Alas, poor Rush

From when this blog began in 2007, Free Republic has drifted continually more extreme, and it's tent has shrunk more and more.

Now Freepers are drifting away even from Rush Limbaugh, whom they used to rely on for message discipline.

As was the case with Cruz, this is happening in fits and starts, with Freepers falling away and then coming back, but each time a little less attached.

Now it has become something of a conflict on Free Republic, with the committed nativists declaring Trump a betrayer, and the more set in their ways old guard declaring Rush one of the only True Conservatives out there.

angcat on Trump's falling Freep following:

I listened to Rush for 11 years and enjoyed it. He did inform about things you would never see on the nightly news. Once Trump threw his hat in Rush became quite jealous and evil and vindictive. His Freeper thread only has 15 replies each day during the good ole days the thread had up to 100 per day.

Mr. Douglas finds talk radio to be a frivolity:

Anyone who looks to radio talk shows as a source of information is an idiot.

So true. I can enjoy it from time to time, but it’s to see what people say about this or that issue, and when I’m stuck in my car or listening while building a deck or shed or something.

And the only people I’m hearing is the host and a few callers, so it’s a bit like putting a hidden mic near a water cooler.

Not exactly the pulse of the nation...

Disclaimer: I used to be a talk radio junkie.

mass55th also listens to Rush regularly, but hastens to add he doesn't take him seriously:

Anyone who looks to radio talk shows as a source of information is an idiot.

Amen. The writer is a typical liberal who assumes Conservatives aren't smart enough to have an original thought, form our own opinions, or know what's going on in the world without it being spoon-fed to us.

I first started listening to Rush during Operation Desert Shield. Over the years I listened to him most often while I was at work. When I retired in 2003, my listening opportunities dwindled, so that I usually only get to listen to him while I'm in my car...and it isn't every day. I still enjoy his show when I have the opportunity. And the only two subs I ever enjoyed listening to are Mark Steyn and Walter Williams, and I haven't heard either of them in quite a while. If someone other than those two are hosting, I turn it off.

Thibodeaux tries to start a label war:

Rush has been a GOP-E stooge for a decade.

actually, Rush is GOPc

reasonisfaith says no, he's a bad guy:

Limbaugh is an establishment tool. Trump got the nomination in spite of Limbaugh, not because of him.

As he does, bert attacks the messenger and adds nothing else:

Atlantic is the enemy and should not be posted

FXRP is all on board the Rush train:

I’m pretty sick of people bad mouthing Rush because they disagree with something he says or he doesn’t say exactly what they want.

He has been a big plus for conservatism for 28 years. I appreciate it and will always be grateful. He is going to support Trump because he is the alternative to Hillary Clinton. No other has a chance.

jennychase knows that Rush is well to the left of her choicest crazy Internet websites:

Those who have access to internet knows Rush limbaugh intentionally ignore positive news about Trump and make himself as news. Rush lies, twist words. All these conservative Radio talk shows will have crash landing. I stopped listening to them because they are old news and gloat about themselves.

Rush and his lesbian problem is sick.

Flavious_Maximus lays out his two greatest TRUE conservatives:

Rush Limbaugh is one of the greatest TRUE conservatives to ever live. The other is Phyllis Schlafly.

You newbies and millennials have NO clue what your talking about when you disparage Rush.

The Atlantic magazine is a communist rag. Why post any articles from them on here?

This was before Schlafly's death, btw.

Wallace T. explains that conservative radio has gotten too predictable. Not like Freep!

Limbaugh's time is over. Along with Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, Hugh Hewitt, and others, time has passed them by. Since the turn of the century, conservative talk radio and magazines like National Review and Human Events have become a controlled opposition to the uniparty. I suspect these talkers would retire and the magazines go entirely on-line or disappear entirely in the case of a Trump victory. Bill Bennett, sort of an elder stateman of the neo-conservative movement, recently retired from talk radio, possibly seeing the future.

Perhaps their lack of enthusiasm for Trump may reflect their hope that under a Hillary Clinton administration, their niche of whining about liberal double standards, political correctness, and hypocrisy about minority racism will remain intact. Their complaints about all these items are valid, but they only serve to allow conservatives to blow off steam and receive affirmation for their beliefs.

