An odious presence on American radio for more than three decades, Limbaugh specialized in bullying women, gays, blacks and other minorities, while glorifying American imperialism.
But perhaps one of Mr. Limbaughâs most significant and longest-lasting impacts, and one that will persist even if the party returns to a post-Trump ânormal,â stemmed from his loud opposition to womenâs rights: He was the right wingâs misogynist id.
His belligerent chauvinism was key in making the Republican Party the party of anti-feminism. Cracking open his slobbering hatred of women allows insight into his success, as well as the perversion of the party he championed.
Mr. Limbaugh burst on the national scene in the late 1980s during a national anti-feminist backlash and as the Republican Party was completing its turn away from libertarianism and toward the religious right. While he often gave rhetorical nods to the âpro-familyâ traditional values of the Moral Majority, he didnât adopt its veneer of propriety â he was positively lascivious in his rhetoric, using ugliness and shock to promote embittered and unvarnished sexism, and he saw
Published with permission of PRESS RUN, Eric Boehlert’s must-read media newsletter. Subscribe here. The Voice of American Conservatism Dies, was Wednesday s Associated Press headline, describing Rush Limbaugh. The 70-year-old broadcaster, who once compared Covid-19 to the common cold, died from lung cancer.
Writing up Limbaugh s career, the AP described his decades of hate programming as a merry brand of malice, and left out the part where he was the proud voice of racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia, and lots of other brands of denigration that he spread around the AM dial. A country club demagogue, he helped America’s right-wing normalize a distinct culture of bigotry and cruelty. He steered the Republican Party towards no longer caring about policy and governance in any way, and instead focused on owning liberals,’ trolling Democrats, and purposefully lying. And the press cheered.