RUSH: You watch what’s happening in Manhattan last night. You watch what happened in D.C., you watch nobody trying to stop it. It is just mind-boggling. It is literally mind-boggling. These Democrat-run states seem hell-bent on whatever carnage happening, as long as they think they’re gonna be able to end up blaming it on Donald Trump.

It’s just astounding to watch this, the degree of hatred these people are harboring for one man. Well, actually not just one man. Those of you who voted for him as well. I mean, even the Drive-By Media is out saying they’ve never seen anything like this. Macy’s, Herald Square looted last night. You know, people say, “Rush, this is not as bad, it’s been worse than this before, Rush. You’ve just forgotten. You’ve forgotten the Watts riots in LA in the sixties.”

No, I haven’t. “And you’ve forgotten about the protests of 1968, the Democrat national convention in Chicago.” No, I haven’t. Speaking of that, I want to run something by you. I just got a news story involving Senator Lindsey Graham. It’s from the Washington Times.

“Sen. Lindsey Graham on Tuesday questioned how much blame should be directed at Antifa for the violent protests and looting in the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody. Mr. Graham, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Antifa has played ‘a part’ in the civil unrest. But the South Carolina Republican noted that rioting and looting happened during protests long before the militant anti-fascist group became a movement. ‘We will try to find out how organized this violence is,’ Mr. Graham said. ‘But I am old enough to remember 1968, and Antifa was not around in 1968, that I know of.'”

So what? I saw a little expose on Antifa last night, and I kind of enjoyed it because it made a point that I made yesterday. Antifa is a group that is recruited off of college campuses. Antifa is an amalgamation, but it’s not just a bunch of poor, disenfranchised either minorities or white people fed up. Many of them are top-tier graduates of American universities who come out of these universities with their minds already poisoned.

They’ve been radicalized by the professoriate, by the faculty. And many of them come from means, from families of independent means and wealth. They’re not all ragtag poverty. But it is a well-oiled machine. Whether they’ve been around since 1968 doesn’t matter. Now, I know what Graham is saying. Graham’s saying — we’d have to speculate here — because the riots in 1968 were the SDS. That would be Tom Hayden and the boys. I think Antifa is just the modern-day descendants of that. I think these anti-American radical leftists have been around for a long time, whatever they call themselves.

Like I said yesterday, Antifa, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, it’s all the same bunch of people. It’s all the same bunch of people from the militant environmental movement to the militant feminist movement. It’s all the same people, it’s all the same thinking, it’s all the same radical liberalism. And the bottom line is that its home is the Democrat Party. What we’re seeing is Democrat Party politics come home to roost.

“Rush, that’s too simplistic.” No, it isn’t. Besides that, the most simple explanation is almost always the right explanation, folks. The Democrat Party is getting exactly what they want. This is exactly what they’ve set the table for. And it doesn’t matter which constituent group you’re talking about. I’ve told you they need a permanent underclass that is in constant need, unable to speak the language, unable to provide for themselves. That forms the foundational power base.

But the last thing the Democrat Party needs is self-reliant people. The last thing the Democrat Party needs or wants is people who are independently able to take care of themselves and advance economically through life. That doesn’t do the Democrat Party any good. And the Democrat Party today is not the Democrat Party of 1968, even though they were pretty radical then. The Democrat Party today is full-fledged leftist, socialist radical, and they will admit it to you. And so all of this action, 90% of it, if not more, is taking place in blue states.

The lack of action against the looters and rioters is taking place in blue states, and the blue state governors are in full-fledged support of the looters and the rioters. It wasn’t that long ago — look at the mayor of New York City. Bill de Blasio, if you dared go into a body of water during the lockdown he was gonna send his thugs to snatch you out of it. If you went into a bay, if you went into a pool, if you went into the ocean, Bill de Blasio was gonna send the authorities after you, and you were gonna be rag dragged out of there because you were not gonna be allowed to spread the virus. You were gonna obey the lockdown. You were gonna be sent back home or else you were gonna be under severe threat of punishment.

Now, his own city is being looted and rioted, and he doesn’t make a serious effort to stop it. Contrast that with his behavior of people violating his so-called lockdown during the virus pandemic. Now we’ve got a new kind of pandemic. We don’t have a virus pandemic. We’ve got a looting pandemic. We have a rioting pandemic. Why shouldn’t people be sent back home during this? So I don’t know what Lindsey Graham is talking about.

I don’t know why he would want to focus people’s attention away from Antifa by saying, “Well, they weren’t around in 1968, and there were riots in 1968.” Senator, it’s all the same people. It’s all the same organizational energy. It’s all a bunch of whatever is most comfortable for you to use — liberals, socialists, communists, anarchists. Anti-Americans is what this is made of, and they are giving it their best shot.

