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RUSH: For 25 years — don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m not tired of the job, folks. I’m tired of getting trapped and lured into following the news as presented by the Drive-Bys. You know, every time there is the mistreatment by the media of a Republican, we all say, “That would never happen with a Democrat in office” to the point that everybody knows it would never happen with a Democrat in the office, and vice-versa.

And yet it remains ineffective. It remains ineffective in persuading people’s minds. My point is, everybody that pays even a little bit of attention to this knows the media is unfair. They know the media is, call it biased or selective, whatever term you want to use, most people know it. Pointing it out, pointing out the hypocrisy, pointing out how the media treats Democrats totally differently than the way they treat Republicans.


Another example. Here’s Dingy Harry who says he’s got a friend that told him that Romney hasn’t paid his taxes in ten years. The media, “Oh, really? Who’s your friend?”

(imitating Reid) “I don’t have to identify him for you. Doesn’t matter who my friend is. It’s what my friend says that’s important. Romney hadn’t paid his taxes in ten years.”

The media says, “Do you have any proof, Senator Reid?”

“No, I don’t. But I’m not required to. You need to go to Romney. He’s the guy that has to prove he’s paid his taxes ’cause I got a guy that says he hasn’t.”

The media dutifully says, “You know what, that’s a good point. We will. We will go demand that Mitt Romney prove he’s paid his taxes in the last ten years.” And Dingy Harry says, “Good, ’cause, you know, we’re all working together here to force Romney to produce his tax returns so that we can have it documented how filthy rich he is, which is really what we want to do.”

The media says, “Fine, and it’s a great tactic, Dingy Harry, thank you for accusing him, and now we’ll go demand that he prove that he has paid his taxes.” Now, if Mitch McConnell were to stand up on the floor of the Senate and say he has heard that Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have not paid their taxes in ten years, the media would demand immediately that Mitch McConnell prove it. They would want to know who his source is. They wouldn’t dare go to the Clintons and demand the Clintons prove it simply because Mitch McConnell has a friend that alleges it.

It’s that kind of difference everybody knows exists. And it remains one of these things that is seemingly ineffective in persuading people. And by persuading them, the objective here would be to get people to realize the media is lying, biased, and not listen to them and not be influenced by it. The objective would be that when Dingy Harry says he’s got a friend who told him that Mitt Romney hasn’t paid taxes in ten years, the desired result would be that most of the American people say, “Come on, Harry, grow up,” and not pay any attention to it and ignore it and basically understand that Harry Reid’s lying through his teeth. But with all these examples, over all these years, that that’s how the game is played, it seems like nobody is actually influenced by it, even though they know it.

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So we keep pointing it out. We keep pointing out the hypocrisy. We continue to point out the disparity, the unfairness, whatever it is, all for naught, it seems. So what I’m saying is there has to be another way of going about this. There has to be another way of dealing with it. And one of the ways I have determined would be: don’t appear with them. When Good Morning America calls you, understand it’s not Good Morning America, it’s the Hillary Clinton campaign calling you because George Stephanopoulos is at Good Morning America and where he really works is the Hillary campaign, or the Bill Clinton war room.

You would no more accept invitation to be interviewed by Hillary Clinton’s campaign consultant, so why would you accept an invitation to be interviewed by Hillary’s campaign consultant disguised as an anchor on Good Morning America? And the same thing goes for whoever it is that moderates these debates that are yet to happen. If the Republicans fall for this business of letting Clinton campaign operatives moderate their debates we’re told that, “Rush, look, that’s the lay of the land, everybody knows it, and it’s an obstacle the Republicans have, it’s a reality that the Democrats don’t. And everybody knows it, and therefore the Republicans have to prove they can overcome this unfairness.”

Really? Why is that case? It’s apparently been required of the Republicans for 35 years that they demonstrate they’re willing to deal with this unfairness. It seems like they’ve demonstrated for a number of decades they’re willing to do it. The point is it doesn’t seem to help them much. It remains an obstacle that has to be overcome. I know, it’s a challenging exercise to come up with alternative means here of reaching the American people. But one of the ways, this is a great field of candidacies that the Republicans have who can reach the American people by going over the heads of the media, and they should not be afraid to do so.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, so some know-it-alls think that I am wrong when I say that most people understand the media is biased. Let me make it even worse than that, then, ’cause I’m gonna stand by my contention after all these years, the vast majority of people understand. The people of this country are not that brain-dead and dumb.

The problem is actually much deeper, and it goes to Republican branding. The people that understand the media is biased support it because they think the Republicans deserve to be mistreated because of what they’ve been told about the Republicans all of these years. So they support the bias. They applaud it. They consider the media to be on their team.


The Republicans are the enemy. And I don’t mean that in just a choice of words. They have actually grown up to listen to the Republicans and to watch the Republicans being portrayed as the enemy. The media stacked in favor of the Democrats, and most people in the low-information crowd end up supporting that ’cause they think that’s fair because that’s what’s necessary in order to tell the truth about the Republicans.

I think the problem here, whatever we discuss it to be, media bias or branding, the problem is always gonna circle back to the Republicans themselves, if you want to find where the problem exists and whatever you want to call it, branding or what have you. This is why so many of us are constantly imploring conservative elected politicians to be fearless in their conservatism.

Most Americans will support conservatism because even now the majority of Americans live their lives that way or want to. So an actively cheerful, charismatic — these are not easily done, by the way, I understand that, but somebody who doesn’t have to say, “I’m a severe conservative” as a means of trying to convince people. If somebody really is, who doesn’t need a teleprompter, doesn’t need note cards, doesn’t need meetings, doesn’t need advisors to tell them what they believe, a genuine conservative who is, in his heart and mind, and can articulate it is the best weapon yet in changing the Republican brand.

What is conservatism? Conservatism is all about everybody’s life getting better. Conservatism is all about everybody being respected. Conservatism is colorblind. Conservatism has nothing to do with identity politics. Conservatism is rooted in love of people and high expectations of everyone. Conservatism believes that everybody, if things are moved out of their way, can be much better, can accomplish more than they think they can.

The left is the exact opposite. The left doesn’t believe any of this about people. The left believes the worst of people. And therefore they put themselves in this equation where they are needed to in order to help people even survive. Conservatives believe people will thrive on their own if obstacles are cleared out of the way and they are motivated and inspired with high expectations. And it’s all rooted in love of people.

Now, you get somebody who can articulate that who’s running for office, and you can dispel all these branding problems and all the other things that go against it, but it’s gonna require something like that. That’s why this field, by the way, this ’16 Republican field is kind of exciting to me.

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