![]() Limbaugh took as a badge of honor the title “most dangerous man in America.” He said he was the “truth detector,” the “doctor of democracy,” a “lover of mankind,” a “harmless, lovable little fuzz ball” and an “all-around good guy.” He claimed he had “talent on loan from God.” “In my heart and soul, I know I have become the intellectual engine of the conservative movement,” Limbaugh, with typical immodesty, told author Zev Chafets in the 2010 book “Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One.”įorbes magazine estimated his 2018 income at $84 million, ranking him only behind Howard Stern among radio personalities. stations shaped the national political conversation, swaying ordinary Republicans and the direction of their party.īlessed with a made-for-broadcasting voice, he delivered his opinions with such certainty that his followers, or “Ditto-heads,” as he dubbed them, took his words as sacred truth. He called himself an entertainer, but his rants during his three-hour weekday radio show broadcast on nearly 600 U.S. Unflinchingly conservative, wildly partisan, bombastically self-promoting and larger than life, Limbaugh galvanized listeners for more than 30 years with his talent for sarcastic, insult-laced commentary. His death was announced on his show by his wife, Kathryn. Limbaugh said a year ago that he had lung cancer. Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio host who ripped into liberals and laid waste to political correctness with a gleeful malice that made him one of the most powerful voices in politics, influencing the rightward push of American conservatism and the rise of Donald Trump, died Wednesday. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. Madeline Janis is the national policy director for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, or LAANE, a nonprofit advocacy organization.This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. And that could be a start, at least, at reaching across the gulf of ideology to work cooperatively and respectfully to solve the challenges facing the nation. Even if we don’t have the same closeness as a family, Americans of all political stripes do share a love of country. It makes me wonder if there isn’t something in these experiences that might help us, as Americans, transcend our political differences. Our love for each other and our family helped my father and me transcend the enormous ideological divide between us. I suspect that our family dynamic wasn’t unique, and that across America fathers and daughters and sons and mothers have learned to accommodate political differences and respect one another across the gulf. But his death has also gotten me thinking. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that although I really like Rush Limbaugh, I love you more. ![]() “I know that we disagree on many things, so let’s just not talk about politics.”īut he persisted. “Sweetheart, I want to tell you something,” he said. On the day of the hat dispute, I went back into his bedroom after I had collected myself. And the truth was, as he told me regularly, he was proud of me despite our differences. He usually made it clear by his silence that he didn’t intend to take the bait. “Isn’t it great that the government provides you with so much?” I’d ask. Yet he had benefited from the GI Bill, Social Security and Medicare. His political beliefs were rooted in the idea that people should take care of themselves and not depend on government for things like healthcare and sustenance. I didn’t want to get into arguments every time we saw each other, but sometimes I couldn’t help challenging him. ![]() He had planned to vote for Michele Bachmann if she had made it to the California primary last year. ![]() He read voraciously but focused on right-wing historical texts that blamed everything wrong with the American economy on FDR and the New Deal. He refused to join AARP because he believed it was socialist. He was Jewish and deeply religious, donating regularly to charities helping those who struggled with life’s challenges.īut he hated President Obama and thought that government was at the root of all evil. He was highly educated - a psychiatrist with multiple advanced degrees in science and medicine. ![]() I knew that he had trouble understanding how I, a well-educated woman, could hold such wrongheaded beliefs. My father, also shaken, went back into his bedroom. ![]()
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