“White Nationalist Group Posing as Antifa Called for Violence on Twitter.”

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RUSH: Hey, hey, hey, hey, look at this, folks. It’s Democrat versus Democrat in New York. Here is the mayor… Sorry, I get all these Democrats confused. Here’s the governor of New York Andrew Cuomo today speaking in Albany.

CUOMO: The NYPD and the mayor did not do their job last night. What happened in New York City was inexcusable.

RUSH: Yep.

CUOMO: I offered the National Guard. The mayor has said he can handle it with the NYPD. My option is to displace the mayor of New York City and bring in the National Guard and basically take over —

RUSH: Dominate!

CUOMO: — take over —

RUSH: Dominate!

CUOMO: — the mayor’s job.

RUSH: Dominate!

CUOMO: I don’t think we’re at that point.

RUSH: Right. We’re gonna dominate. Governor Cuomo needs to go in there and dominate, because the stupid mayor let this happen last night. This is outrageous what happened last night! There aren’t words for what happened last night. The wanton destruction of public, private property, all of it, and it was just observed like it was a spectator sport.

Nobody did one thing of any substance or consequence to try to stop it. You have to ask yourself why — and when you’re talking about De Blasio, I’ll guaran-damn-tee you the idea they might be offending the looters is a big reason to not stop them. They might be offending Antifa. They’re donors, after all. They might be offending the civil rights coalition. They might be offending somebody.

Just let them have their run at it. That is a predominant way of thinking in minds like Bill de Blasio’s. I had some people ask me last night, different people randomly, “Rush, when are the people of this country gonna rise up? When are the people that own these pieces of property gonna show up and go out and stop it? The cops aren’t gonna do it, and the National Guard and the military are not gonna be deployed.

“When are the American people gonna stand up and stop this?” I wrote back, “You realize what you’re asking me, don’t you? You’re asking me when the civil war starts — and, by the way,” I said, “you realize you’re asking me when that’s gonna happen in blue states?

“A lot of those people in blue states don’t even own guns ’cause they don’t believe in ’em. So what are they gonna go out and stand up and revolt against with? They’re kind of screwed — and then talking about the people in those blue states anyway, are they even of a mind to stand up and try to stop it, or do they think it would be offensive at the same time?”

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RUSH: You know, I don’t think… Well, I don’t know. I don’t think these mayors — and maybe even governors — in these blue states where these major urban areas are literally being destroyed… They may not have any idea what the long-term result of this is gonna be. Now, developing it a little bit further, I literally did… It must have been four random emails, phone calls.

Well, not phone calls, but four random people last night asked me, “When are the American people gonna rise up? If the cops aren’t gonna do anything, if the military is not gonna do anything — if they’re not gonna be deployed — how much of this are the American people gonna accept?” Folks, I’ve been asking myself that for as long as I’ve been doing this show, in one form or another, “How long are the American people gonna accept the crap and the garbage of the Democrat Party?

“How long are people gonna put up with it?” And believe me, they’ve put up with a lot more than I ever hoped that they would. But when you talk about the American people rising up, I mean, you’re really talking about — if you get down to brass tacks — when does the civil war start? I don’t know if you think something like that’s possible. (interruption)

No, no, no. There’s no advocacy here. I’m simply analyzing, I’m answering questions I was asked. The vast majority of this is happening in Democrat blue states — the destruction, the death. Look, it cannot be stated enough, particularly with the reality that we have people tuning into this program every day for the first time in their lives.

So those of you who are here regularly are gonna have to be indulgent, ’cause I gotta get people up to speed as quickly as possible. I think it’s a big deal. I think it is important, in terms of persuading people, in terms of reaching them, in terms of changing minds and hearts. The Democrat Party — the American left, liberalism, however you want to characterize it — have been promising utopia.

They’ve been promising — for all of these years, 50 years — fairness and equality, and nobody gets laughed at and nobody gets humiliated. Nobody’s better than anybody else. Nobody will have any more than anybody else. There won’t be any reason to feel embarrassed or anything of the sort. I mean, they’ve been promising this stuff.

They’ve been promising every minority constituent group they’re gonna fix whatever it is leading to the unfairness. In case of African-Americans, they’re gonna fix the racism and they’re gonna punish the racists, and they’re gonna punish the white supremacists. And now the white supremacists are out running the riots and doing the looting, they say.

