The GOP Establishment Comes Undone:

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, the Republican establishment is coming unglued. They're no longer making even any pretense at camouflaging or hiding who they are, where they are, and what they think.

RUSH: The Republican presidential primary continues to shake out, and the Jeb Bush campaign appears to be -- well, what would you call it when Jeb says, after a meeting of the family brain trust, to figure out how to cut expenses to the tune of a million dollars a month? You know, there's a lot of other things I could be doing about this and getting a lot less grief. There's a lot of things I could do. There's a lot of things I might like. I mean, wherever you look inside the Republican establishment you see panic, frustration, implosion.

I have been sitting on a story for almost a week. I wanted to see if this got any play anywhere. It's a story about Mitt Romney, who is in the news on two or three different stories today. They are all highly revealing. They are extremely revelatory. The story I'm referring to, however, was first posted on October 20th, and it was on Breitbart, so it's not an obscure website. It was out there for everybody to see. It was out there for everybody to react to. And honestly, folks, I didn't see anything on it 'til yesterday. I've been holding this story. I've done monologues based on it but without mentioning Romney.

Mitt Romney went on a podcast. This may be why it didn't get widely reported. He went on a podcast hosted by David Axelrod. Of all places to go, Romney went on a podcast hosted by David Axelrod. Let me just give you the upshot of what he said. There was a time when we all got the news from the same facts, if you will. We had three networks we watched for the evening news. Most of us got newspapers. Everybody in the middle class got a newspaper. So we all got the facts, whether we agreed or not.

Mitt Romney is on record in the David Axelrod podcast as lamenting and complaining about the fact that there is now a conservative media, both on talk radio, in print, in broadcast, and on the World Wide Web. Romney told Axelrod that the demise of legacy media had empowered conservative insurgents like this show and others, which has prevented collaboration in Washington. I mentioned last week that National Review had asked me to write a little piece, 750 to 1,000 words for their 60th anniversary issue, and I did. They were getting panicky because it took me awhile to submit it because I was looking for a hook.

What they said they wanted was a review of the AM radio revolution, what it means and where it's going. And I thought that's fine and dandy as it was, but it missed the boat. I thought the premise could be much larger and a little bit more powerful than that. So I thought about it and thought about it, and I wrote the piece. But in the piece, just to give you a little heads-up, I opined that the single greatest, most important and perhaps disruptive thing that had happened in the last 28 years -- since I started my program in 1980, remember, you know, I hate to keep reminding people of this because I run the risk of having it sound egotistical, but it isn't. It's just a statement of fact.

In 1988 when I started this show is exactly the world Mitt Romney loves, and it's exactly the world Mitt Romney wants to go back to. He's not the only one. The entire Republican establishment is probably in favor of this in one way or the other. Back in 1988 all was there was three networks and CNN and a couple of newspapers, and that was the media, that was the news. That was a monopoly. The left ran the media then just as they do now. The Democrat Party and the media were the one. The Republicans back then were perennial losers. We're talking about 135 to 140 seats in the House of Representatives and they were happy.

As long as the Democrats gave 'em a cut of the action, gave 'em a little participation here or there, they were happy being perennial losers. They were all part of the Washington establishment, and, as such, there was the bragging rights of membership in the club, in the DC establishment. So in 1988 when this program started, that's all there was. This program was the first broadcast national conservative media presentation, radio or TV. And in the piece for National Review I chronicle what happened after is this program started and then the entire build-out, if you will, of the alternative media, or the conservative media.

And all along I was of the opinion the Republican Party would have been ecstatic with this. Finally they would not be prisoner to the legacy media. They wouldn't be prisoner to a Democrat Party-media association and monopoly that basically aced them out and gave them electoral victories which were sporadic and unexpected. And for many of the years following 1988, I was under the impression that the Republican Party was happy with this, that this was something that they welcomed and it was long overdue, and that they would want to associate with it. And as time went on, some of that did happen, particularly in the early years. But it didn't take long for something -- I couldn't pinpoint, just didn't seem right. And I can't pinpoint when it began.

I mean, the Democrats were on my case from day one. You know, Bill Clinton blaming me for the Oklahoma City bombing and calling KMOX in St. Louis to complain that I had three hours a day on the radio and there wasn't anybody to respond to it. I was the only conservative voice out there. This is 1993. Without going through the entire history of the past 27 years, there were telltale signs that the Republican Party was not at all thrilled with this New Media, that they considered it problematic and outsider-ish.

