{"id":45605,"date":"2021-02-19T09:02:33","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T09:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=133262"},"modified":"2021-02-19T09:02:33","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T09:02:33","slug":"limbaughs-legacy-normalizing-hate-for-profit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/19\/limbaughs-legacy-normalizing-hate-for-profit\/","title":{"rendered":"Limbaugh\u2019s Legacy: Normalizing Hate for Profit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rush Limbaugh\u2019s death represents a moment for reflection on the state of American politics. Limbaugh amassed a fortune of more than $600 million over 32 years in the talk radio business, in the process building up more than 15 million regular listeners. It was no exaggeration when CNN referred<\/a> to him as a \u201cpioneer of AM talk-radio.\u201d He made possible the rise of propagandistic partisan media, demonstrating that this format could be incredibly profitable for news channels looking for low-budget programming filled by pundits who tell audiences what they want to hear, while strengthening their prior beliefs and values.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on Limbaugh\u2019s legacy, The New York Times described<\/a> the \u201crightwing\u201d \u201cmegastar\u201d by his \u201cslashing, divisive style of mockery and grievance,\u201d which \u201creshaped American conservatism.\u201d CNN remembered<\/a> him as a \u201cconservative media icon who for decades used his perch as the king of talk-radio to shape the politics of both the Republican Party and nation.\u201d MSNBC reported<\/a> that Limbaugh was a \u201cpowerful and controversial voice in American politics\u201d who was known for pushing a \u201cconservative slant.\u201d<\/p>\n

One might have plausibly characterized Limbaugh as a conservative in the 1990s and 2000s, despite his conspiratorial paranoia against the Bill Clinton administration, and his long history of sexist and racist rants. But for those following his career over the last decade, it should be clear that Limbaugh had crossed over from conservative to neofascist in his politics. The racist and conspiratorial \u201cbirther\u201d nonsense Limbaugh trafficked in during the late 2000s and early 2010s, his reference to liberal activist Sandra Fluke as a \u201cslut\u201d and a \u201cprostitute,\u201d his labeling of feminists as \u201cFeminazis,\u201d and his incessant race-baiting by trafficking in anti-black stereotypes and rhetoric, all reinforced his profile as a rightwing ideologue who had long straddled the line between conservative and far-right reactionary. But during the Trump years and in the run-up to them, Limbaugh\u2019s politics became noticeably more extreme, as the Republican Party itself moved further and further toward embracing neofascistic politics.<\/p>\n

This piece is not devoted to the \u201cgreatest hits\u201d of Rush Limbaugh cliches that have gotten so much attention among critics. Rather, I review the most extreme of Limbaugh\u2019s comments in recent years that have consistently been swept under the rug in mainstream academic, journalistic, and Democratic discourse. The simple reason for why you probably haven\u2019t heard most of these statements is because they reveal Limbaugh\u2019s politics to be neofascistic, and referring to a powerful pundit like Limbaugh in those terms simply will not do in polite society. In a country that has long convinced itself, in Sinclair Lewis\u2019s famous words, that \u201cIt Can\u2019t Happen Here,\u201d American political culture simply won\u2019t allow for the possibility that the U.S. has become neofascistic in its politics.<\/p>\n

To be clear, when I talk about \u201cneofascism,\u201d I\u2019m referring to a school of thought established by social scientists and journalists recognizing that, while the exact features of classical Italian and German fascism are not going to repeat themselves in future settings, we may observe enough <\/em>of an overlap between the features of classical fascist regimes and current political contexts to speak of an updated, contemporary version of (neo)fascistic politics. More specifically, I am referring to a constellation of traits that relate to neofascistic politics, including the embrace of white supremacy, the rampant trafficking in conspiratorialism fueled by the cult of personality of a demagogic leader, support for paramilitarism and the romanticization of eliminationist rhetoric and violence against alleged enemies of The Leader, efforts to idealize and impose one-party rule, and Orwellian efforts to gaslight political critics by inverting reality and trafficking in blatant propaganda. I explore each of these traits, related to Limbaugh, below.<\/p>\n