If you’re a Democrat voter for all these years and you have bought every promise, you’ve bought into every claim that they’re gonna make it right, that they’re gonna make it good. Forget the use of the word “utopia.” That’s a descriptive I’m using. They don’t actually use that word frequently, but their promising a panacea. They’re promising to fix all of the bigotry and racism and inequality brought to you by who? Us. Republicans.

We’re to blame for everything, and they’re gonna take it to us. Oh, man are they are gonna make us pay the price! They’re gonna make us pay higher taxes. They’re gonna take our businesses away from us. They are gonna do whatever they’re gonna do. None of this ever happens. Their media lies to them every day — every day, all day — and intensely for the past four years.

It’s entirely understandable why these people are fit to be tied because the people they’ve believed in — the people they’ve invested in, the people they’ve given money to — have not come through. They haven’t even come close. In three years, Donald Trump came closer to helping aggrieved minorities realize their dreams and overcome their obstacles than eight years of Obama did, than 50 years of the Democrat Party did.

We’ve got Andrew Cuomo. How many years has he been governor? How many terms? We got de Blasio, six years on as mayor. We had Obama for eight years. And these people are out talking about the systemic racism in America? Why didn’t they do something about this! That’s exactly my point. Systemic racism? Systemic means it’s in the system by design.

Okay. Well, you guys have running New York for a lot longer than Cuomo’s been governor, because every governor has been Democrat with rare exceptions. You Democrats have been running all of these cities. You had Obama for president for eight years. You had Slick Willie for president for eight years. Where were the fixes? Where is the end of institutional racism?

Why is institutional racism only a reality when Republicans are in the White House? Why does it never get fixed? Well, I’m telling you there have to be some Democrat voters asking themselves the same question. Now, their anger at Democrats is not yet making ’em ready to abandon ’em and vote Republican, but effort needs to be extended to reach these people, which is one of the things I’m trying to do here.

You can poke holes and you can blow up every claim they are making throughout this period. George Floyd died in a blue city. He died in a deep blue city, in a deep blue state. He died in a place where there shouldn’t be any police brutality because the Democrats are not gonna permit it. The Democrats are gonna fix it. The Democrats are gonna make sure it doesn’t happen.

And yet George Floyd was murdered in a deep blue state, in a deep blue city, and somehow this is because of systemic racism and white supremacy brought to you by — dadelut, dadelut, dadelut — Donald Trump? It makes no intellectual sense. But we’re not talking intellect here. We’re talking emotion. But it’s literally insane to think that Republicans or white supremacy had anything to do with what happened to George Floyd.

It happens right there in the middle of a deep blue city and a deep blue state. And it’s not insignificant for me to point out that it shouldn’t happen because they have been promising that in the places they run — and they want to control the nation on the basis that they have superior ideas and superior compassion and superior this. Well, go to where they do run places where there is no check and balance on ’em.

Go anywhere you want where the Democrats run things with no ability by the opposition to stop them or disagree with them or check them in any way, and you’re gonna find misery. You’re gonna find poverty. You’re gonna find a skyrocketing poverty rate, death rate, homelessness. You’re gonna find filth, you’re gonna find squalor — and you’re gonna find those people running those places trying to off-load the blame on the people had nothing to do with it.

How long are they gonna get away with not being accountable for this? Well, they’ve gotten away with it my whole life, so why should it stop? These people are killing their cities. There’s a great little piece today at National Review by Kyle Smith, and it’s entitled, “The Suicide of the Cities.”

He says, “I noted on Twitter last night that rioting, coming right after the virus, is a catastrophe for the cities. Regardless of whether Trump or Biden is elected in November, it’s easy to envision the following happening: Americans will flee the cities as they did in the post-1968 era.” They already are! “Thirty years of great progress for cities will be undone by the events of one spring.

“People will move to suburbs and exurbs. A lot more families will buy guns. Gun owners vote heavily Republican. People in less densely populated areas vote Republican too. Trust in the government to provide basic services was already shaky and will tumble further,” and why wouldn’t it?

The people who run Macy’s, think of them today. They’re not just a bottomless pit of money that will rebuild. Their property was wantonly destroyed last night, and nobody in the city made one effort to stop it. Why stay? Civic duty? Civic responsibility? These cities are gonna be offering tax breaks out the wazoo to keep businesses in these cities, and then what happens? They gotta make up the revenue of the tax break. Guess what happens? You, the resident in the city, are gonna see skyrocketing tax increases, property, income, and whatever new ones they can come up with.

