In a recent article in the National Review Rush Limbaugh, the God Father of conservative media recently catalogued how he not only birthed but also nurtured the growth of an alternative voice alongside what he aptly calls the “state-controlled media.”
I can remember the first time I heard him in 1986. I was so excited to hear someone say what I was thinking. For years I had felt like I was all alone. Outside my wife, a few friends and relatives I didn’t think anyone thought or felt like I did about the slide of our nation and our society from a land of limited government, personal liberty, and economic opportunity into a socialist quagmire. Since it was all I ever heard I thought the mainstream media was reporting the news and presenting what was the majority opinion. When I heard Rush I immediately knew this wasn’t the case and I knew there was someone who was ready, willing and able to champion the conservative philosophy against the avalanche of Progressive propaganda.
In this article Rush relates that during the first two years of his show he traveled 45 weekends each year to build a firm foundation with his radio-affiliates. His Rush to Excellence Tours regularly drew crowds from a few thousand to over 10,000. At these electrifying events he made us all laugh as he poked fun at liberals, clearly presented and explained conservative ideas, while promoting traditional American values.
Starting in 1991, some of the new conservative radio syndicators that were springing up across the nation began to offer his substitute hosts their own national shows. In addition hundreds of local-radio stations switched their format to talk and sought out conservative hosts. The voices of conservatism were spreading into the space Rush was creating speaking to an audience he was awakening.
Growing from 125 radio stations with a talk format when he started in 1986 today there are over 2500 talk stations and the majority of them lean toward the conservative side. Rush is on over 600 of these stations every day.
Not stopping with revolutionizing the radio industry Rush moved on to transform the television world which had been dominated for years by the triple-headed democrat parrot ABC, NBC, CBS and their biased stepchild Ted Turner’s Progressive megaphone, CNN. In 1992 he began hosting a national TV show that for four years broke new ground with Rush’s own brand of hilariously entertaining conservative commentary. The great popularity of this show was followed in 1997 by the birth of Fox News as a network that did not march in lockstep with the democrat propaganda arm masquerading as an independent media.
Presidents from Clinton to Obama have complained that Rush has three hours a day to speak his ideas with no one representing the other side. This is patently ridiculous since in the beginning it was Rush on one side and all of American Media on the other. Even today Rush and all his clones are still outnumbered by the co-opted and corrupt networks and their mirror image in print. Numerous Progressive oligarchs have tried to bankroll liberal talk shows to compete with Rush and all of them have failed for lack of an audience.
When summing up the results of the Rush Revolution no one can say it better than the great man himself, “Its consequences are unmistakable. I firmly believe that the conservative-media revolution has caused the liberal media to abandon any pretense of objectivity and fairness and actively advocate on the Left’s behalf. This has led in turn to the hyper-partisan nature of our politics today.”
Reflecting on the situation before he arrived on the scene Rush continued, “When Republicans were perennial losers and happy about it, the media could stay hidden behind their wall of phony objectivity. But they were called out. Now there is a fierce competition for the hearts and minds of the American people, which the Left used to believe it owned. So it is not I, nor anyone else in conservatism, who is to blame for the partisanship in Washington. That is on the Democrats and the Left, for trying to destroy the traditions and institutions that have defined this country. We stand in defense of this great nation, and we always will. And we look forward to the Republican Party’s someday joining us.”
The advent of the Rush Limbaugh show brought a ray of light into a dark world of controlled media and partisan subjectivity passing itself off as objective reporting. For millions of us Rush and his insightful commentary are the red pill that helped lead us out of the matrix of a progressive nightmare trying to lead the way to the ultimate destruction of the American Dream.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2015 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
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