by Absentia » Thu Feb 18, 2021 4:36 pm
I reckon this is as good a place as any to say what I have to say about the guy.
First of all, having watched my father die of cancer in real time, I will say that I absolutely would not wish it on anyone. And whatever you may think of someone, remember that they have a family that has to suffer right alongside them before you start high-fiving over their agonizing death.
That said, I listened to Rush quite a bit in the early aughts during my conservative teenager phase and later came to despise him. The thing that a lot of liberals seem not to understand about Rush is that he was a professional troll, and most of the truly shocking things he said were tongue in cheek. The goal was to get outraged liberals to call into his show so he could make sport of them. As a commentator he wasn't particularly insightful and I often disagreed with him even then, but that wasn't really the point of the show. I thought he was a funny troll.
The problem, it seems, is that a lot of people weren't in on the joke and learned all the wrong lessons about how to engage in politics. I blame Rush and his army of imitators for spawning the modern shithole GOP by creating a generation of conservatives who think that insult comedy and making liberals mad are the ultimate goals, not just a diversion for weekday afternoon radio. That's how we got Trump, who almost perfectly represents the Limbaugh school of politics: mean-spirited, insincere, all about personal feuds and petty insults. And sure, maybe Rush never intended to be the leader of a movement, but by all indications he had no problem with the monster he created.
So while I'm sorry about the way he had to suffer, I can't say he deserves to be remembered with anything but scorn.