White Supremacy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Limbaugh\u2019s bigotry never fit the conventional mold of white supremacists donning Klan robes or goosestepping Nazis shouting \u201cSieg Heil\u201d to The Fuhrer. Modern white supremacy is much more subtle than that; its advocates have spent years \u2013 decades really \u2013 mainstreaming their hate rhetoric to a popular audience, while denying that they are trafficking in neofascistic themes. Limbaugh pioneered this form of white supremacist hate, although the primary target wasn\u2019t black Americans, but Muslims and undocumented immigrants.<\/p>\n

Limbaugh\u2019s Islamophobia was unrelenting. He referred to Muslims in blanket negative terms, including:<\/p>\n

1) The position that Muslims are unintelligent and incapable of serious intellectual accomplishments, reflected in Limbaugh\u2019s comparison between \u201cthe number of Muslims who have been Nobel prize winners to the number of Jews who have been Nobel prize winners,\u201d which he declared<\/a> no \u201ccontest.\u201d Limbaugh was clear that he believed<\/a> \u201cMuslim contributions to science and math are myths.\u201d<\/p>\n

2) The belief that Muslims are contemptuous of democracy, via Limbaugh\u2019s claim<\/a> that \u201cthere is not a Muslim nation democratic in the way we are anywhere in the world,\u201d and by his dismissal of the 2011 democratic Egyptian uprising as a phony revolution pursued under the \u201cguise\u201d of democracy.<\/p>\n

3) The contention that Muslims represent a fifth column in their alleged efforts to take over American politics, evidenced by his wild conspiratorial fearmongering \u2013 which was rejected<\/a> as \u201cdangerous\u201d by Congressional Republican leadership \u2013 about the Muslim Brotherhood taking over the State Department through the \u201cpresence of Huma Abedin,\u201d one of \u201cHillary Clinton\u2019s top-level aides,\u201d who Limbaugh described<\/a> as \u201cso close to the powers that be.\u201d Abedin\u2019s position concerned Limbaugh because, as he explained, \u201cHuman\u2019s mother is best friends with the wife of the new Muslim Brotherhood President of Egypt.\u201d<\/p>\n

4) The myth that the public was in \u201cpanic\u201d that \u201cObama is a Muslim,\u201d with Limbaugh\u2019s Islamophobia buttressed by references<\/a> to the President as \u201cImam Hussein Obama,\u201d and his claim<\/a> that the President was a \u201cdefender of Islam,\u201d and dead-set on \u201cconstantly denigrating Christians.\u201d Limbaugh characterized<\/a> Muslims as a foreign, exotic other, via his denigration of Obama for claiming Muslims are \u201ca part of the fabric of America,\u201d to which Limbaugh responded that he \u201cdidn\u2019t know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

5) The position that Muslims represent a terrorist threat to the nation, via Limbaugh\u2019s objection<\/a> to distinguishing between \u201cIslamic extremism\u201d and \u201call of Muslims,\u201d and his contention that \u201cin a more sensible time,\u201d \u201cwe did not say \u2018German Nazis\u2019 \u2013 we said \u2018Germans\u2019 or \u2018Nazis\u2019 and put the burden on non-Nazi Germans, rather than on ourselves, to separate themselves from the aggressors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Limbaugh\u2019s white supremacy extended to his attacks on undocumented immigrants. Drawing on classic fascist themes out of Hitler\u2019s Third Reich, Limbaugh referred<\/a> to Latin American immigrants as an \u201cinvasive species,\u201d comparing them to \u201cmollusks,\u201d while depicting<\/a> them as an \u201cinvasion force\u201d that \u201ccontributes<\/a> to the overall deterioration of the culture of this society.\u201d Limbaugh lamented<\/a> that \u201cwe have now imported the third world,\u201d and \u201cthey have not assimilated.\u201d He warned<\/a> that, due to undocumented immigrants, \u201cwe are at the forefront of a dissolution of a nation\u201d \u2013 facing<\/a> the \u201cbreakdown of organized society.\u201d Perhaps not-so-subtly drawing parallels to Nazi-era propaganda and the purity of the nation and its racial and ethnic identity, Limbaugh warned<\/a> about unauthorized immigration that \u201cthe objective is to dilute and eventually eliminate or erase what is known as the distinct or unique American culture\u2026this is why people call this an invasion.\u201d And Limbaugh recycled Nazi propaganda depicting Jews as an infection when he wondered<\/a>aloud about the \u201cdangers of catching diseases when you sleep with illegal aliens.\u201d When taken together, these comments reveal that Limbaugh was a shrewd operator. He was a bigot, consistently smuggling white supremacist themes into his programs, while being careful to avoid recognizing what he was doing, and counting on his listeners\u2019 ignorance to obscure his recycling of Nazi-style white supremacist propaganda.<\/p>\n