But this piece from Breitbart chronicling Romney's comments with David Axelrod. "Failed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney lamented that the demise of traditional media --" That would be when they had their monopoly. Romney says it would be better if we could go back to those days, where there were no Republican insurgents and extremists in the media. Because with the birth of this new conservative media and these Republican insurgents, that began to prevent establishment Republicans from compromising with the Democrats.

The good old days, we now know, and we've suspected for the longest time -- look, folks, you don't have to hear an endless parade of Republican candidates list as their number one accomplishment, "I can cross the aisle. I'm the guy that can work with the other side. I'm the guy that can cooperate with the Democrats. I'm the guy can get things done." You don't have to hear that from more than one or two Republicans to get the drift, that they long for the days where there was no opposition to them compromising and caving to the Democrat majority and media majority on practically every issue, and being tossed whatever bones they got in response.

"As the Republican establishment is trying convince Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to run for House Speaker, Romney told David Axelrod that the 'extremes within our respective parties are having a louder and louder voice and demanding more attention' and 'immediate action' as opposed to more 'collaborative action.' Romney said this phenomenon flows in part from the 'change in the world of media. There was a time when we all got the news with the same facts, if you will,' he said. 'We had three networks we watched for the evening news.'"

He wants to go back to the days of Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley and Howard K. Smith, and James Reston, Scotty Reston at the New York Times, and David Broder at the Washington Post. And that was it. Those were the good old days, folks. That's before the days you began harassing them on issues like immigration spending and resisting things like Obamacare and other initiatives put forth by the Clintons and their own version of health care. Yeah, the good old days when you couldn't fax 'em. The good old days when you couldn't call 'em. The good old days when you couldn't harass them. The good old days when you couldn't force them to pretend to say things you agreed with.

They've apparently been harboring a deep resentment over this for a long time, and we finally reached the boiling point and the tipping point to where they can no longer hold it in. I don't know whether it's the Trump candidacy and the reality that the establishment Republican Party is not desired. We now know why four million Republicans stayed home in 2012 when Mitt Romney was on the ballot. Four million Republicans sensed this and wanted no part of it, probably more than that; many of them probably showed up and voted anyway just to be voting against Obama.

"Now, according to Romney, people 'get their news on the web' and 'they tend to read those things which they agree with.' He said people are 'not seeing the other side' and 'not even getting the same facts' while 'we have commentators' on left-leaning and right-leaning cable news channels 'who are hyperbolic in expressing their views on issues.'"

Same set of facts? How about the same set of lies? How about the same set of bias? How about the same set of disadvantage? The same set of facts? "Romney lamented that more Democrats are considering themselves 'liberal' and 'in my party, there are more and more who feel they are more insurgent than towards the center of the party.'" Translation: In my party there are more and more who call themselves conservative. "And I think that divisiveness is one of the things that has led to Washington having such a hard time getting things done." Washington's job is to stay out of the people's way. Washington's job is not to solve problems; that's up to the individual. That's up to people. Washington is to come up with things that help best make the country run, not advance a left-wing Democrat Party agenda.

That is not what the US Congress is about. That's not what the United States government is about. But apparently as far as Mitt Romney is concerned, the Democrats were the majority, they had a monopoly on the media, their agenda is what carried the day, and those were the good old days? Yeah, folks, they were. Those were the good old days.

"The rise of new media outlets in the Internet age has allowed regular Americans to get access to information that the mainstream press," conceals. You know, it's just as important what isn't reported as what is. It is my contention that busting up the Democrat Party monopoly and the mainstream media -- I do believe it's led to divisiveness, but it's not because of us. The divisiveness and the reason there is so much partisanship and mean-spirited, extreme rancor is all on the Democrats, if you ask me, and the media. They're the ones who have the monopoly. They're the ones that had their way. They're the ones that were in charge of everything the people of this country learned, and they were in charge of everything that was hidden from the American people.

Those days are over. They have lost their monopoly. They have reacted in extreme ways, complete with anger and frustration and a desire to destroy the upstarts.

The left-wing media has always been left wing. But back in the glory days of Mitt Romney where they had their monopoly and they ran their show, they could hide behind the pretense of objectivity. They could hide behind a pretense fairness, because the Republicans weren't doing much -- remember Spiro Agnew and Nixon were the first to actually ever speak up against this? Other than that, the Republicans just went along and went along and went along and never complained about a thing.

