bored. I said, “Can we move this along?”

It’s Marvel; it’s superhero stuff. That’s another thing. Superhero comic book is real life, and the stuff that happens in superhero-ville and comic book-ville is real trauma and so forth. And then anybody here watch The Walking Dead? (interruption) Help me just run through. Did you watch it Sunday night? Sunday night was the mid-season finale, right? (interruption) Now, do not… I want to know the honest-to-God truth. Do not factor anything I’ve said into what you’re answering. Was it good or not? Did you like it? (interruption) Okay, super, average, mediocre, what was it? (interruption) What? I can’t… (interruption)

Okay, no help there. Bottom line is, every mainstream reviewer that I have read — and I’m talking about somebody that’s over 40, maybe 45 plus — thinks it’s mediocre. It’s exemplary of the whole series losing its pizzazz. (interruption) Yeah, this is zombies. Zombies. The Walking Dead. Now, Snerdley before you get snarky in there, it has been the highest rated cable show ever for a period of time. Point is, stick with the… (interruption) Zombies, right. The Walking Dead. But the mainstream reviewers like you’d read in the New York Post/New York Times, just think it’s sad that the show’s lost it; it’s just mediocre.

The Millennials think this episode was the best episode of the series with life lessons like you can’t believe throughout it. Now, you might say, “Rush, what does all this matter?” Well, because we’re talking about the future of the country here in large part. That’s why. I don’t know how representative what I’m reading is of the whole generation. (interruption) Well, this… Some of them are. Some of them come from the, you know, 2008, “We’re the ones the world’s been waiting for! Change the world!” That’s part and parcel of their misery. I think they bought topic.


I think they bought full-on utopia as presented by Obama, and not only do we not have utopia, we’ve got mess upon mess upon mess. We’ve got a bleak future economically, and I think it all rolls into creating this fatalistic attitude that they’ve got. Anyway, it’s just a cultural observation, and I’m just at the beginnings here, so I’m not presenting to you any conclusions. I’m just sharing with you how my thought process on all of this is working. In other things, have you seen that lead story on Drudge up here? “DiCaprio Raped by Bear in Fox Movie.” That is the lead story at Drudge. Apparently there…

Oh, let me go back to this Millennial trauma bit. How about Quentin Tarantino’s movie? Eight is… Whatever it is. It’s the bloodiest, the most profane, the goriest. It’s three hours and intermission, and it is nothing but abject, full-on, total misery. Murder, death, black, dark, death. It’s just horrific. And guarantee you by the time I get around to reading Millennial reviews of this thing, they’re gonna think it’s the best work of art movies has ever produced, if I’m right.

But, anyway, back to this DiCaprio story. “DiCaprio Raped by Bear in Fox Movie.” Would you star in a movie in which you know going in — because the scripted — that you’re gonna get raped by, say, Yogi Bear in Jellystone Park? Would you…? (interruption) So here we have The Wolf of Wall Street meets Yogi Bear. But I was thinking when I saw this headline, “What kind of reactions will there be?” When we have there’s rape all over college campus, we’re told, and when rape is all over college campus?

The usual suspects start chiming in about how rotten American culture is and the Republicans are to blame and conservatives and their strict, judgmental lifestyle is causing all this stuff. So I had a little fun here putting together various responses from people who have responded to the stories of campus rape and so forth, to this story of Leonardo DiCaprio being raped by a bear in a movie. Whoopi Goldberg: “I know it wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else. But I don’t believe it was rape rape.” John Kerry: “Well, there was a sort of particularized focus, perhaps even a legitimacy in terms — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, ‘Okay, they’re really angry because…'”

That’s what he said about educational background, that’s what he said about Muslims, militant Islamists blowing up Charlie Hebdo. “Well, they had a rationale for it.” Well, maybe the bear, hey, had a rationale for it, if we’re being consistent. Hillary Clinton when told of the story, said, “What difference does it make at this point?” Oh, did you hear about Hillary? She now claims her concussion was so bad, she called the NFL. I made a joke about that and it’s coming true. Details coming up. Obama blamed climate change for the rape of DiCaprio by the bear in the Fox movie.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Aaron in Russellville, Missouri. It’s great to have you, sir. I really appreciate your waiting. Hello.

CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Regarding your comments earlier about Millennials’ obsessions with suffering and the way that shows through in the entertainment they like and the way they behave on campus. Unlike the Baby Boomers that you say had to make up their suffering, I think Millennials really have had suffering, but it hasn’t been the existential suffering caused by the real threat of war or the real threat of poverty, it’s been suffering caused by the culmination of all the factors in America breaking down the family. They’re suffering as a result from the bad decisions that their parents have made and then that they’ve made because they haven’t have good examples, and they’ve been taught moral relativism, do what you feel is the right path for you, which is a recipe for misery a lot of the time.