Conspiracy Theories and the Cult of Personality<\/strong><\/p>\n

Limbaugh made sure his political fortunes were inseparably linked to Donald Trump\u2019s. This was abundantly clear in his conspiratorial rhetoric. He took as articles of faith the former President\u2019s baseless \u201celection fraud\u201d propaganda, coupled with other wild conjecture about Democratic plots to take down Trump. Limbaugh speculated<\/a> that the Democratic Party was attempting to infect Trump with Covid-19, that \u201cradical leftists\u201d and \u201cthe Democratic Party\u201d had engaged<\/a> in a \u201cfraud\u201d to \u201cbeat Trump\u201d via \u201cballot harvesting\u201d and other election scams in battleground states; that the Covid-19 lockdown represented<\/a> an effort \u201cto take down the U.S. economy\u201d by imposing \u201cglobalism and world government\u201d; that the official Covid-19 death counts were inflated<\/a> due to \u201cfake causes\u201d listed \u201con death certificates\u201d and the \u201cstaged overrunning of hospitals\u201d; and that newly reported<\/a> Covid-19 cases were \u201cbeing reported in states that Trump needs to win,\u201d implying that these cases were part of a coordinated Democratic effort to undermine the former President\u2019s candidacy. None of these assertions were accurate. But fascists aren\u2019t exactly known for embracing leaders who rationally engage in empirical evidence.<\/p>\n

Conspiratorial Eliminationism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Closely overlapping with Limbaugh\u2019s white supremacy was his conspiratorial eliminationism, which focused on black Americans and the Democratic Party. During the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, Limbaugh demonized people of color, stoking<\/a> fear via his talk about \u201csaving America from a race war that the Democrats are out there actively trying to promote\u2026they want chaos, they want this constant us-versus-them aspect of daily life.\u201d In contrast, Limbaugh claimed<\/a>, Trump was \u201cmaking it clear that he\u2019s interested in people who are constructive, productive, generally happy. He\u2019s not interested in parasites, the generally miserable.\u201d The \u201cparasites\u201d reference was another example of Trump\u2019s eliminationist rhetoric, echoing Nazi propaganda, but directed against the Republican Party\u2019s political enemies. Limbaugh was equally vicious in his targeting of Black Lives Matter, which he classified<\/a> as \u201cMarxist\u201d and a \u201cfull-fledged anti-American organization.\u201d Limbaugh\u2019s eliminationism also extended to LGBTQ activists, which he condemned<\/a> for working with the \u201cdeep state\u201d to impose a \u201c30 years\u201d long \u201ccultural rot\u201d in America. \u201cWhat a cesspool the Democrat Party has turned the country into, what a cesspool American morality has become, what a cesspool the American left is turning our culture into,\u201d Limbaugh lamented, as the country \u201cdescend[s]\u201d into \u201ca filthy gutter\u201d politics dominated by \u201ctransgenders\u201d and \u201cgay people\u201d fighting for, and winning equal rights. Such incendiary rhetoric was clearly intended to reinforce the belief in listeners\u2019 minds that the U.S. was divided between two peoples \u2013 the hard working and the virtuous on the one hand, and the morally depraved and the rotten on the other. This language mirrored Nazi propaganda, which pitted notions of an impure minority against the lost purity and greatness of the nation\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