So the Democrats had their monopoly. They got to determine what people learned. They got to determine what the commentary on the news was, and they got to determine what people never did hear or learn or have reported. Those days are over, and I submit to you that the left wing or the media monopoly that existed is so out of sorts over this, and has been for 20 years, their desire to regain their monopoly, to go back to the glory days, their desire to once again be able to move and shape public opinion is what drives them each and every day.

And the loss of their monopoly is what's forced them out from behind this invisible cloak where they hid their objectivity and their fairness, and now they've thrown all that to the wind, and they are as partisan as they've always been; they're just public about it now. Because the news business has become the news business, complete with competition, and they are losing. They're losing their audiences. They're losing ad revenue. They're losing circulation. They're losing pages, and Mitt Romney -- and he's not alone -- the Republican establishment long for the days when they were the only ones in the business with the power to determine what everybody knew.

RUSH: While on this podcast... Actually no. On State of the Union yesterday on CNN, Romney was praising various Republican presidential candidates as being in possession of best approach to find common ground with the people across the aisle. The names he mentioned are Jeb Bush, John Kasich, and Chris Christie. And then he said, "We have Paul Ryan, for instance, willing to work with Democrats. That's a good thing. That's a productive thing. That's what we need." No, we don't. Is there not one of you in the Republican establishment -- is there not a single one of you -- that wants to win?

Is there not a single one of you in the Republican establishment in Washington that has ideas you think superior to the Democrats that you want to win and implement? Is the entire reason for the existence of the Republican Party to collaborate with the Democrats and get things done in Washington like Obamacare and an Iran nuclear deal that makes the world much more dangerous? A terrorist regime in possession of nuclear weapons? You want to agree with a political party that's going to make that happen? Name anything else the Democrat Party has done in the last seven years that has benefited this country and you want to collaborate with that?

RUSH: You know, this is even more incredulous when you stop and think what these people did to Mitt Romney. Harry Reid (paraphrasing): " Mitt Romney hasn't paid his taxes in ten years. I have a friend who told me."

"It doesn't matter. I've got a friend, Romney hasn't paid his taxes in ten years." This is the 2012 presidential campaign. "Romney hasn't paid his taxes in ten years."

"No, no, you need to go to Mitt Romney and ask him, 'Have you paid your taxes in the last ten years, Mitt?' You need to go ask him."

Take you back Mary Mapes and Dan Rather, defending that forged document story on Bush and the National Guard. Mary Mapes says, "They can't do this to us just because we asked the question, 'Did Bush not show up in the National Guard.'" No evidence, forged documents, no evidence whatsoever, they ask the question, they create a news story: "Did Bush evade National Guard service?"

"No, you don't. You need to go ask Mitt Romney why he hasn't paid his taxes." And for the next week, news story after news story after news story: "Did Mitt Romney not pay his taxes for ten years?" All it took was one day of stories. And then you put it out on social media, you haven't been it out on local media, you put it out on the Web, and bammo, Mitt Romney hasn't paid his taxes in 10 years. Typical rich Republican.

Mitt Romney wants to collaborate with these people? Obama campaign 2012: Mitt Romney's employee's wife died because Romney didn't provide sufficient health care at his company. Romney didn't care. They ran an ad, they put together an ad. It was totally made up. It was entirely fabricated out of whole cloth by one of Obama's campaign people. They go and ask Romney: Did you really not care that the wife of one of your employees died of cancer because your company didn't provide adequate health care?

That didn't happen. News story after news story after news story. TV ad after TV ad after TV ad. "Romney employee's wife dead because Romney health care insufficient." Mitt Romney wants to collaborate with these people? And of course the old standby: Mitt Romney hates animals. He put his dog on the roof of the station wagon as the family tooled down the highway on a hot summer day. Did you see that? Mitt Romney, did you see what he did to his dog?

Mitt Romney wants to collaborate with these people? The good old days? You know what the good old days were? The good old days were when Harry Reid wouldn't say that. The good old days were when they wouldn't make up story about an employee's wife dying of cancer. The good old days they wouldn't get mad at Romney for putting his dog on the roof of the station wagon. You know why? Because Romney wouldn't have a prayer of winning anyway and the Democrats wouldn't be worried about it, so they would never have to run stuff like that.

But today when the Republicans have a legitimate chance of winning and should have won, the Democrats are panicked, have to pull out all the stops and tell us who they really are by manufacturing lie after lie after lie, and Mitt Romney wants to go back to the day where the Republicans were perennial losers so that he wouldn't be treated that way by Harry Reid and he wouldn't be treated that way by the Obama campaign, and he wouldn't be lied about in terms of how much he loved his dog. Yep, those are the good old days when they didn't say anything bad about you. And the only reason they're saying bad stuff about Romney is 'cause this conservative media's come along and these insurgents on the right have blown up the monopoly. Now facts are from all over the place and people are confused, and the Democrats are reacting in kind because they're gonna get their monopoly back which they should have never lost according to Mitt Romney, and probably he's just speaking for countless others within the establishment. He's not alone in this.

