RUSH: Here’s Scott, San Clemente, California. Welcome, sir, great to have you with us.

CALLER: Longtime listener, second generation caller. For those of you in Rio Linda, San Clemente is just south of you guys not too far. Rush, I grew up listening to your program, and I have to admit I had absolute disdain, absolute loathing, I could not stand anything that came out of those speakers. And, you know, you didn’t catch me before I went away to college to properly fill my mind full of mush.

It wasn’t until, you know, I got out of college and realized that I really didn’t have anything to offer and only took a bunch of general electives that were kind of imposed by, you know, the state institution. And I was now in my profession that I’m in now, and that works under mobile homes — well, I work under mobile homes, and we would have your program on. It was syndicated after a popular station in Los Angeles, and I didn’t have the ability to turn it off, and eventually you resonated with me.

The point of my call is that I’m finding what you say and what Donald Trump and Ben Carson are doing as very synonymous, in that you stand by your guns. And when I tuned in yesterday and I learned that Ben Carson was doubling down about, you know, a Muslim being president and basically he just wanted to make sure they were gonna adhere to the principles of the Constitution, I was elated. And to me it was no different than what Trump’s doing, and the fact that he’s doing it and there’s voices like you and Donald Trump, it’s not that they’re partisan. The reason I think Donald Trump is resonating is that he’s not political. You know, I mean, yes, he’s political, but he has built an institution and he’s willing to call it the way it is, and that’s what people want.

RUSH: Yeah, he doesn’t come across as a politician when he is doing politics.

CALLER: Correct.

RUSH: I mean, he’s in the political arena, he’s running for office, he’s in politics, but you’re right, he does not sound like in any way, shape, manner, or form a politician. When Trump speaks, you don’t ask, “Okay, what’s he really trying to pull here,” or “What’s he really saying or what’s he not saying.” It’s right out there, you hear what he’s saying and you have no doubt about it. So there’s no attempt at subterfuge or say one thing and mean another. It’s just right out in the open. And that is why I think a lot of people are glomming on to this, ’cause it’s perceived as real, genuine.

CALLER: And the other point you were prefacing in terms of Los Angeles combating the homeless issue, that’s exactly what I found. I was in an institution, a college institution, and I was a complete liberal, man. I mean, I believed nothing but what they fed to me. And only until I got out in the real world did I find that conservatism is the true practiced method, and if you want to ever make something happen in your life, you gotta get down and do it yourself. Nobody’s gonna do it for you. And so, amen, brother.

RUSH: Well, that’s awfully — that’s heartwarming. This is a great call. Can I ask you a question before you go?

CALLER: Please.

RUSH: I’m genuinely interested in this, ’cause I do not think of myself, and nor does anybody who knows me, think of me as hateful in any way, quite the opposite. Yet you admitted that in the early days of listening to me, you loathed what you were hearing. And I’m curious how that manifested. What was it that you hated? What got you so worked up?

CALLER: Well, honestly it was my mom’s disdain, so I think it was her voice — (laughing) — that outweighed kind of what your message was.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And until it was just you, me and you and I heard your voice talking directly to me, was it that, “Oh, my gosh, this guy makes sense,” and —

RUSH: Ah. So there was no filter prejudging me or characterizing me before you listened. I get it. Okay. Well, that’s helpful. I appreciate that. So you’re in San Clemente. Now, how old are you?

CALLER: Thirty-three. I can explain why the Millennial generation is so embittered too, but that’s for another discussion.

RUSH: Well, no, give that a shot. I’m fascinated in the Millennial generation, just as they’re fascinated in themselves.

CALLER: No, exactly. I believe that we were sold a myth, and our parents didn’t know any better, and, you know, I come from the Baby Boom generation, and they did, they truly wanted the best for us, and so that’s precisely why they made such an aggressive and fervent push for us to attend higher institutions of learning. And we really thought that we were gearing ourselves, us, Millennials I’m talking about, to just come out into the world with nothing but success. And we have found that that is not the way it is. And so we think that we were so entitled to everything and that we were gonna have such abundance at our feet and so many opportunities that now we realize that is nothing but a fabricated myth.

RUSH: Now, help me again. Why did you think that, because that’s how your parents prepared you or did you just think that’s what your education was guaranteed to provide you. Or were you told that this is what the country was obligated to do for you? Why, ’cause that’s a much starker difference. When I was coming out of college — well, I didn’t go to college. When I was that age that you’re talking about here, I didn’t think anything was guaranteed to me. I didn’t think anybody was gonna give me anything, and I didn’t want them to. My whole attitude was that I was gonna have to earn everything that I wanted to spend, and then some. So where did that come from? In your opinion, ’cause it’s a generational, attitudinal thing. Where did this almost immediate gratification expectation come from, for Millennials?

CALLER: I mean, we saw generations of success. I saw my grandmother, you know, both of them from World War II, there was not a guaranteed success, and they ended up being very wealthy and did very well, one of them. But that was never indicative of, you know, anything that was gonna come to us. But I guess what I’m saying is that it was sold that — the idea of education and somehow a degree was gonna empower —

RUSH: Ah.

CALLER: — you to be better. I’m an English major, but I went into my parents’ construction business, but I’m making it happen.

RUSH: I think that’s it. I think you’re exactly right. I think a college degree was so promoted, so hammered, so built up, that it almost was heard by your generation as a guarantee. “Get this, and the world is your oyster,” just because you got that. And I can understand that. The way we sell education in this country and the way we sell and promote college, which is itself a profit center, make no mistake about it, that makes total sense to me.

See, in my generation, I’ll tell you the honest-to-God truth here, Scott. For me and my friends from where I grew up in the Midwest, the center of the country, there was no expectation of anything. And in fact our reality was that we weren’t going to really succeed and make anything of ourselves until we hit 40, that it took that much time and that much hard work to establish yourself as being worth whatever somebody would pay you, that you would require, define as fair and a good life. My generation had no such expectations like yours did, whether we went to college or not.

Now, our generation was told we didn’t have a chance if we didn’t go to college, but we were not told that college guaranteed anything. We were simply told not going doomed us. And of course, “Well, Rush, said, ‘Well, watch me, screw, you I don’t want to do that.'” But my dad thought he was a failure as a father for most of his life simply ’cause he couldn’t convince me to go to college. But none of us expected that to automatically mean anything. It might have meant a good interview, but we were under no illusions that the kind of success you expected with your degree was just at some point gonna be handed over.

I’m not saying that there’s anything great about us compared to you. I’m just chronicling or cataloging the differences for you. I remember when I was in Sacramento. It was actually my second house that I bought. I don’t count the first house ’cause was it a shack, and I had no business buying it anyway. I did it because everybody said it’s the best investment, the smartest. I had no business. I didn’t make enough money to be owning a house. But Sacramento is my first real homeownership. I remember sitting at a bar at a old restaurant called Mesa’s and with a guy that built homes. He was a developer.

This would have been 1987, so I’m, what, 36 years old? Yeah. And he says, “You know, Rush,” I’m sitting here telling him how excited I am about this first house. And he said, “This house, you’re gonna be looking at this house someday as a shack. They don’t let you make any money, Rush, until you’re 40.” And this was a guy who was old enough to be my dad. In his mind he was not condemning anything. This is the way that society worked.

There were exceptions to this, but you had to spend enough time doing things well in order to get noticed and earn. And then I think your generation, these dot-com guys came out and they were instant millionaires, Twitter guys, you see examples of that, and you think what they’re telling you get a degree, it’s automatic. So you had some illusions that you had to deal with, too. It wasn’t all faux pas. Anyway, I gotta run. I’m way over time. Scott, I appreciate it.