Eliminationism and Paramilitarism in Pursuit of One-Party Rule<\/strong><\/p>\n

Limbaugh was pining for civil war well before the events of January 6th<\/sup> at the U.S. Capitol building. He spoke romantically about rightwing paramilitary-style activists, referencing Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter by name in mid-2020, wondering<\/a>: \u201cWell, where are all the people with guns to \u2018push back\u2019 against the left? They\u2019re [the left] threatening to beat you upside the head and do whatever other kind of physical damage to you they can.\u201d Limbaugh called on \u201carmed right-wingers\u201d to \u201cpush back against the Democrats, against the left, against the media\u2026who\u2019s got all the guns in this country? We\u2019ve got all the guns,\u201d but the right was \u201cnot pushing back. If there\u2019s no pushback and if the pushback isn\u2019t seen, then people are going to get dispirited and think nobody cares about this assault on the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Limbaugh eventually got what he wanted, as neofascist Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th<\/sup>seeking to overturn certification of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden\u2019s victory in the 2020 election. At the time, Limbaugh announced<\/a> that \u201cI actually think that we\u2019re trending toward secession\u2026there cannot be a peaceful coexistence\u201d with \u201ctwo completely different theories of life, theories of government\u201d which he claimed divided American politics between left and right, and between Democrats and Republicans. Reinforcing this position, Limbaugh romanticized the Capitol insurrectionists, which he likened<\/a> to Revolutionary War era rebels and patriots: \u201cWe\u2019re supposed to be horrified by the protesters\u2026There\u2019s a lot of people out there calling for the end of violence\u2026lot of conservatives, social media, who say that any violence or aggression at all is unacceptable regardless of the circumstances. I am glad Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, the actual tea party guys, the men at Lexington and Concord, didn\u2019t feel that way.\u201d Such statements made clear Limbaugh\u2019s support for paramilitary efforts to impose one-party rule by overturning the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

Gaslighting the Public on Neofascism<\/strong><\/p>\n

With such an egregious record of trafficking in, and embracing neofascistic political rhetoric, the rational observer should be asking a simple question: how did Limbaugh get away with it without being run out of the \u201cconservative\u201d media? One answer is that rightwing pundits have become expert gas lighters, smuggling in white supremacist and neofascistic rhetoric into their programs, while consistently stopping short of admitting this is what they\u2019re doing. They rely on the staggering historical ignorance of their audiences, whom they correctly believe know little about classical fascism, and will not notice that they\u2019re smuggling into programs extremist discourse, even as their followers come to embrace neofascistic political ideology.<\/p>\n

A second way they get away with it is because the right projects their own neofascistic politics onto critics in Orwellian ways that seek to erase or invert reality. Limbaugh was only one of many pundits, including Mark Levin<\/a>, Glenn Greenwald<\/a>, and Tucker Carlson<\/a>, who claim that white supremacy and paramilitarism on the right do not exist, or that they are being promoted<\/a> instead by the Democrats and their supporters. Limbaugh echoed this position, maintaining<\/a>that \u201cwhite supremacy or white privilege is a construct of today\u2019s Democratic Party,\u201d and<\/a> that they \u201care such a small number \u2013 you could put them in a phone booth.\u201d Such a position, of course, is absurd considering that the former President and rightwing media spent years normalizing white supremacist and neofascistic political ideology, to the point where one in ten<\/a> Americans and a third<\/a> of Republicans say it is acceptable to hold neo-Nazi views, a third<\/a> of the country engages in some form of Holocaust-denial, and a third<\/a> agree that the U.S. should \u201cprotect and preserve its White European heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States has entered a crisis moment, fueled by the ascendance of rightwing extremism. The realities of neofascistic politics are being swept under the rug because it simply \u201cwon\u2019t do\u201d to admit that large numbers of Americans have embraced the ideology of hate. There is little hope of moving forward and beating back this extremism until Americans are honest about how pervasive the problem has become. \u201cConservative\u201d media venues have been empowering and enriching the merchants of hate for years. We should remember this toxic history when we reflect on the legacy of Rush Limbaugh and his impact on American values and discourse.<\/p>\n

The post Limbaugh\u2019s Legacy: Normalizing Hate for Profit<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rush Limbaugh\u2019s death represents a moment for reflection on the state of American politics. Limbaugh amassed a fortune of more than $600 million over 32 years in the talk radio business, in the process building up more than 15 million regular listeners. It was no exaggeration when CNN referred to him as a \u201cpioneer of AM talk-radio.\u201d He made possible the rise of propagandistic partisan media, demonstrating that this format could be incredibly profitable for news channels looking for low-budget programming filled by pundits who tell audiences what they want to hear, while strengthening their prior beliefs and values. More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Limbaugh\u2019s Legacy: Normalizing Hate for Profit<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,266],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45605"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45605"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46186,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45605\/revisions\/46186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}