Limbaugh

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Deckard

I know it's not high-minded behaviour by the Democratic party but I struggle to feel bad about it. I think the election was a turning point, the whole Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, "real americans" campaign deserves to be placed under the spotlight. The conventional political wisdom has always been that you don't draw attention to figures like Rush for fear of elevating their importance, so this eighty stone gorilla in the room (literally 80st gorilla in his case!) is awkwardly and somewhat misleadingly ignored while people only recognize the more measured or more politically established figures. There are certainly intelligent and intellectual figures in the conservative movement and the Republican party specifically, but aren't we kidding ourselves if we try to say that they make up the driving force of supporters, the "grass roots"? Perhaps the same argument could be used about the Dems. I don't know. I certainly can't fault the idea that, in terms of grass root numbers, Limbaugh really does seem to be the emotional leader of the GOP - plenty of senior Republican figures have said as much. For me, the crux is that given the way that whole grass roots idea was so central to the campaign against Obama for the last 12 months, sanctioned on high from the GOP, given the whole "Rush's Americans are the real American" tactic - I think they frankly deserve to be called on this.

I guess that what I question is this:

Yes, the "grass-roots" conservative movement seems to be the Rush Limbaugh crowd rather than the intelligent and intellectual figures in the Republican Party. I mean hell, they even tried to make the word "intellectual" a dirty word during the campaign, which was extremely telling. But do they just seem to be the grass-roots portion of the party because they're the most marginalized at the moment, and as a result the most vocal? My fear is that taking this broad, aggressive approach of labeling Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican party might damage some potential relationships that could be formed with the intelligent and intellectual members of the party.

So I really don't know. On the one hand, a huge portion of the conservative crowd does deserve to fall under this Rush Limbaugh umbrella, but I hope it's not at the expense of alienating the ones who don't.