People already don’t trust governments in these cities. Why should they? There’s gonna be an increase in homeschooling. And I’ll tell you something else. People have now learned they don’t have to go into Manhattan to work. And their companies have learned they don’t need ’em to come into Manhattan to work, which means we don’t need to pay all this exorbitant real estate rent in Manhattan for offices that we don’t need. This is a major upheaval on the verge of happening in cities brought to you by Democrat mayors and Democrat governors who think that they’re destroying Donald Trump doing all this.

Here’s Mr. Smith writing about the point he’s made about telecommuting. “The involuntary experiment for telecommuting, particularly among white-collar workers, has proven that workers can be relied upon to work from home. People don’t trust the New York City subway anymore but those who don’t need to come into the office can live anywhere.”

You don’t even need to live in Connecticut and pay those exorbitant rents. You can move to Missouri and still work in New York, thanks to telecommuting and our sponsor, IDrive.com. More on that another time. But the point is all of this is true, the reasons for staying in these cities are dwindling. The New York City subway was ground zero for spreading the virus right up there with the nursing homes.

“This is especially true of some of the most successful people — lawyers, people in finance. High-income people will be disproportionately among those leaving,” because they’ll be able to more easily afford to do so.

“The balance of cities, already hit by a fiscal hurricane because of the duration of the lockdown, will tip toward heavy consumers of government services and away from high earners.” That means the people that stay in cities are gonna be showing up wherever they think they have to go to get a government welfare check. There aren’t gonna be any jobs for the people we’re talking about because the cities aren’t gonna have anything for them to do.

Cities will be forced to raise taxes. The taxes on high earners and corporations will be punitive. That will lead to even more of them leaving as taxes go up. You see, the things that successful people like about cities — Mr. Snerdley is a successful person — and one of the things that successful people like about cities — restaurants, high-quality, high end — if you want, they’re there. The culture. You may not access it every day, but it’s there, the museums and Broadway or whatever it is, the cities do provide things that the burbs and flyover country don’t, not as grandly and as exclusively.

But it’s not gonna be enough to keep people in these cities because there isn’t gonna be enough of a tax base or an income base to support high-end restaurants and high-end culture. “Corporate office parks in the suburbs are gonna see a resurgence. … Cities will lose congressional seats. Federal funding will be steered away accordingly.” It will go to the burbs or wherever people end up relocating. People who stop commuting into cities will lose interest in the cities and their institutions.

And why would they not? If you’re never gonna go to the city, why care about what goes on there? And if you’re not going to the city because you do care about the squalor and everything else going on there, then you’re purposely gonna stay even further away.

“Voters left behind in cities will be a combination of the indigent, immigrants working in low-end jobs, the young, and the [social justice warriors who are] woke. These people will vote for a hard-left agenda,” because they think the rich are gonna be punished and made to pay for everything. They think the Republicans are gonna get blamed and tarred and feathered. There will be forgiveness for criminals, there will be hatred of the rich. Global warming and other such boutique lunatic ideas will run the day.

“In other words, the demonstrators and rioters are going to remake the cities in their own image. And it’s going to be disastrous for those cities,” because reasonable people are not going to stay.

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RUSH: It looks to me like this mayor, De Blasio… Even now Governor Cuomo is getting in his chili because he didn’t call out any law enforcement of any kind last night to stop the literal burning and looting of the city. Macy’s. It was astounding.

Even Cuomo’s jumping on his case.

But why didn’t he do it?

I’ll give you a theory. I wouldn’t be surprised… I’m not predicting this; I’m just gonna tell you. I wouldn’t be surprised if this mayor wants Trump to bring in the military, just like these mayors and these governors are maintaining the virus lockdown. They want the suffering and they want the economic damage, and they know that the New York and California economies are crucial to the national economy rebounding.

They don’t want that. They don’t want anything that’s gonna help Trump. All they want to do is hurt Trump, and if this mayor of New York can force Trump into calling out the military, then he wants those pictures. He wants pictures of uniformed military on the streets in New York. And then what happens if an American is killed? I realize it’s a series of ifs.

But can you imagine what the Drive-By Media would do with the story? “U.S. Military Kills Innocent New Yorker Because of Donald Trump,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think Cuomo’s an accomplice this. And I’ll tell you something else. None of this is about George Floyd. George Floyd’s family is doing everything they can to get this stuff stopped.

They don’t like all of this happening in George Floyd’s name. If you didn’t know better, you would think they’re trying to incite a civil war. Because, folks, there’s no reason why any city cannot control crowds. As militarized as American police departments can be, then you add the National Guard to it and the specter of the U.S. military, there’s no way that Macy’s can’t be protected.

