Rush Limbaugh died this week. It’s not good to speak ill of
the dead, so I’ll speak on both sides. On the one hand, a lot of his
followers speak very highly of him. They always have and always will. But on the other,
he didn't mind speaking ill of the dead who he didn't like, like young black men who
were shot by white police officers with no apparent cause, or people who had
died of AIDS, or Muslims who died in Mosque bombings, or people who had died by
suicide, and many others.
It’s also true that he considered himself to be a man of
deep faith. He recently told an interviewer that God had strengthened him through
the last days of his illness. That’s wonderful, but on the other hand, I remember him
criticizing Joe Biden for saying that God had strengthened him following the
death of his son. He called Biden’s comment a “crutch that liberal Democrat
politicians are allowed to lean on.” He often said that you couldn't be a Democrat and a believer at the same time. Because you can't logically believe in God and also believe that humans have an influence on global warming. So, all Democrats who claim to have faith must be lying.
He actually often called progressives and democrats "liars," and he frequently quoted things he claimed that they had said, and then said that they were outright lies. But on
the other hand, his critics have said that he seldom got through his daily talk
show without telling at least a handful of lies. I remember hearing him being
interviewed on the radio some years ago and being asked about that and he partially agreed. He said that he had to lie now and
then because “we are in a war of ideas” and that winning that war was more
important than telling the truth. But his friends all loved him, so I’ll let it
go.
He was actually considered to be one of the best at using what his
critics would call “lies,” as a way of riling up support for causes that he liked and politicians that he didn't. Those who know more about his influence than I do say that he was
one of the most important (and dishonest) voices in America in terms of driving white, nationalist, evangelical
Christians to believe that Democrats, progressives, immigrants, pluralists, feminists, liberal Christians, and others, were greedy, godless, hate-filled, socialists, and that they were out to destroy us, and that they had declared "war
on the Republic" (the title of a book his brother, David).
He frequently told the "Big Lie" that the evil Joe Biden-Deep State Socialists had stolen the country and the election and he was one of those responsible for convincing millions of Americans to come to washington and storm the Capitol to take the country back. Just before he died, he praised the Trump followers who had stormed the Capitol as “Patriots,” because they had heard him and followed him and tried to rescue their country.
On the other hand, many of those
“patriots” who got away, and are not now in jail, will probably praise him for speaking the kind of “truth”
that they can support, and giving them the strength to destroy the satanic evil
that was causing so much destruction and vote stealing. That’s quite a legacy. Not many
people could claim to have been that important to so many people.
It’s not good to speak ill of the dead. There are many who
are grieving over his loss. But I will say that I believe that the America of tomorrow will be a
just a slight bit more gentle place to live in now that there is one less
voice in the public media who is calling names, telling lies, insulting others, and encouraging
insurrections. And that will be a good thing.