Why would you want to work with these people? Why in the world would you want to collaborate with these people after having this kind of character assassination done to you. Why is it after all of that friendly media, who supported your campaign, are your enemy? And if not enemy, are the problem. We supported Romney's campaign on this program. Touted Romney, spoke highly of Romney, qualifications, economics, you name it. We're the problem? We insurgents are the problem? The good old days are back when the Democrats so owned everything they didn't say mean things about Republicans. It was very collegial back then. They didn't have to resort to these lies and character assassinations and attempts to destroy people's careers and lives, like they do now. And the only reason they do is because of this upstart radio and Internet media.

How many times have we heard John McCain or Chris Christie say, "We need to work with the other side. I'm the guy who can cross the aisle. I'm the guy who can cooperate with the other side." Chris Christie said a month or two ago (paraphrasing), "Look, I'm not gonna shut 'em out. If they've got an idea worth listening to, I'll listen to it, I'll bring 'em into the discussion, I'll include them in whatever policy initiatives I have." You know we sit here, we scratch our heads and we hear this, now it makes total sense. They're not campaigning for your vote. They're campaigning for donor dollars with those comments.

RUSH: You know, here's the thing: I have always respected Romney and have said so. He's a man of impeccable character and decency. He just has some of the most out-of-touch political instincts of anybody. Remember when he said he was "a severe conservative"? People's antennae were up, "Wait a minute. This guy really... 'I'm a severe conservative'?" We knew right then that he wasn't any conservative, 'cause there's no such thing as a "severe" one. I've been better than Obama. Don't misunderstand, this is just... The purpose of this, the value of this is he's not just speaking for himself.

This is the thinking within the Republican Party Washington, DC. This is the thinking.

RUSH: Is your head still spinning? Well, I'm not finished so just buckle up. Greetings, welcome back, folks, Rush Limbaugh here, 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

Let me explain why I think this is happening now. By the way, you know, I've had a slug line on this program. Sometimes we go into commercial breaks, slug line irritating the left for, blah, blah. Little did I know that I have been irritating the Republican establishment all these years, but it's apparently now abundantly obvious that in addition to irritating the left, I have been irritating the Republican establishment. This whole alternative media has.

Now, one of the facts of life out there, folks, you and I, we are legitimately and properly frightened and scared. We are witnessing the decline our country right in front of our eyes. We are witnessing the transformation of our country. We are witnessing a particular party do it with glee, and we are scared because the party we thought that we supported to stop it isn't interested in stopping it. They're interested in stopping us. Meaning, opponents of what's happening.

We don't want to lose our culture. We don't want Western civilization take it on the chin. We don't want government to become so big and out of control that we lose our individual liberty and freedom and impetus and ambition and desire. We don't want to lose the language. All of this is happening. People are losing their jobs, they're losing full-time status, all because of an Obamacare policy that the Democrats put in with not one Republican vote. But beyond that Republicans have done nothing substantive to stop it. People are scared. We genuinely see a crisis, a crisis that involves the future of the country. And a desire to maintain this country as founded. But the people inside the Beltway obviously see no such crisis, either party.

To them it's just politics-as-usual. To them it's another campaign and another chance to win committee chairmanships in the Senate and maybe, wow, maybe if the cards go right, maybe we could win the White House now and then. But that's all it is. Outside of that everything's normal. We got some unemployment, but you got some people doing well, nothing's changed. Got immigration policy that's cool, nothing's really changing, and these people that think the country's in crisis, we're a bunch of kooks. We're crazies. We're out of control insurgents. Whereas the ruling class, the establishment, hey, things are fine for them.

There isn't anybody where they live making 30 grand or less. There isn't anybody of substance out of work where they live. There isn't anybody that doesn't have the best health care in the country where they live. There isn't anybody without tremendous career opportunity where they live. So why would they even stop to think that we're in a crisis? People that think that we are, well, it's just nuts. It's just nuts. Look at the unemployment rate, 5.1%. What are these people, a bunch of kooks? They don't see the 94 million not working. Globalism, big deal, gotta compete. You know how you do that? You lower wages. That's how you compete with the rest of the world. If you want to be a global competitor, you can't win if you have to pay your people more than they pay 'em in Sri Lanka or China or India or wherever. We can't lose to those people, and the only way we can compete is get our labor costs down. Hello, illegal immigration. That's what we're facing. We think it's a crisis.