But looters were being let in the front door. Did you see the pictures? Looters were being let in, and then the door was being opened and they were being let out by authorities. Somebody was letting the looters in and out. If New York City wanted to protect Macy’s, they could have. If they wanted to protect SoHo, they could have. If they wanted to protect Union Square, they could have.

The National Guard’s available. Enforcing curfews is available. I’m gonna tell you: “At this point ‘space to destroy’ isn’t just about property. This is about trying to make martyrs out of Antifa.” Everybody agrees that George Floyd was a completely undeserving victim of a horrendous crime. Everybody agrees — and, by the same token, we should all be able to agree that mayors and governors have a duty to, and can, protect their cities.

We can outnumber the protesters with military, the National Guard, and the police force. And since we’re not doing that, is it safe to say that blue state governors and mayors want what’s happening to happen? “Come on, Rush. Be very careful here. You can’t really believe that.” I’m just asking. This is logic, folks. Common sense. We can stop this.

They could have prevented Macy’s being looted and otherwise damaged and who knows what was done to it last night. They could have stopped that. They could have stopped any of this any night they wanted to. But they chose not to. They chose not to, either because, “Well, we don’t want to offend the protesters or the rioters, we don’t want to offend Antifa,” whatever. I think they think these pictures is all it’s gonna take to defeat Donald Trump — plus, if they can keep Plugs ambulatory.

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RUSH: Here’s Eric in Peoria, Illinois. Eric, I’m glad you called, sir. You’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you very much. I’m so excited, I finally got through on the day you’re giving away a free iPhone. Just kidding.

RUSH: Ha. (laughing)

CALLER: Actually I just wanted to say you were talking earlier about when are the people gonna come out, when are the people gonna stand up, and so it made me want to call because yesterday the Peoria police department had a press conference. And one of the questions in the press conference was asked to the sheriff or the police chief I guess, and it’s like, “What happens if a place gets looted and the business owner is in there, is he allowed to defend his property?”

He says, “I don’t know. I gotta go to legal.” So they bring the attorney up and the attorney says, the attorney that’s in charge here says, “You are not allowed to practice self-defense or take the law into your own hands,” I believe is exactly what she said, “You’re supposed to call the police. That’s what they’re trained for.” Well, if you’re in the middle of a riot, how you gonna call the police because they’re busy somewhere else so you’re just supposed to let ’em burn your stuff down? But it’s that attitude — and Peoria is very Democratic — it’s that attitude why nobody wants to stand up because if we defend ourselves, we shoot somebody or whatever, we go to jail. So what’s the use? Where is the freedom?

RUSH: Yeah, exactly.

CALLER: That’s all I had, sir.

RUSH: I’m glad you called. You know, I have a press conference on — you know, this reminds me something else I remember. Two weeks ago — remember this, folks? — two weeks ago desperate, frustrated citizens were peacefully demanding to get government to let them open their businesses. Let us go back to our lives. Let us reopen our businesses and our livelihoods. They were begging government to let them do this. The lockdown had gone on long enough.

The virtue signaling leftists were screaming at us that it’s not about the protesters health, it’s about them returning to their communities and spreading the infection to our grandparents. Remember? We cannot let these protests happen. We can’t let this happen because we’re gonna have a second wave, they said. You can’t go back to work because you’ll create a second wave. You can’t reopen your business.

Then protesters come along and guess what doesn’t matter anymore? The second wave. People contracting the virus. It doesn’t matter. There’s no social distancing requirement placed on the protesters. They don’t have to wear masks. Today they’re allowing, they are encouraging, celebrating. I’m talking about these socialist governments, the mayors and the governors, the Drive-By Media celebrating this rioting, celebrating the looting. And I’m not exaggerating. They’re humping it, folks. They’re out there promoting it. They think it’s a great thing because it’s anti-Trump, in their world. They’ve got themselves convinced that all this is happening ’cause people hate Trump. And to them, that makes sense, and therefore it’s entirely warranted and justified.

So if they’re gonna violate every social distancing rule, all the mitigation to stop spread of the virus, so what? Who cares? Trump hatred, getting rid of Trump is worth people dying. Nobody holding any of these people accountable? And you know who the most risk community is in all they? African-Americans. African-Americans are the at-risk, the most at-risk for the virus segment of our population. And who cares? Not the Drive-Bys. Not the socialist governments in these cities and states.

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RUSH: There’s a headline from Breitbart News: “Washington Mass Riots End as Trump and the Military Restore Order in the Nation’s Capital.” The story is date-lined yesterday and last night. “Streets of Washington quieter Monday night after the president deployed the National Guard.” You can stop this stuff. Any mayor could stop it. Any governor can stop any of this stuff they want to stop. They just don’t want to stop it.