RUSH: This is Mark in Hartwick, New York. Great to have you with us on Open Line Friday. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s certainly an honor to speak with you. I want to talk with you about political labeling, conservatism versus liberals and such like that. But first I have to tell you, 30 years ago I walked out to my car to have lunch, and I turned on the radio to listen to the local weather, and I heard your voice. And I heard you say, “This is the second day of my second week.” So I want to apologize for missing the first six days of your program, but I’ve been a loyal listener ever since.

RUSH: Well, I appreciate that very much. I’m always amazed. Everybody knows exactly where they were and what they were doing the first time they heard this program.

CALLER: We all appreciate you, Rush. I consider you the Voice of America, and some of us who are old enough, we know what the Voice of America used to be a service, a radio service. But now you are the Voice of America. We appreciate that. I also want to quickly say, I’ve tried to call you hundreds of times. When the phone actually rang, I was almost in shock, and I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this.

But your phone number that you give out for this show must be the most dialed phone number in the history of the phone. Now, on to conservatism versus liberals. I have thought for the longest time that it’s not fair or accurate to refer to Democrats or progressive Democrats or socialist Democrats as liberals. In fact, there’s nothing liberal about their approach to politics. The only true American liberals are the conservatives. We’re the ones that are concerned about our own personal liberties and freedoms.

It’s the Democrats are always trying to limit our freedoms, our liberties, take them away from us any way they can, get whatever kind of socialist power they can over society and take control. And I think you’re the big voice. You just might be the guy with enough influence to start a new kind of a wave, a new trend to strip the Democrats of that term “liberal.” No longer refer to them as liberal. Call them what they are. They’re progressive socialist government takeover-ers, and liberalism just doesn’t apply to them in any way.

RUSH: You are exactly right and I’m really glad that you made that point, and I want to take the occasion of your call, A, to thank you, because I appreciate it very much, all that you’ve said. In fact, Voice of America? That’s very, very nice. I appreciate that. But this whole business of labeling… You know, Geno’s call yesterday, it might represent a segment of thinking, “What do you mean, selling out?” There’s no sellout at all here, folks.

Let me just spend a couple of short minutes explaining this to you, and some of you have heard me say this before so it may be redundant. But I spend a lot of time reading liberals or socialists. I read liberal sportswriters. I read liberal tech journalists. I read the Drive-By Media people. I study it. I know conservatism. It’s who I am. I don’t need to read conservatives to reinforce what I already am and know of myself.

I don’t need somebody to tell me what’s in my heart. I know it, and I’m constantly… As I think about doing this program each day, I’m constantly asking myself, “What would be…? If I ever really had a singular focus in this program — which I’ve never had. But if there ever were a singular focus and if I ever decided to change this focus (this is just a mental exercise for me) to nothing but the attempt to persuade people of the truth of conservatism, what would I do?

How would I do it? I am constantly asking myself this question, in part because I hope each day I’m gonna get a call from a liberal that will allow me to put to use some of these things. The most recent time that happened was a 13-year-old girl called and wanted to know if I thought citizenship should be something hard for nonresidents to achieve. So when I say to you and discuss with you the idea that I think conservative or conservatism as a brand has been destroyed and is hurting us, it’s not because I just created this thought out of my head.

It’s because I’m reading. I am reading voluminously and omnivorously liberals of all demographics. I focus on trying to find Millennials, and I see… I see the absolute way their minds have been poisoned about who you and I are. I see that their minds are totally closed. At the same time, they are arrogant and snarky and superiorist. They are not open whatsoever to any alternative way of thinking about anybody who isn’t liberal in their minds like they are.

Now, I factor all of this when I think about the occasion it might present itself when I’m talking to one of them and trying to persuade them. “What am I gonna have to do first to even be heard?” Based on… I’ve never seen a more prejudiced bunch of people who think the exact opposite of themselves. They think they are the most tolerant and accepting and open-minded. They are none of the sort. They are arrogantly closed-minded. They are arrogantly snarky.

They are arrogantly superiorist. They are mean. They are angry. They hate. They live each and every day — and they write it! You can read it in how they write about things. And when they react to anything in the news having to do with anything conservative or a conservative, that’s all they need to hear to tell themselves who they’re dealing with, and it’s not true. This is the thing. What they think of conservatism isn’t true. It isn’t accurate, and it isn’t anywhere close.

There is no hope of getting through to any of these people as a conservative. You’re not gonna even establish a line of communications with anybody if they think you are conservative, and it’s because of the way they have been poisoned and propagandized their entire lives, and this has been happening for 50 years — and it’s everywhere. It’s everywhere in pop culture. It’s every movie, book, television show, song, podcast, you name. Podcasts exist because they can’t succeed on talk radio.

The stuff that’s being said in podcasts about conservatives? I’m here to tell you that you don’t see 10% of what I see because you don’t have the time. It’s my job to do this. You’ve got many other requirements in your day. You don’t have the kind of time to spend that I spend trying to figure all of this out, and I’ll tell you, if I wanted to… I get livid — I get mad, ticked off, offended and all — at what these smarmy, conceded, unappreciative, spoiled rotten little brats in their thirties think of us, and the fact that they are superiorist and better than anybody.

It’s a problem, folks. It’s a genuine problem. And all I’m speaking of here when I talk about this is potential solutions to it, because I think they’re necessary, mandatory. There’s more to say about this, but I just wanted to give you some foundation for why this week I’ve talked about the branding problem that conservatism has. Now, liberal… You want to get really confused?

If you go to an ideological conservative, you know what they’ll tell you conservative is, classic liberalism. They’ll say to you, “I am a ‘classical liberal.'” I look at them and say, “What? Who the hell knows what you’re talking about? A ‘classical liberal’?” “Yes, in the great reputation of Edmund Burke, I am a classical…” “Hey, pal, nobody knows what you’re talking about.” “Well, we are not conservative. In the real senase, we are ‘classical liberals,’ and they aren’t the liberals. We are.” I say, “Aw, gee, spare me.” That’s what I’m up against.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: “Forty-four percent of young people 16 to 39 (44%) said they preferred socialism to capitalism. However, only 33% of them were able to correctly identify and define socialism.” Branding. They think socialism is great because of what they’ve been told that it is! They don’t know what it is.