RUSH: Clarence Thomas was on Fox News last night, and he had an actual very pointed comment. He was asked about the state of the country, the partisan divide, the basic rancor that exists. He was asked if he was surprised about where the country is right now. He said, no, I’m not surprised. In fact, let me check the sound bites. Grab number 19 and number 20. I rather you listen to him say this than read the quotes. He was on Laura Ingraham’s new show on Fox last night. Question: “No job is worth what I have been through, no job. Was it worth it for you? Was it worth what you went through?”

JUSTICE THOMAS: I think we are called to do certain things. In my youth I thought I was called to be a priest, and I think there are jobs that perhaps and experiences that you wouldn’t choose. But you’re called to do it. Now, think about it a second. When we do Wounded Warrior events or we go out to do Wreaths Across America, what do you tell the widows, the families of the fallen? That you were too afraid to go through a little bit of uncertainty, a little bit of difficulty to do a job like this, when they actually were in harm’s way? What do you tell the young man who’s a double amputee because of war, that you were afraid to go through that? I don’t think anyone would choose to go through unpleasantness. But if it has to be that to do what is right, then so be it.

RUSH: That is so right on. That is so bingo. I mean, that’s bull’s-eye. And not just his comparison to wounded warriors, but any time you actively choose to do something that creates direct opposition to it or unpleasantness or whatever, you make a judgment on it. Is it worth it? Are you called to do this? Is this a commitment that you have? And, if it is, then you’re duty-bound to follow it through and you are duty-bound to put up with whatever comes your way.

Now, in many cases if the focus area is politics, you have a head start, you know what’s coming your way. So that’s not an excuse. But that is so right on the money. Nobody chooses it, nobody wants to be disliked, nobody wants to be hated, but if to do what’s right and to do what you want to do, you have to put up with that, then so be it. Next question: “Are you surprised how things are still so rancorous in the country today, the foundational issues, the anthem, all this?”

JUSTICE THOMAS: I’m not surprised. I mean, what binds us? What do we all have in common anymore? When I was a kid, even as we had laws that held us apart, there were things that we held dear and that we all had in common. We always talk about e pluribus unum. What’s our unum now? We have the pluribus. What’s the unum? I think it’s a great country. I think we, for whatever reasons some people have decided that the Constitution isn’t worth defending, that history isn’t worth defending, that the culture and principles aren’t worth defending. Certainly if you’re in my position, they have to be worth defending. That’s what keeps you going. That’s what makes it the endeavor, all of the criticism, the other things, that’s what makes it all acceptable, because what you’re doing is so important and so critical to the things that matter. So I don’t know what it is that we have — we can say instinctively we have as a country in common.

RUSH: Again, that’s another bull’s-eye and bingo. And one of the ways of illustrating this might be to go back in time to World War II. Back in World War II there were divisions of people, there were Republicans and Democrats, conservatives, liberals, communists, but there was something that unified. There was something that bound everybody together. And it was patriotism. It was the idea that this country deserved to survive, that this country deserved to win, that this country owed it to the world to survive and triumph.

And you come to the postwar period, the fifties boom, and then you hit the sixties and things start to break down. Things that bind us began to fall apart, starting in the 1960s. And many of the ringleaders of the sixties movement are now in great positions of power in the Democrat Party and the American left, such as on college campus. They’re faculty, they’re college presidents, they are media people, they are journalists. Some of them are CEOs. But those people have realized their anti-American dreams and now hold positions of power where they are able to continue their anti-American work.

So what binds us together? Name one thing that would bind us together in the midst of crisis. Now, it is true to say that throughout our history we’ve had anti-American citizens. We’ve had people that actively opposed the founding of the country at the time, they actively opposed the union, the 13 colonies, they actively opposed a number of things. But all of that was overcome. And after it was overcome, there remained a number of things that bound everybody together. There was a commonality. It was religion. It was sometimes cultural.

Justice Thomas here is right on the money to ask what binds us today. In my lifetime — I think back all the time to the past. I’ll begin to feel or think a certain way, so I’ll go back in time, is this new, I ask myself. Is this a new feeling, or is this something you felt before and have forgotten. I’m talking about the degree to which people hate this country, the degree to which so many Americans think this country is the problem in the world.

And I can’t remember a time in my life where it was this pronounced. And I can’t remember a time in my life where blaming America, anti-America was so popular. It’s always been there, but the degree to which it has come to dominate an entire political party. And it didn’t happen overnight. It’s been creeping up. But nevertheless Justice Thomas presents and exposes a great question: What binds us, what holds us together?

And in fact, I would go further than to say that those things that did bind us are those things that are under assault. Those great traditions and the institutions that defined America in terms of our founding and defined America as an exceptional place, those are the things, if you’ll note, that are under assault, the things that bind us together.

And now an entire political party has been taken over by people who want to do nothing more than rip us apart, divide and keep dividing. And many of them, the rank-and-file, can’t even tell you why they’re doing it, other than to shout cliches and bromides about America’s a slave state, America’s racist, America sucks or what have you. They’re just following the trends of leadership. Why the leaders of these groups would want to rip this country apart, I think it’s directly tied to the ascendancy of domestic communism, putting it bluntly.

And so that’s where we are. And what is happening now is the election of Trump and the attempt to implement much of his agenda is literally an attempt to reestablish those things as prominent that bind us and that always have, a reenergizing of these traditions and institutions that defined America, that gave America its unique culture and existence.

The Constitution’s under assault constantly. It must constantly be defended. And rather than a document that binds and inspires togetherness and unity and confidence, it’s become the target. It’s become the focus of evil for those who, for reasons they may not even be able to intellectually explain, hate this country.