Audio: Rush Limbaugh credits Free Republic for starting Tea Party

MP ^ | 7-3-13

[exist]

“There was a group in the 1990′s that were malcontents, renegades, off the mainstream plantation of conservativism…and those are the people that were the early participants in the website Free Republic– they were known as 'freepers'…”

[dadfly]

God save Free Republic!

[RIghtwardHo]

Nice!

[zerosix]

Proud FReeper since ‘96 (or earlier.)

[atc23]

Since the day the Lewinsky story broke on Drudge - anyone think the tiny, little FR server didn’t crash? Salad Days

[fwdude]

Didn’t realize there was any connection, other than common membership.

[prisoner6]

Remember the amazing US Flag hot air balloon? They gave away copies of the Constitution at events.

[bmwcyle]

Rookie

[weston]

Me too! On Prodigy, followed Drudge Whitewater link! Had to re-sign up in ‘98. Been Freeping ever since! One of my biggest thrills was posting early one morning, then turning on Rush and have him open the show with my comment!
Yep he’s been lurking from the start!

[Tijeras_Slim]

We showed folks that conservatives could protest, do it well, and have a heck of a good time.

[Rightly Biased]

I heard and was calling the wife with a Toldst ya so!

proud to be a non lurking Freeper since 11/1/01

[3D-JOY]

Prodigy here too...Then a computer loss and husbands final illness. Finally got back on FR in late 1998 when things calmed down and I had a new computer. Gateway ! Used it for years.

Do you remember the date of the first rally at the capitol? I was there and came from Florida several times that first few years. I was there to support impeachment and the Judges who were nominated, but not confirmed, too.

Rush missed the fact that in 2012 with the Republican Party not including TEA Party opinions and power that we all gave TEA Party support, $ to candidates not from our areas, and lots of local office holders primary and election support. We had decided to make changes from the bottom...up!

Sarah Palin’s treatment seemed the last straw for many of us. Obama’s re-election and Allan West not fighting hard enough in West Palm were the beginning of a long “cooling off” time for many of my friends.

Veterans issues are always important to me. I am trying to get active again...my heart is having trouble getting into it! LOL

[gwgn02]

It doesn’t matter when you became a Freeper...just that you are one NOW. Tell a friend!

[Biggirl]

We are seeing the resurgence of the Tea Party movement.

[Rightly Biased]

uh huh....

[Yosemitest]

The Origins of the Tea Party

(excerpt)

RUSH: ...There was a group back in the 1990s -- and they still exist.
There was a group in the 1990s that were malcontents, renegades, and off the mainstream plantation of conservatism as articulated by the party.
Those were the people that were the early participants in the website Free Republic.
They were known as Freepers.
They were...
I say all this in a positive sense. I don't want any negative connotation.

But they were one of the first visible groups of people off the reservation.
And by that I mean abandoning the Republican Party's confined definitions of conservatism.
They were one of the first modern era groups of people to openly express dissatisfaction with the Republican Party the large.
I think Clinton inspired a lot of that.
It went somewhat dormant during the Bush years.

But even then these people were very distressed at what they were seeing on the spending side.
They were really, really troubled because of what it was going to mean to their kids and their grandkids, all this debt.
It was going to impede the creation of wealth as the government grew bigger and became more and more in debt,
the government swallowed more and more of the private sector.

The private sector is where opportunity is for average people.
For the middle class, the private sector is where growth is, the growth opportunity, the pie that gets bigger and your piece of it.
It's the middle class. It's not in government.
It's in the private sector. It was shrinking.
Obama comes along and just nuclear weapons everything everybody's already afraid of.
He adds a nuclear charge to it.

First the stimulus came, and then Obamacare was always a subject in the campaign.
Everybody opposed to Obama knew that he wanted it, and at first it seemed like nationalized health care was not gonna happen no matter what.
In the first two years, Obama owned the House, and he had the Senate, and he still couldn't get it done.
It was harder and harder to get it done, and there was still a little bit of confidence that it wouldn't happen.

As it became clear that it was going to happen and then did happen,
I think (solely based on my memory) the combination of Obama and all of the spending, all the debt,
and the lack of push-back from the Republican Party, led to the Tea Party.
You gotta understand, in analyzing the Tea Party, that they felt leaderless.
They felt like there was no representation.
Obama is elected, then inaugurated, and they hear everybody in the Republican Party salivating and trying to get in on it
by complimenting and praising Obama and all of his cabinet selections.

I remember the Republicans said Eric Holder was a great appointment, all these Republican legal minds.
To average, ordinary Americans in the Republican Party it was shocking and frightening that there was no push-back.
There was abject fear. You could see it.
The Republican Party was scared to death of criticizing Obama, of opposing Obama.
They were scared to death, intimidated out of the fear of being called racists.

Their voters were just fit to be tied over this, because they weren't afraid of that.
Finally, if you can say there was a tipping point, it was Obamacare which caused this group of people --
many of whom had never ever been involved in politics outside the ballot box
-- for the first time in their lives to show up at Town Hall meetings and demand to know what was going on.
The Republican Party didn't know what to do with them.

The Republican Party was afraid of them.
The biggest mistake the Republican Party made in 2010 was not embracing them.
I look back on that today and I'm more and more puzzled and amazed.
Well, I'm not puzzled. I know why.
But I'm just still amazed that they didn't embrace it.
I mean, here you have a made-to-order, motivated, energized, activist, willing-to-donate millions of people that you could welcome into the fold.

You could build a movement around them, and the Republican Party was as uninterested as the Democrats were interested in destroying them.
I think that just fired up the Tea Party people even more.
Then as time has gone on, the Tea Party people have figured out what others in the Republican base have figured out,
and that is the Republicans are really not that crazy about 'em being in the party,
because they embarrass them, or something.



(continued)

[WildHighlander57]

Wahoooooo!

I joined up election time 2000, I remember the sore loserman shirts/posters and rallies at the L.A. federal building :)

Lurked a long time, then back on account of 0.... he’s a “loserman” too :p

[3D-JOY]

I was audited every year after helping that banner plane come over Cape Canaveral when the Clintons came for a shuttle launch. Their “guards” took our names and photos and warned us we were a threat to the President!

ITS NOT THE SEX ITS THE LIES

Great memories!

[Rightly Biased]

THAT’S IT!!!

[DoughtyOne]

I heard Rush when he was talking about this.

He must have been on the topic of Free Republic for several minutes. It was refreshing to hear him talk about Free Republic and the early days when folks here were upset that the Republican Party wouldn’t stay true to it’s ideals.

He said we were the first people to go there. He also touched on the fact that a good portion of us were chagrined by Bush’s big spending.

I’ll see if I can’t pull that sound down, and make the clip available. It was definitely worth the listen.

Did my heart good.

[bayliving]

Are you series?

This is hugh!