On his Thursday broadcast, conservative talk show Rush Limbaugh offered his analysis what has led certain elements to gravitate toward Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, including former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), the 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee.
According to Limbaugh, what he deemed to be the “Trump Coalition” predated the Trump’s presidential bid and its roots lie in the Tea Party movement that was inspired by President Barack Obama’s stimulus and later by his so-called health care reform legislation, later to be known as ObamaCare.
“Guess where they are now? They’re with Donald Trump,” Limbaugh said.
Transcript as follows (courtesy of RushLimbaugh.com):
You know, this business of the glue. That’s what I refer to. The glue that is holding Trump coalition together. This actually predates the Trump campaign. This goes back to who the Tea Party is, if you want to know the truth about it, folks. Everybody made the mistake of thinking when the Tea Party erupted out of nowhere — and let’s not forget — by the way, by the way, welcome back. Rush Limbaugh. Great to have you here at the EIB Network at 800-282-2882.
Let’s not forget, the Tea Party was not the result of some strategic plan launched by somebody out of nowhere. It was a spontaneous eruption of mostly people that had never been professionally, formally involved in politics before. It dates to the Obama stimulus deal in 2009 but really began to coalesce with Obamacare. Those two things sent the big message to the Tea Party people, what would become known as the Tea Party people. That is, there was no longer any concern for what this government was spending. There was no longer any concern for the danger that that was going to cause. There was no longer any pretense of responsible budgeting, keeping public taxpayer money in check, used responsibly, none, it was all out the window.
And people erupted in a combination of fear and outrage and anger over it. It was a betrayal. It was irresponsible. It was unresponsive to what people had voted for, what they thought they were going to get, and it was destructive. It was going to take the financial futures away from millions of people’s children and grandchildren. And so the Tea Party was born. And the mistake was made right off the bat by the Drive-By Media and many inside the Beltway that the Tea Party was all conservatives.
They wanted it to be all conservatives because they already then had their built-in mechanisms to impugn it. The left, the Democrat Party, and many in the Republican Party had already developed ways to mock, make fun of, impugn conservatives and conservatism for years. So here comes this new group of people. “Well, we’ll just call ’em conservatives, made of angry white men, racists, sexists, a bunch of bigots,” and that’s who they became, that’s what they — well, that’s not who they were. That’s what the effort to define them became.
At the same time, the Democrats, “You know what, we need our own group. We can’t let this stand.” So they created Occupy Wall Street. That was a totally artificial, manufactured, bought and paid for rent-a-mob put together by the left and the Democrat Party made to look like it erupted spontaneously in response to the Tea Party, and it was made out to be much bigger and much more refined and organized and all that. And it was not. It was fake from beginning to end.
Occupy Wall Street, I mean, they did real things, but their existence was entirely fake. There was nothing spontaneous about it. There was nothing natural about it. So from the get-go, the Republican establishment as well, mystifying me from day one, started making fun of and ragging on the Tea Party, right along with the Democrats. The Democrats led the charge on it along with the media. A bunch of hayseeds, bunch of hicks, you know, the usual ad hominem attacks.
And all this is happening while Obama’s getting health care up and running. Not a single Republican vote. There was a built-in majority coalition for the Republican Party to link to and join up with. The Tea Party consisted of not just Republicans, and it wasn’t just conservatives. The Tea Party was made up of people who were apolitical. They had not been involved in politics one way or the other, other than voting, ever. They’d never been to town hall meetings, none of it. They were scared, they were fed up, and they wanted somebody to know about it. They didn’t feel like they were being listened to or heard or taken into account.
So they started getting involved. And then when the years went by, the public perception was the Tea Party disbanded. Where’s the Tea Party? Nobody talked about it anymore. The Tea Party had a bunch of groups that were organized back in the day, and they were out raising money and doing conventions and none of that seemed to be happening anymore, so the assumption was made that the Tea Party just kind of faded away, as it was going to ’cause it was never real in the first place, they said. It was never gonna have any staying power ’cause it’s just average citizens, they were just anger on a lark, but they’re over it now, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Not a chance any of that was right. As Obama kept being Obama, the people in the Tea Party kept getting angrier. Remember, they tried to organize into tax-exempt foundations, fundraising. Hello IRS, not permitting it, shutting them down. That’s another thing that led to people thinking the Tea Party was fading away and disbanding.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party had this built-in majority coalition to join up, and they never did, because they thought it was a bunch of conservatives. And they didn’t want any part of ’em. They have continually overestimated who their base is. The Tea Party had a lot of Democrats in it. The Tea Party had a lot of minorities. The Tea Party had a bunch of people from a cross section, a demographic cross section. But you don’t know that because you were told it was nothing but a malcontent conservatives and disaffected Republicans and what have you, because it was easier to criticize ’em that way.
It was easier to make fun of ’em. It was easier to ridicule them and mock them. Because they’d had years of experience doing it. “We’ll just call ’em bunch of conservatives and nobody will take ’em seriously.” Well, guess where they are now? They’re with Donald Trump, is where they are now. And if you have any doubt about that, if you’re wondering why would Sarah Palin, just like our last call, Sarah Palin didn’t endorse Trump to advance conservatism. That’s not what this is about.
There’s so many missed opportunities for the Republican Party here. It’s actually frightening to make a list of ’em all. The Republican Party could be owning the show. The Republican Party could have won the White House in 2012. The Republican Party could be a governing majority party except they don’t want anything to do with conservatism. Not really. If they did, the political landscape would be an entirely different looking landscape today.
I know the Republican Party mocked the Tea Party. They worked with the Democrats and the media to smear them, just like is happening now with the Trump coalition. The key point here is who they are. As I have been trying to say, the majority of Trump’s support base are not Republican conservatives. There are a lot of them, but it’s not the majority.
Remember last week we learned 20% of Trump’s supporters are disaffected blue-collar Democrats? Twenty percent who are admitting it. There’s probably many more. Trump’s got his share of Hispanics, his share of African-Americans, females. That’s bad news for Hillary. Hillary, I mean, let’s call a spade a spade. The vast majority of American men don’t want any part of Hillary Clinton. That’s why she has to get as much support from women as she can. She can’t survive without it, because the men of America aren’t — don’t want — it isn’t gonna happen. No way, Jose.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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