RUSH: You could be right. You know, I haven’t taken the time to delve into it deeply enough to form my own conclusion as to why is this is happening. I’m just at the stage where I’ve just observed it. It’s one of these things that I have been sensing but never even put words to it in my own mind once I was pondering it, until this weekend. It was just a couple things happened at the same time, came together. Happened to watch some television, happened to read some reviews of these shows that I have seen, and it all came together.

If you’re just joining us, folks, one of the first things I mentioned at the top of the program was an observation I’ve made that with Millennials and television entertainment, movies, what have you, the more trauma and the more suffering, the better they think it is. I mean, critically, artistically. I’m not talking about how entertained they are, I’m talking about how critically, artistically brilliant it is, and it’s because, as they plainly write, they’re suffering, and they’re trying to find ways to cope, and all the trauma and all the suffering in all of these TV shows that they like and watch hold the key to dealing with all of this suffering and trauma and maybe not overcoming it, but at least understanding it. So you are giving us your reasons as to why they might be in this frame of mind.

CALLER: Right. I’m 36, so I don’t think I’m technically a Millennial, but I have friends who are, and kids have grown up with massive insecurities. You know, they didn’t know their dad. They’ve been through divorces. Their parents never got married. They’ve had mom having boyfriends over, different ones every weekend, that’s a recipe for abuse. And I think if you see in entertainment, a lot of it is psychological trauma, not just physical trauma, but, you know, these people suffering psychologically. And that’s what they can relate to.

RUSH: Well, you’re right. In fact, most of it is psychological or mental or emotional. But the thing that I’ve noticed — and let me add to this, there’s a valor in it. They’re not so much complaining, although they are, it’s their reality.

CALLER: I think you’re right, the valor associated with it. These aren’t people who’ve been out and have, you know, fought against some enemy and that was their heroism. It’s they’ve put up with this, and they think that’s their heroism.

RUSH: That’s a good point. The heroes are those who suffer the most. In these TV shows and movies that I’m getting my input from, the people that suffer the most, the people with the most trauma, not how they deal with it, not how they overcome it, not how they defeat it, just they’re the heroes. And if you had to summarize it, you would say the attitude is that life sucks and it’s only going to suck. It’s never going to do anything but suck and be bad, and so this is our lot, and how we deal with it defines who we are. There’s no optimism whatsoever. None.

Now, as I say, I haven’t taken the time to really delve into the cultural reasons why this might be, but I will bet you that if anybody honestly tried to dig down deep into it, they would find at the root level liberalism and all of the various aspects of it. Liberalism is a personal failure. It’s an institutional failure. But it contains all this promise. Liberalism is where utopia is. Liberalism leads to utopia. What’s utopia? Utopia is unbridled, never ending, almost incomparable happiness, contentment. And of course it’s not possible, there is no such place, and yet the dreamers dream of it, and when it becomes paramountly obvious that there is no utopia, that’s a crushing, crushing blow.

And who is it that promises this utopia? Democrat Party promises it, college professors and so forth promise. But, in addition, at the same time all of this utopianism is preached you can’t escape the fact that these kids are beat over the head every day with how rotten things are, how unfair things are, how mean, how this or that, and it’s a bad thing as an identity.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So I just checked the e-mail during the break. “Rush, what’s this big deal about suffering? What?” Look, you understand. I’m incomplete in this. Here’s the point, folks. And let me just restate it. All I’ve said was — and I think I’m at the beginning here of noticing a trend that’s been going on for quite a while. You know, we’re on the cutting edge here, the cutting edge of societal evolution. And if I’m right on what I’m noticing, this is not good. We’re talking about young adults who are already prominent in media, and they’re going to grow even more prominent.

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It’s just something I’ve noticed as I read things written by Millennials, whether it’s reviewing TV shows and movies or commenting on the latest tech or the latest politics or whatever, it is draped in suffering and trauma. And the more, the better. The more trauma, the more suffering, the greater they think something is. It’s as if that is what their lives are now, trauma and suffering, and television shows and movies exist now to demonstrate the suffering and trauma that everybody is going through and how to cope with it. And the modern American heroes, the superheroes to this group of people, are not people who accomplish great things. They’re not doers.

They’re mental cases who cope with suffering and trauma.

And I don’t know how healthy that is, frankly. It’s mind-boggling, and it’s something I’ve stumbled into. Maybe I’m wrong about it. Time will tell. But the fact of the matter is, you can’t escape it. These people act as though it’s something new. “It’s deeper and darker than it’s ever, ever been!” It’s generational. We all go through tough times. Everybody suffers. Everybody deals with trauma. You overcome it. You get past it. You have to! But they don’t seem to want to get past it. They want to wallow in it as an identity of their existence. A badge of honor is attached.

