In this older, little known YouTube clip, Rush Limbaugh reveals how he has been successfully deceiving his self-proclaimed ‘Dittohead’ audiences for over two decades. While smiling and pumping up his chest, Limbaugh boasts:
"We have people on the radio/TV that we all know, you can go down the list... People who are there for one reason only, and that's to make you mad. And the formula for making you, the listener, mad hasn't changed a bit. Yet people keep falling for it. It amazes me. A lot of people. I have found, anytime you express an opinion, half the people that hear it are going to disagree with you, on average.
If you embellish the opinion with confidence and cockiness, then you're getting into generating hatred and so forth."
There you go. Rush Limbaugh has been generating hatred for 25 years. Through lies and manipulation, he promotes the degradation of women, people of color, lgbt, the poor, immigrants, children, vets, and the disabled. There seems to be no one out of bounds or out of reach. When he's not getting enough attention - when he's no longer making the news, that's when he goes for shock and makes disgusting misogynist remarks about women. And it works.
"If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch." ~Rush Limbaugh, during a three day, on air, verbal attack of then unknown laws student, Sandra Fluke. He also called her a 'slut' and a 'prostitute'. She was simply advocating for insurance covered birth control.
Since the highly publicized Sandra Fluke bashing, the public has risen up in strong protest. There are multiple petitions and activist groups working against him. People no longer ignore him - hoping he'll go way. They are taking action with petitions, protests, and boycotts, specifically going after the advertising sponsors of his show. It's reported thousands of sponsors have exited after hearing from activists and everyday consumers.
Several groups on Facebook have been particularly proactive in their protest. Boycott Rush Limbaugh's Sponsors To Shut Him Down has over 75,000 followers to date. On their Facebook page you'll find daily posts of sponsors and radio stations which list contact links to make it easier for folks to send messages. They also post various news stories, sometimes with a bit of fun to offset Rush's agenda. This boycott group is clearly liberal, as their news-links and memes are pro-choice, pro-lgbt/equal marrage, pro-voting rights, pro-unions... pretty much everything Limbaugh is against.
Another Facebook group that has been very active is Join The Fight To Flush Rush. They are the volunteers who spend a lot of their time monitoring Rush Limbaugh radio stations nationwide, for sponsors. They document that information into the StopRush.net database and then they post the information to their group which gets distributed to other groups, and ultimately to the public. Once a sponsor pulls their ads from Limbaugh’s' show, the StopRush database reflects the change.
People are no longer throwing up their hands, rolling their eyes, and shaking their fists at Rush Limbaugh. They are taking action and thousands of sponsors have left his show. It's reported he is being funded by the likes of the Koch Brothers and the Tea Party, via FreedomWorks, so it's doubtful Limbaugh will break over lack of money - but he will fail at some point, and his fans will see him for the hateful party mouthpiece that he's always been. He will be off our public radio airwaves - and it will be a good day in America.
Author is an active member of Boycott Rush Limbaugh's Sponsors To Shut Him Down and StopRush database.