The radioman who said what America’s good thought

If this salted potato wholesaler had offered a slightly higher salary in 1983, things might have been completely different in American political history. Rush Limbaugh might have given up on his career as a disc jockey. But a marketing manager’s salary just wasn’t tempting enough for him.

Instead, Limbaugh tried once again, with a political talk show, first in Kansas City, then in Sacramento. And there he discovered the golden formula: the angry talkative and conservative. He called out to listeners, but mostly explained for hours that the ordinary, right-handed American is misunderstood and oppressed, and the left is destroying the country. He said what the American right thought, but was afraid to say it and managed to hold an audience of millions for decades.

A familiar story

He gave the Republican Party a boost. After an election victory in 1994, Republicans in the House of Representatives named Limbaugh an honorary member of their faction.

When Donald Trump began campaigning for president in 2015, Republicans who came to his meetings or saw him on television heard a familiar tone and a familiar story. The presidential candidate explained the reasons why you are angry or happy with the opponent, as if he was standing with you at the bar. Limbaugh had come before him in everything the mainstream media found shocking about Trump, from his thinly veiled racism to the debate over conspiracy theories. In his footsteps, a whole wave of other radio speakers followed, not to mention Fox News TV.

President Ronald Reagan has been a major contributor to the rapid growth of the conservative media. In 1987 he abolished the doctrine of fairness, the rule that radio stations should always express different opinions on political matters. Limbaugh, then barely three years at work in Sacramento, declared himself “released”.

Shocked by the deep hatred

In 1988, the ABC network offered him a national program, the Rush Limbaugh Show. He moved to New York. There he expected to be included in the circles of serious media figures he admired. But with the exception of a few conservative intellectuals, the elite, whom he liked to kill on his radio shows, did not like him.

“I was shocked by the deep hatred,” he told the The New York Times. “No one hated me where I grew up. No one hated me in Kansas City. Even in Sacramento, a city on the left, no one hated me.

He moved to Florida, where he streamed from an insignificant office, but lived in a huge house whose furnishings hinted at places he admired: a library like the wealthy Vanderbilts have in their North Carolina home and a living room. reminiscent of the Palace of Versailles.

Avid cigar smoker

There in Florida, he continued to do what he loved: talk and especially to his 15 million listeners. He even did it when he was completely deaf for a while, first with a stenographer, then implants. The ardent cigar smoker was subsequently discovered with terminal lung cancer.

He also spoke on January 20. On the first day of Joe Biden’s presidency, he assured his audience that his electoral victory had been “scrambled, and therefore not legitimately won”. This week he passed away at the age of 70.

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