The more suffering and the more trauma, the more notorious or noteworthy you are and the more worthy of fame you happen to be. Not how you overcome it. Not how you beat it back. But how you just are able to continue and go on. I’m not one of those “get off my lawn” old guys. That’s not the point here. But life is filled with obstacles, and it’s always been, and it’s been that way for everybody, and when you become consumed by that — and I think there are reasons for it. I think it’s what they’re taught, their politics. I think it’s the doom and gloom. I mean, look at the version of their own country that they’re taught.

Their own country is guilty of all this horrible stuff, torture and racism and all these horrible, rotten things. And they’re all taking it personally as though they’ve engaged in. They’ve got the personal guilt for it, and there’s no redemption from it, and so all that’s left is to cope with it. And they don’t want to hear anything that disagrees with that. They don’t want to hear anything that challenges that view. That makes them feel “unsafe.” They feel safe in their trauma. They feel comfortable and safe and secure in their misery and suffering. Anything that shows them it’s not necessary, they don’t want to any part of.

That’s what’s sick about it.

You’ve heard the old phrase. I never get this right. People who are miserably happy, or happily miserable. I mean, that’s not new, either. Here, I’ll give you an example. It’s somewhat related. It’s not a hundred percent, but you won’t believe this. From just moments ago, on the floor of the House of Representatives, one-minute speeches, Representative Frederica Wilson, a Democrat from Florida. (interruption) It’s a woman, yes. I know, we have to say so. Just the name does not indicate anymore the sex, the gender. Frederica is a woman, Wilson, and here… Just listen. Self-explanatory.

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WILSON: Tomorrow is Wear Red Wednesday to Bring Back Our Girls. Boko Haram has been declared the world’s deadliest terrorist organization. Boko Haram has actually murdered more people than ISIS. I urge Congress to pass my bill, H.R. 3833 which would require the US government to develop a regional strategy to assist Nigeria in defeating Boko Haram. Please continue to tweet, tweet, tweet #BringBackOurGirls, and remember to wear something red tomorrow, Wednesday, a tie, a pin, a flower. Just wear something red and tweet, tweet, tweet! #BringBackOurGirls, #JoinRepWilson. Tweet, tweet, tweet!

RUSH: And there you have it. So we’ve got a bunch girls kidnapped by Boko Haram how many years ago now, and we’re still tweeting about it? “Tweet, tweet, tweet!” Well, of course none of this ever solves anything. At the time they engage in the behavior, they think they’re really mattering. They’re tweeting. They’re doing all this. They’re hashtagging here and there, and Michelle Obama comes out, #SaveOurGirls, #BringBackOurGirls, whatever it is, and they think they’re doing something meaningful. But of course they’re not.

And eventually enough time goes by where whether they want to admit it consciously or not, they have to know that what they’re doing is meaningless, is irrelevant, and nobody wants to be meaningless. But it’s the slap in the face of reality that all of this symbolism and caring and tweeting and hashtagging doesn’t mean diddly (raspberry). (interruption) Mr. Snerdley just asked, “Do these kids you’re talking about not know that they have it made?” There’s not a single one of them that thinks they’ve got it made. There’s not a single one, not of the ones I’m talking about.

I’m sure there are Millennials who think they’ve got it made. I’m sure they’re well adjusted, normal, upbeat, positive. I’m not talking about the whole generation here. I’m talking about the generation here that is writing and in media and is gonna have fairly decent shot at shaping opinion of others. Anyway, let me move on. I could spend the rest of the hour on this, and I’m not prepared to do that yet. This is just the very beginning here of a philosophy or of a thought process, what have you.

Here’s Derek in Houston as we head back to the phones. Derek, I appreciate your patience. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Yes, sir. It seems to me that Obama spent his entire presidential career telling us how America is not exceptional and how we need to give the rest of the world a chance to show how great they can be. Yet whenever there are people in the world who need help, suddenly we need to bring all these refugees to America, because as Obama says so proudly, “That’s who we are.” Well, why would Obama not want to give the predominately Muslim countries surrounding Syria the chance to match the great love and charity that our Christian nation has set the example for?

RUSH: Now, now, now. I know you’re asking this facetiously.

CALLER: Of course.

RUSH: Because you know as well as I do that Obama is not importing all of these refugees because he wants them to discover American exceptionalism, because as you rightly note, he doesn’t believe in it. That’s not what he wants they mean here for. He wants the Syrian refugees here so that we, Americans, get a taste of our own medicine, so that we see what the other people in the world live like because of us, because of our guilt, because of the way we have stolen resources, because of the way we have forced ourselves on the world.

We’ve taken the best every country has to offer and taken it for ourselves and so forth. We’re unjust and immoral in our founding, what have you. But, no. The question nevertheless makes the point. If America isn’t exceptional, why is he bringing all these people here? If the real exceptionalism countries are elsewhere, why doesn’t he send them there? This whole subject of Obama today as it relates to the global warming, this climate change thing in Paris and what it signals that we face in his final year, that’s worthy of some discussion.

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