RUSH: Now to this Reason survey on Millennials. It is a survey of 2,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 29. Reason, by the way, is a Libertarian publication. At least it used to be, and I’m assuming it still is.

The survey found “that 66 percent of millennials believe government is inefficient and wasteful — a substantial increase since 2009, when just 42 percent of millennials said government was inefficient and wasteful.” So five years later it’s up to 66%. “Nearly two-thirds of millennials, 63 percent, think government regulators favor special interests, whereas just 18 percent feel regulators act in the publicÂ’s interest.” Just 18%.

I imagine if you did a survey like this of the population at large, the numbers wouldn’t differ all that much. I think Democrats probably would respond with answers tending to indicate much more blind faith in government, but overall — this is one of the things that frustrates me. Instinctively people know that Washington doesn’t work. Can I give you an example? Joe Biden, the vice president of the United States, I am not exaggerating, and I’m not trying to be quoted here, I’m just telling you the straight on truth.

Joe Biden has been wrong on everything for 40 years. For the 40 years that he has been in Washington, on all of the big things that really, really matter, Joe Biden has been wrong on all of them. And it has not stopped him from climbing steadily up the Democrat hierarchy. How does this happen? I have noted in the past that failure is a resume enhancement in the Democrat Party. You fail, they protect you, they move you up in the hierarchy. Your prominence and your stature, such as Jimmy Carter, increases.

Now, one explanation is the same thing that happened with Dan Rather and the National Guard story. That was such an embarrassment to the journalism community, they had to circle the wagons to protect the news. They had to circle the wagons to protect so-called journalism. After Rather was exposed along with Mary Mapes of literally making up a story about George Bush and the Texas National Guard, it wasn’t along after Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings arranged for a massive dinner, black tie dinner to give Dan Rather some brand-new award that had never been given before for so-called excellence in journalism. So they circle the wagons and protect their own, and failure always ends up being promoted in the Democrat Party.

And it’s the same thing with Biden. Now, I’m using him as an example here to get to another point. The purpose of this is not to criticize Biden, rather to explain Washington. Joe Biden, despite being wrong on everything, despite humiliating gaffe after gaffe after gaffe, nevertheless has climbed steadily up the Democrat hierarchy and, accordingly, the hierarchy in Washington, DC. So this climbing of the ladder of success in the Democrat Party in Washington has nothing to do with the quality of his contribution, the quality of his work. It’s all about simply being there. It’s all about being deeply wired or networked with the right people.

There are, on our side, the same kind of people. There are people — I will just describe them as in the so-called conservative media inside Washington. And they are — some of them — regaled as the most brilliant and the future leaders of conservatism, and they haven’t done anything, yet. I mean, they’ve certainly not accomplished anything to warrant that kind of mantel. But they have been in DC all of their lives. They have networked, and they have gotten to know the right people, and they’ve worked low level here and low level there, and they’ve worked in positions where they made their superiors look good.

Some are speechwriters. Some are legislative aides. There’s any number of jobs that they can hold. They end up being influential not because of anything they’ve accomplished. This is Washington to a T. They become prominent and successful like Biden, not because of anything they’ve accomplished, not because they’ve stood out with a unique perspective on something that nobody else came up with, nothing like that. It’s just that they’ve been there. They’ve been there their whole career. They’ve been there their whole lives. They have become part of, you can call it the ruling class, but I just call it the hierarchy, the structure, the infrastructure, they’re just there.

And in Washington, just being there and having the right network channels is what really counts. That’s where you establish your bona fides and your credibility, by staying, by hanging around, by surviving, by slowly climbing whatever infrastructure ladder is there. You just have to be known. You don’t have to do anything. And these people know how to speak Washingtonese so they can sound very smart about government. They can sound very learned about government. They can sound very informed and aware of the intricate ways it works, ways that you and I don’t know.

So people are dazzled and impressed that, wow, these people really know what they’re doing. Look at who they know and so forth. But the problem for the country — this is my point — all of these people, Biden a great example, are climbing the success ladder in a place that does not work. Washington does not work. We are living a mess today precisely because of decades of policy that has come out of Washington by the supposed best and brightest among us, the supposed smartest among us, in many cases the unachieved, the unaccomplished, they’re just people that have been there.

It’s one thing to rise in the corporate ladder of a corporation that is overwhelmingly successful. But to rise the hierarchy, the ladder of success in a place that does not work, what can that say about you? That’s why Mark Levin and his book The Liberty Amendments, this is why Washington cannot be fixed from within. Washington is made up of people, left and right, Republican-Democrat, it’s made up of people who think that they are smarter than any of their predecessors, and they can make government work. They have been around long enough, they can do it smarter.

