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Rush Limbaugh Made America Worse: The Radio Host Played a Pivotal Role in Injecting Racism, Misogyny and Cruelty Into the Right-Wing Radio Sphere. The Only Thing Missing Was His White Hood.
Twenty-five years ago, Rush Limbaugh graced the cover of Time magazine. Wearing a striped shirt, an expensive suit, and a look of total contempt, he held his trademark cigar between two stubby fingers. A thick plume of smoke obscured part of his face, styling him in brimstone. The issue’s cover asked a simple, almost innocent question: Is Rush Limbaugh good for America?
The answer to that question was as obvious 25 years ago as it is today: Limbaugh was not merely bad for the United States, he was bad in uniquely terrible ways, and uniquely terrible right up until the end. He is near the top of any list of malign actors in the post-Vietnam period.
Obituaries of Limbaugh, who died on Wednesday at the age of 70 of lung cancer, have—much like the Time cover—danced around this fact in the same “have the cake and eat it too” fashion. Limbaugh’s politics have been sanded down in these tellings, which label him as merely “controversial” or “polarizing.” The New York Times described him as “relentlessly provocative,” a particularly weaselly way of describing his approach to talk radio. The Wall Street Journal wrote that he “rode a wave of national polarization.” Nearly every obituary notes that he was “influential.”
https://newrepublic.com/article/161...etter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tnr_daily
Twenty-five years ago, Rush Limbaugh graced the cover of Time magazine. Wearing a striped shirt, an expensive suit, and a look of total contempt, he held his trademark cigar between two stubby fingers. A thick plume of smoke obscured part of his face, styling him in brimstone. The issue’s cover asked a simple, almost innocent question: Is Rush Limbaugh good for America?
The answer to that question was as obvious 25 years ago as it is today: Limbaugh was not merely bad for the United States, he was bad in uniquely terrible ways, and uniquely terrible right up until the end. He is near the top of any list of malign actors in the post-Vietnam period.
Obituaries of Limbaugh, who died on Wednesday at the age of 70 of lung cancer, have—much like the Time cover—danced around this fact in the same “have the cake and eat it too” fashion. Limbaugh’s politics have been sanded down in these tellings, which label him as merely “controversial” or “polarizing.” The New York Times described him as “relentlessly provocative,” a particularly weaselly way of describing his approach to talk radio. The Wall Street Journal wrote that he “rode a wave of national polarization.” Nearly every obituary notes that he was “influential.”
https://newrepublic.com/article/161...etter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tnr_daily
