If memory serves me, while serving in Congress amidst a heated midterm battle in the mid-2000s, I made a cable television appearance where I was asked an “ambush” question. Well, it wasn’t quite an ambush question, because the station in question was left-wing; hence, the anchor’s Pavlovian parroting of the Democrat talking point du jour was really no surprise. The question was something along the lines of “Does every Republican blindly listen to Rush?”
“Who doesn’t love a Canadian power rock trio?” I replied. My interrogator was nonplussed. I elaborated, “Though I do prefer Triumph.”
In truth, the Rush in question was actually Mr. Limbaugh, who was at the height of his renown. Looking for an issue, the Democrats trotted out the canard that Republicans didn’t work for their constituents but were in the thrall of a radio show host, following his dictates heedless of what the public wanted.
The Democrats’ strategy quickly petered out, largely because Mr. Limbaugh’s pro-American and commonsensical views were shared by scores of millions of Americans. Thus, even if some Republicans were influenced to one degree or another by Rush’s views, those views were also shared by many of their right- and center-right constituents, who formed the base of their electoral coalition.
What evokes this memory is how the rank hypocrisy of today’s leftists, particularly the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), regards their associations with social media, particularly radical leftist socialist influencers – one of whom, in fact, claims to aspire to being the radical version of Rush Limbaugh.*
The ideological difference between Mr. Limbaugh and today’s shrill leftist socialist influencers is patent, as their anti-American content readily attests to their quest for clicks, celebrity, and money. (At present, I am unaware of these socialist influencers voluntarily putting their streaming revenues into a pool to be apportioned by a commissar for the common good of the oppressed.)
Be it hating all Americans or – as if to prove the depths of their animus – justifying the murderous terrorist attacks on our nation on September 11, 2001, or rationalizing away domestic left-wing political violence, these socialist influencers, to varying degrees of self-indulgent animus and self-imposed ignorance, aver that the “United States of Amerika” is irredeemably racist, misogynistic, inequitable, and wholly corrupt, and must be radically transformed into a socialist utopia by an omnipotent government controlled and commanded by them and their bilious, unproductive ilk, who have never run anything but their mouths.
Sane people would be tempted to think these anti-American, socialist cranks would be ignored by sound minds. They are. But sound minds are in ever-shortening supply these days. That is why they are increasingly being listened to and heeded by politically like-minded listeners.
In the instances of those listeners who become DSA and other ideologically aligned far-left candidates, there is the question of how truly they dance to the socialist influencers’ tune – especially in electoral areas that are not deep blue progressive hellscapes.
What happens is the far-left candidate proclaims to the far-left, socialist, America-loathing voters how they, too, share that view. To help prove their bona fides as radicals and defeat a Democrat establishment candidate in a primary, they associate and, in some cases, physically appear with socialist influencers on the campaign trail.
Once they win their primary, however, the far-left/DSA Democrat realizes that America-loathing is not a great general election issue, so they begin to distance themselves not only from such socialist influencers but also from their own words.
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