Many Americans are scared, even those who have their jobs and have savings are still scared that it isn't gonna hold up. They're scared that their kids aren't gonna be able to do well. Inside the Beltway this fright is mocked, made fun of, discredited as examples of extremism, which is what they think the New Media is. I am convinced, by the way, that the way the Drive-Bys and the Democrat Party and the left are attempting to reconstitute their media monopoly is via Twitter and Facebook. In a way, the sewer of Twitter and Facebook is the left attempting to corral everyone into their playground, their way of thinking, and create a new legacy media to replace what the big three networks had back in 1988.

You populate Twitter and Facebook with enough political activists disguised as citizens in their underwear in their basements just tapping out comments and posting left-wing news stories from AP, Reuters, Washington Post, New York Times, and that's how you reconstitute your monopoly. You don't constitute a network media monopoly, but you constitute a mode-of-thinking monopoly by transferring your polluted, perverted way of thinking to social media to infect as many minds as possible who are incapable of critical thinking anymore, because it isn't taught.

Now, all of this we have figured all of these years that we had a built-in obstruction. We had a built-in force that was going to help us and that we were helping at the same time stop all of this and win these political fights, and that we thought was the Republican Party.

RUSH: What do you mean, take it personally? I'm not taking any of this personally. Look, if I may get personal for a second, I have been very proud. I've considered it one heck of a career achievement to have been involved in busting up the mainstream media monopoly. I think that is one heck of a thing to have happened. And I'm very honored and excited to have been part of it. And for the longest time, I've thought that that would have been beneficial to my side.

I have been under the naive impression that all of this was considered a very positive development in this country, that 25, 28 years ago a process began which finally blew up a media monopoly comprised of people that routinely try to destroy what we believe in, destroy our candidates through whatever means they could employ: lies, cheating, you name it, innuendo, not reporting certain news. I have been under the impression that people on my side would have been excited about this and would have welcomed it. And to find out that the Republican establishment considers it to be one of their biggest obstacles?

No, I don't take any of it personally. I don't think any of it's meant personally. This is all professional. But the dichotomy for me is on one side to have been proud to have been part of this movement, if you want to call it that. And then to later find out that the people I thought whose team I was on, whose side I was on, who would benefit from this, are out there cussing it? But, as I say, it's not personal. And I don't think it's personal with them, although it may be. This is all strictly business and professional.

It has become painfully clear that the leadership of the Republican Party, like other institutions, like the press, education, etc., has been taken over by Leftists. The GOPe is in a bind because they still have to get voted into office before they can steal so they, like the cockroaches they are, sneak around in the dark, stealing our money, and despoiling anything of value.

I have voted solid Republican, except for voting for Clinton’s 2nd term, and I will die before I vote for another RINO.

Not leftist. Cronies. The fact that most cronies admire leftist policies is primarily due to leftist policies favoring big government. That gives the cronies more power, more control and more money.

I’m sorry I held my nose for this “severe” pretender.

What Rush has not come to grips with is that the RNC/GOP is owned by The Cheap Labor Express

Actually, if you read through the entire piece, he does touch on that. Honestly, I think this is the way the GOP has always been, certainly since the early 20th century. The people that run the party aren't conservative, not in the true sense, at least, and they only act like they like us when they need our money or our vote. But the GOPe is not far removed from the liberals, so this is what we can expect as long as they run the party (and they aren't about to give up power to conservatives).

Personally, I think it is time to do the hard work of starting a new, conservative party. Not an easy thing, of course, but I just don't see anything changing within the GOP - Rush and all conservatives are still complaining about the same things they were back when he started his show (and before he started), except that things have gotten worse since then.

The D.C. Establishment is out of touch and their cramming of Mitt Romney down the throats of the grass roots shows it. Jeb Bush’s implosion does the same thing.

Romney - the Magic RINO:

Chihuahua Romney - the One and the Only "Magic RINO(TM)":

Mitt Romney and Lil' Ricky Santorum celebrate Political Assassination of 2012 Conservative GOP Presidential Candidates (Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachman ...)

"We don't intend to turn the Republican Party
over to the traitors in the battle just ended.
We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged
to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support.
Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates
wouldn't make any sense at all.""
-- President Ronald Reagan

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