They’ll say things like, “The American people have decided they want a Big Government. We can make it more efficient and we can do it smarter.” And there isn’t anybody who’s ever, there has been no massive overgrown Big Government that has ever worked. And this one doesn’t. So my point is, rising to the top in an enterprise that doesn’t work, is no big deal. And yet people continue to turn to it. And even these Millennials in this recent survey, they instinctively get it. Sixty-six percent, government inefficient, wasteful, two-thirds favor special interests. Sixty percent convinced government agencies abuse powers. And they still plan on voting for Democrats in 2014 and 2016.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to go back to this Millennial survey for a second because I glossed over one aspect of this that I actually need to spend more time on, and that is after telling you that these Millennials get that government doesn’t work, and that they’re highly suspicious of it, they still plan on voting for the Democrat Party. Now, there’s a reason for that, I think. But let me give you just few more details here.

Quote: “73% of millennials favor allowing private accounts for Social Security … 64% of millennials say cutting government spending by 5% would help the economy; 59% say cutting taxes would help the economy; 57% prefer a smaller government providing fewer services with low taxes … 57% want a society where wealth is distributed according to achievement.” They want a meritocracy! They do not want the redistribution of wealth.

More: “55% say reducing regulations would help the economy; 53% say reducing the size of government would help the economy.” But then there’s this, which is extremely conflicting: “74% of millennials say government has a responsibility to guarantee every citizen has a place to sleep and enough to eat.” Now, that’s just youth. That’s just youth and “compassion.”

Now, there are some other things. They think that there should be a raise in the minimum wage, and they do think (by 69%) that it’s government’s responsibility to provide everybody with health care insurance. Okay. But let’s go through this first list, because at the end of this, the Reason magazine pollster points out that they admit in large numbers they’re gonna continue to vote Democrat.

Despite opposing most of what Democrat Party stands for, despite opposing Big Government, they’re gonna vote for it! Let’s go through this list: “64% of millennials say cutting government spending by 5% would help the economy; 59% say cutting taxes would help the economy; 57% prefer a smaller government providing fewer services with low taxes… 57% want a society where wealth is distributed according to achievement; 55% say reducing regulations would help the economy; 53% say reducing the size of government would help the economy.”

My contention to you is that if the Republican Party would stand for those things — loudly, consistently, and proudly — then the Millennials would have an alternative. But what are they hearing from the Republicans? Well, they’re not hearing this! This is what the Tea Party stands for and everybody in Washington is trying to destroy the Tea Party, including the Republican Party establishment.

These things that these Millennials say they support in majority numbers used to define the Republican Party, and it’s an absolute outrage that it doesn’t anymore. So the question is: Why? Why have the Republicans given up standing for these things? Now, you could shout, “Romney, Romney, Romney,” all day to me. You could say Romney stands for these things. Maybe, but Romney got demonized, and Romney got destroyed.

He didn’t respond to any of it, again, under the belief that nobody would believe it. But the Republican Party is perceived to be a bunch of moderates anymore, and to stand for these things would require that they be in conflict with President Obama — and that is where they are paralyzed. That is where they draw the line. They will not stand for these things that these Millenials want.

And, by the way, these things these Millennials say they believe in in majority numbers? Everybody does! A majority of Americans do. We have not lost the country. I don’t believe for a moment we’ve lost the country. Not if you define it by what the majority of Americans still value. Not if you define it by how the majority of Americans still want to live their lives.

Most Americans, not just the Millennials, would probably agree in similar numbers to all of these propositions. But in the political world and realm every day they don’t hear a political party standing for this! Now, you and I think the Republican Party does because we grew up with a Republican Party — Reagan, Nixon, you name it — that articulated these things. This is how the Republican Party was known.

But to young people who haven’t grown up with anything other than Bill Clinton and Obama and a George Bush that was hated, they don’t know what the Republican Party stands for — other than the Republican Party doesn’t like Tea Party, the Republican Party wants amnesty, the Republican Party is trying to sound like Democrats. Where’s the contrast? It gets right back to that.

I’m just saying that if the Republicans made it known this is who they are, some of these Millennials would vote for ’em, if they really believed this. (interruption) Yeah, I know. You gotta throw in the fact, too — and this is something that somebody’s gonna have to do something about at some point. You can’t do it by just sitting around saying nothing and hoping people figure it out someday.

This whole idea that Democrats “care more about people like me” than Republicans do? That’s a real concern. It’s a reality. That poll’s consistent no matter which pollster asked the question. Republicans are just thought to only care about a few percentage of the people — the rich and Big Business — while the Democrats care about the downtrodden and the starving and homeless and the thirsty and all that.

The emotional play versus the intellectual.

But the fact is there’s not even an effort to combat this! There’s a built-in majority. I take you back: Every poll since day one on Obamacare has shown a majority of Americans oppose it. That issue alone has been just begging for the Republican Party to glom onto it and build a governing coalition based on that opposition, and they didn’t do it, because they remain paralyzed in fear over openly criticizing the first black president.

I know. I know awful your objections. I know what you’re saying. It’s all gonna come back to the media and the way the media portrays critics of Obama, and I know that. But I also know when a majority of Americans believe in these things, if there were a little political leadership articulating that they did, too — and that they were gonna implement these things or try to — it’d be a lot better off than just sitting around hoping people figure it out after so many years of Obama botching things.

It doesn’t work that way.