RUSH: Anyway, we are going to lift (for one instance) my ban on audio sound bites from MSNBC. Something occurred there that dovetails nicely with the theme of the program today, and so I instructed Cookie to get me the bite, and she was just ecstatic. She loves it when I lift the ban on MSNBC.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let’s get started with all of this that’s happening in the Republican campaign, Trump, Cruz, the Palin endorsement, the exploration of so many questions that revolve around how can any of this be happening? How can conservatives abandon conservatism and go Trump? How can conservatives abandon the Republican Party and go for somebody who’s obviously not a conservative, or at least isn’t campaigning as one. Why is Sarah Palin, she had a direct role in helping Cruz get elected in Texas, and she was a Tea Party darling, what in the world is she doing endorsing Trump?
People are scratching their heads, can’t figure it out. What’s in it for her personally? Maybe she just wants airtime. Maybe she’s seeking renewed celebrity status or what have you. None of that is even close to what’s going on. What’s going on is all rooted in what I have been talking about the past two days about conservatism, the so-called conservative movement, who are they, where are they in relationship to the Republican Party and the Democrat Party. And I want to start with this sound bite that I am lifting the ban on MSNBC for you to hear.
It happened last night on a program called All In with Chris Hayes. I’m so tempted to describe the aesthetics of this show, but I’m gonna avoid that and just stick here with the substance. Also on this show in this segment last night was one of the PMSNBC correspondents, Joy Reid, and a Republican operative by the name of Rick Wilson. He’s a Republican media consultant, and he would qualify as being part of the Republican establishment, with the Republican consultants class. He was on to explain what in the name of Sam Hill is going on with this endorsement of Trump.
So we’ve divided this into two parts, because the first part dovetails with a point that I want to make beyond the sound bite here, and the second part is Rick Wilson. So here is the first part of the segment. It’s not in response to any question. They’re simply talking about what they consider to be the breakup and the fracturing of the conservative alliance with the GOP. Now, I am mentioned here, but this is not why I’m playing the bite.
REID: For decades you’ve had Rush Limbaugh and this sort of conservative entertainment complex holding together these various wings of the party as if there was a core belief in a set of specific conservative values among the base. When it turns out what the base wants is a feeling that can be delivered by Rush, but some policies that are an apostasy to movement conservatives.
RUSH: Okay, now, it’s not just me who have seen a couple of things this week written by people talking about overestimating the conservative base. I mean, this is beginning to percolate a lot of places, and what Joy Reid is saying, she said, “For decades you’ve had Rush Limbaugh in this sort of conservative entertainment complex holding together the various wings of the Republican Party as if there was a core belief in a set of specific conservative values among the base.” And she says, it turns out that there isn’t a set of values, conservative values that are the glue that keep the conservative base together.
She’s saying Limbaugh has been the glue, Limbaugh has been what has kept everybody on board with the idea that the Republican Party is conservative or that there is a conservative movement, but that there really haven’t been policies that have provided the glue. There haven’t been conservative beliefs, particularly not found in the Republican Party. That’s why so many conservatives are abandoning it and going to Trump.
So her view is — and they would love to believe this — that there never has been any serious conservative movement. It’s all been an illusion created by me, that I and the power of this program have kept the various, as she calls them, wings, of the conservative base attached and together. But now all it’s taken is somebody like Trump to come along. And what’s happening is that a lot of people who were thought to be conservative really aren’t, and they’re eagerly supporting Trump for a whole host of reasons, but in their view this means there never was a real, solid conservative movement.
It’s been an illusion. And furthermore — let me just give you one more little tip as we head into this — the belief now is, and I predict you’re going to start seeing this in places. One of the theories is that the reason the conservative media and the Republican establishment media are so virulently anti-Trump is because of what he’s exposing. It’s the theory that all these conservative think tanks and all these conservative policy institutions and all of these groups of people have been sitting around thinking and coming up with policy in Washington, DC, are being exposed as irrelevant, unnecessary, and never accomplished anything in the first place.
