The fine old tradition of Flushing Rush is also a conservative concept!
Flush Rush on Facebook, once among the smallest of the anti-Rush groups, has had an infusion of new members since the election. From Thursday through Monday, 1,250 new members have joined the cause. That's just one group of many anti-Rush groups, and new members continue to pour in.
Several new members have observed that Flush Rush is not a new idea. One has written,
I'm excited to see your group, but frankly, I have a file in my desk called Flush Rush which has hard copies of a newsletter of the same name from 1993-1995.
Flush Rush Quarterly, Winter 1995 (thanks, John!)
(If enough folks request it in the comments, I'll put this issue online.)
One Flush Rush group on Facebook has existed for many years. What we call the "fight" group (Join the fight to flush Rush Limbaugh!) was launched in March within days after Limbaugh's Fluke tirade.
But Flush Rush isn't the only game in town. There's also StopRush, Boycott Rush (52,000 supporters), Telling Rush He's Full of Crap (218,000 supporters), and a host of other groups active in the struggle to hold Limbaugh accountable. This is not a small effort, it is a growing, and increasingly powerful movement.
Rush Limbaugh refers to us as "five or six little Democrat operatives in their pajamas in the basement of their parents' house." (I'm not a Democrat, and the last time I wore pajamas was more than five decades ago.) Speaking only for the Flush Rush fight group, we do not consider our effort in any sense political. There are very compelling social reasons to oppose Rush Limbaugh's depravity. And, the Flush Rush fight group includes some libertarians and some conservatives among its most active members, so our opposition to Rush needs to be sensible and nuanced.
Conservative Entertainment Complex
Before the election, moderate Republicans feared being called "RINO" (Republicans In Name Only) if they failed to kowtow to the extreme right. Since Obama's near landslide, however, a few of the more moderate conservatives have overcome that fear sufficiently to attack Rush and other right wing nutters. On Sunday's Meet The Press, conservative analyst Steve Schmidt observed (minute 16:00) that "the Republican party needs to get it together..." and have "zero tolerance with the terrible tone that's coming out of the talk radio universe."
It is, of course, aimed at getting votes. Schmidt said, "to too many swing voters in the country, when you hear the word 'conservative' now, they think of loons and wackos."
Mainstream Republicans are using a new meme apparently aimed at discrediting wacko right wing media; Frum and Schmidt are referring to it as the "conservative entertainment complex". Here is Schmidt on Meet The Press:
"We gave up five U.S. Senate seats over the last two election cycles by [nominating] people who are just out there, completely extreme; manifestly unprepared for the offices that they were running for. Our elected leaders are scared to death of the conservative entertainment complex, the shrill and divisive voices that are bombastic and broadcasting out into the homes. This country is rejecting the social extremism of the Republican Party on issue after issue."
No one spoke of the "conservative entertainment complex" until
David Frum used it while promoting his ebook, Why Romney Lost
The expression "conservative entertainment complex" seems vaguely menacing, similar to the old "military industrial complex" used by a certain moderate Republican half a century ago. The former five star general — as head of the Republican Party — happened to likewise be concerned about an out of control right wing.
Eisenhower warns of the military industrial complex
Fitting. Maybe it will catch on.
The diarist is active in Flush Rush on Facebook:
Flush Rush on Facebook: http://facebook.com/...
Stop Rush database: http://stoprush.net
My Stop Rush blog posts: http://dailykos.com/...
Twitter hashtag: #stoprush