The conservative talkers react so predictably to leftist actions that liberal outlets accuse them of receiving "talking points" from some common source. Look at the Colin Kapernick controversy over his refusal to stand for the National Anthem. He is a brainwashed mixed race athlete, whose black father deserted him at birth and who was raised by a white foster family. I suspect he has mental issues and has kept bad company. However, his refusal is a sideshow that should be ignored. Yet the day after his refusal, I listened to Limbaugh, Levin, Michael Savage, and Mark Davis (Dallas area talker) all denounce Kapernick for several minutes. These sorts of rants have kept them popular with their audiences. However, I must wonder if those audiences are getting as disillusioned with their verbal fireworks as full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.

Trump offers the first realistic opportunity to break the post-Reagan political and social order in this country. Limbaugh, Levin, Beck and the others have profited from the current order.

Pelham thinks politics hasn't changed since Reagan:

If it weren’t for Rush there most likely would never have been a conservative movement the size it is today.

The conservative movement elected Ronald Reagan long before anyone had heard of Rush Limbaugh. If anything in the years since the size of the movement has gotten smaller, in no small measure thanks to the Bush GOPe for whom Rush was a loyal waterboy.

Arthur Wildfire! March goes with Rush's usual defense that anything you disagree with is just him tweaking the libs:

The media is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill over Rush laughing off Trump’s alleged ‘flipflop’ on immigration.

Rush is enjoying the attention and egging on the drive-bys.

Lakeshark wonders why Rush is no longer the warrior he once was:

The media is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill over Rush laughing off Trump’s alleged ‘flipflop’ on immigration.

I disagree. I heard him that day, and turned it off in disgust.

He was either inadvertently (due to his Cruz love) sabotaging the Trump campaign, or even worse, possibly actively doing so.

Either way, I have been sickened by him, he's no longer the warrior he once was, no longer on the cutting edge, he's simply lost it. I rarely listen, stopped in late February when he went in the tank for Cruz, and did the opposite as he actively sought to hurt Trump. I tried listening again after Cruz dropped out, and simply find him so off the reservation, I no longer look forward to listening to him, and rarely do so any more.

bigbob may want to apply this to Internet political forums as well...

Nothing wrong with listening to talk radio for entertainment. Just realize it isn’t there to convey objective information, but as a platform for making money. View it the same way we view ads on Google and there’s no problem.

From what he though Limbaugh's TV innovations were, Mr. Douglas never watched Meet the Press I guess:

Rush has a number of “firsts”. One of them was on his short lived television show. He did something that had never been done before. And that is a BIG deal when you think about the fact that it is done ALL THE TIME now:

He would show a video of a democrat saying something that week, and then show a video of the same democrat contradicting it in a previous speech.

That was HUGE for me. It had never been done on any kind of national or mainstream scale before. I LOVED IT

Buckeye McFrog lists Rush's failures to adhere to Freeper doctrine:

Supporting the Dubai Ports deal was Strike One.

Apologizing to Sandra the Slut was Strike Two.

How he handles the high heat on Trump will determine whether I ever listen to his show again.

HangUpNow both attacks Rush and then refuses to be divided from him:

Supporting the Dubai Ports deal was Strike One. Apologizing to Sandra the Slut was Strike Two.

Don't forget NAFTA.

That said, The Atlantic is engaging in Divide & Conquer BS. At this point, it's one of the only weapons remaining from the MSM/Left/GOPe/Globalist arsenal.

If there's ANY "betrayal" of a conservative audience, it's in the person of 'The Great Treacherous One', Mark Levin.

Pelham convincingly shows that Rush is no longer in the vanguard of the right's current spasm of nativist knownothingism:

Yeah Rush is still a Cruz/Rubio boy who resents Trump, it’s the root of his passive-aggressive treatment of Trump.

Except for one brief period Rush has always been worthless on immigration, he never lifted a finger and wouldn’t even take calls on it for years while we were fighting a desperate battle here in California. So I guess it’s no surprise to find him calling a dedicated amnesty hack like Rubio as someone with “a serious immigration plan”. A plan that La Raza would support, definitely.