That’s what the left is trying to use Trump’s success to say. And their theory is, how in the world, if there’s a conservative movement, and if it really mattered, and if there was a conservative movement that was really centered on and based on substantive issues, then how in the hell can Donald Trump come along and do what he’s doing anyway? If there’s a solid set of conservative values, if there’s a huge conservative base, and if it is based on policy and substance, then why isn’t it all aligned behind Ted Cruz? And it’s the answer to that question that I find fascinating.
Now, but that’s not the reason I wanted to play the bite. Nope. You gotta hear this Republican establishment guy. You gotta hear this whole thing. Rick Wilson, Republican establishment consultant.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, ladies and gentlemen, understand something. It’s not that there is not a conservative movement, and I’m not trying to be tricky here. The theory is not that there’s not a conservative movement. The theory is that it’s not conservatism which unites the movement. There’s a conservative… There’s a group of people out there that you would think looking at ’em, listening to ’em, the way they vote, “They’re conservative.” But it’s not conservatism that is uniting them or motivating them. This is what everybody is missing in Washington.
Remember, it goes back to the fact that in Washington — Republican establishment central — even after the two midterm elections 2010, 2014, they still don’t get that the primary motivating characteristic of Republican voters this time around is an absolutely direct opposition to the left, to the Democrat Party, to Obama and everything that’s been going on the last seven years. They want it stopped and reversed. And they will go anywhere if they are convinced whoever’s telling them they’re gonna stop it is telling them the truth.
They don’t have to be conservative.
They don’t even have to be Republican.
As long as they’re good populists and can espouse nationalism, it’s not conservatism making ’em go there. This is what everybody’s misunderstanding about whatever coalition Trump has put together. But, anyway, back to the MSNBC sound bite. Here’s number one, number two. Here is the whole thing. They’re discussing the meaning of the Palin endorsement, what it says about the Republican Party, conservatism, and so forth. Here are both bites. The whole thing is gonna run here probably about 50 seconds, the first bite, and I’ll have to come back after this and give you the question that sets up the second one.
REID: For decades, you’ve had Rush Limbaugh and the sort of conservative entertainment complex holding together these various wings of the party as if there was a core belief in a set of specific conservative values among the base. When it turns out what the base wants is a feeling that can be delivered by Rush, but some policies that are an apostasy to movement conservatives.
RUSH: What she’s saying is that there are a bunch of conservatives, supposed conservatives, that will call themselves conservatives but they will do things that the conservative movement doesn’t understand while calling themselves conservative. The point is it’s a conservative movement, but it is not glued together, not unified by conservatism. Now, up next, the host of this show asked a question of this guy, Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant. He said, “[T]his piece today in The Week where he looked at this Samuel Francis, who was a white nationalist, white supremacist, who sort of started out main street conservative who was an advisor to Patrick Buchanan, He basically said your [Republicans’] best path is get rid of all the conservatism stuff, all the limited-government, deficits…” Get rid of capitalism. Stop talking about all that, “and just go whole hog at essentially ethno-nationalism… What do you think of that, Rick?”
WILSON: That’s absurd. I think that there is definitely still a very significant portion of the party that is a limited government, conservatism-based faction of the overall coalition. Now, the screamers and the crazy people on “the alt right,” as they call it, you know, who love Donald Trump, who have plenty of Hitler iconography in their Twitter icons, but the fact of the matter is most of them are childless single men who masturbate to anime. They’re not really political players. These are not people who matter in the overall course of humanity.
RUSH: There is a ranking member of the Republican establishment categorizing Trump supporters as “the screamers and crazy people” on the right with lots of “Hitler iconography in their Twitter icons, but the fact of the matter is most of them are childless single men who masturbate to anime.” That’s a Japanese cartoon character. Style. And so there… (interruption) Yeah, so there you have the Republican establishment view of the typical Trump supporter. (interruption) He said “the alt right.” Yeah. He said, “[T]he screamers and the crazy people on “the alt right,” as they call it, you know, who love Donald Trump,” and all that. (laughing) Any rate, that’s why I lifted the ban. I wanted you to hear that.