Rush Limbaugh, ‘Professor’ to Andrew Breitbart, Celebrates 30 Years of Syndication

One day I asked [my father-in-law Orson Bean] why he had Rush Limbaugh’s book The Way Things Ought to Be on his shelf. I asked him, “Why would you have a book by this guy?”

And Orson said, “Have you ever listened to him?”

I said yes, of course, even though I never had. I was convinced to the core of my being that Rush Limbaugh was a Nazi, anti-black, anti-Jewish, and anti–all things decent. Without berating me for disagreeing with him, Orson simply suggested that I listen to him again.

While I was listening to Jim Rome and Howard Stern, the intensity of the 1992 election cycle warranted that I switch the frequency over to hearing about the horse race.

This is where my rendezvous with destiny begins.

I turned on KFI 640 AM to listen to evil personified from 9 a.m. to noon. Indeed, my goal was to derive pleasure from the degree of evil I found in Rush Limbaugh. I was looking forward to a jovial discussion with Orson to confirm how right I was. One hour turned into three. One listening session into a week’s worth. And next thing I knew, I was starting to doubt my preprogrammed self. I was still a Democrat. I was still a liberal.

But after listening for months while putting thousands of miles on my car, I couldn’t believe that I once thought this man was a Nazi or anything close. While I couldn’t yet accept the premise that he was speaking my language, I marveled at how he could take a breaking news story and offer an entertaining and clear analysis that was like nothing I had ever seen on television, especially the Sunday morning shows, which had been my previous one-stop shop for my political opinions.

Most important, though, Limbaugh, like the professor I always wanted but never had the privilege to study under, created a vivid mental picture of the architecture of a world that I resided in but couldn’t see completely: the Democrat-Media Complex. Embedded in Limbaugh’s analysis of politics was always a tandem discussion on the media. Each segment relentlessly pointed to collusion between the media and the Democratic Party. If the Clarence Thomas hearings showed me that something was wrong, the ensuing years of listening to Limbaugh and Dennis Prager—who at the time was also undergoing a political transformation from the Democratic to the Republican Party—explained to me with eerie precision what exactly was wrong. I swallowed hard and conceded to Orson that he was right.

Breitbart also identified Limbaugh as a news media pioneer in dissenting from what he labeled the “Democrat-Media Complex.”

I have allies, veterans who have helped pave the way. Rush Limbaugh and the phenomenon of conservative talk radio are only twenty years old. So desperate was the right for an outlet to express itself that tens of millions now get their information from what was the formerly moribund AM dial.

Please understand that Rush Limbaugh is reviled less for what he says than because he shot the first shot of the New Media war over twenty years ago when he turned AM into the meeting place for America’s massive conservative underground. Because of Rush there are countless imitators influencing large amounts of people across America in a billion-dollar talk-radio industry that didn’t exist a generation ago.

President Donald Trump praised Limbaugh via Twitter on Tuesday — then made a surprise call-in during the August 1 broadcast.

Rush Limbaugh is a great guy who truly gets it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2018

Limbaugh reflected on the bond between himself and his audience at the conclusion of Tuesday’s edition of his radio show:

I think everybody listening here is involved and intelligent and aware, and thinks and shares a similar value system or value base. That’s why it’s so meaningful. This is why I understand the bond that Trump’s supporters have with him, is because I have it, too, with all of you who listen to this program — and nobody’s been able to break the bond.

Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter.