Justin Peters with a smart history lesson on Limbaugh’s legacy. Peters argues we have him to thank for Trump in “Rush Limbaugh’s Fight to the Death.”
The conclusion:
“Limbaugh might have had a choice at one point, a choice to stop being a crabbed, reactionary loudmouth and do something different. That choice is gone now. The conservative movement—the wackos and the reply guys, the pundits and the dissemblers, the Q disciples and the truthers—has barricaded itself within the echo chamber Rush built. They swap memes and theories in a big windowless room that admits no outside light, and they have grown so accustomed to the smell that they’re convinced it’s the outside world that stinks.
This is the right wing we’re stuck with, even if Trump loses, even after Limbaugh dies. And a Biden victory can only make it worse, for there is nothing conservative media like more than playing the victim. Spinning spurious grievances into bullshit extending beyond the horizon is the quintessential talk-radio trick. Limbaugh pioneered it. Trump perfected it. It’s a potent, brilliant idea that will outlive them both.”
“Spinning spurious grievances into bullshit extending beyond the horizon.” If that prediction could be monetized into a proposition we could gamble on, I’d slide every last one of my chips into the center of the table.
Pressing Pause 