What Rush Limbaugh Meant To Me

I will freely admit that that might be a cliched title, but it isn’t very often that I speak of matters so personal to me. I usually talk about what idiotic things Leftists said or pushed, or about what great things Trump would do as President, or generally tried my hand at some apologetics, defending the Christian faith from those who foolishly attack it at their own peril.
 
However, with the recent event of America’s Anchorman Rush Limbaugh passing away due to complications with cancer (screw cancer, by the way, and I really want to say something stronger but I feel like that wouldn’t honor Rush), I feel like I should take some time away from focusing on other current events such as the disaster that is the illegitimate Biden administration to just discuss Rush and what he meant to me personally.
 
I, unfortunately, never got to meet Rush, so it’s not like I can share some personal anecdote about the man of something we did together. But I listened to him as often as I could, particularly as I got older and began to pay attention to politics a little bit more.
 
I don’t exactly know what qualifies one to be a “Rush baby”, whether it means to have had his radio program on since I was literally a baby or at least a toddler, but I can call myself a “Rush teen”, if you will.
 
I began listening to him, admittedly, against my will. That’s not to say that I did not like Rush or that I was a mad liberal with vitriol and hatred in his heart. I was just a 14-year-old kid who recently moved to a new state and awaiting the movers to have all our stuff, there were few things to do apart from listening to the radio. At the time, I was hardly paying much attention to politics.
 
I remember occasionally watching Fox News (back when it was good and personalities like Bill O’Reilly were present) with my parents over the years, but again, could hardly care about the politics. I remember when Obama was elected president in 2008 and how disappointed my parents were about it. So I knew who was President of the United States by the time my family and I moved to the country, but again, being a kid, I hardly cared about that.
 
As a result, there was not much I cared about with regard to what Rush was talking about. I remember that Rush was railing on Obama and the Democrats as basically trying to be “Santa Claus” and just trying to win elections by giving out free stuff to Americans.
 
Keep in mind that this was around the time that Obamacare was being talked about the most.
 
But, again, as a 14-year-old kid whose interests lied primarily in playing Call of Duty or other games on his Xbox, the topics of discussion were barely important to me. But I kept listening, on and off, and began to pay more attention to politics as time went on, particularly around the time of the 2012 election.
 
Though I ashamedly supported Romney back then, a large part of the reason why is because, while even then I knew he wasn’t exactly the most conservative option (back then, I liked Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachman and Rick Perry far more than Romney), he would likely still have made for a better president than what Obama was. In some ways, I still think that to be true. I think Romney would have made the economy better, because Republicans tend to be able to fix the economies that Democrats wreck. And this was a sentiment that Rush shared.
 
He backed Romney and supported him because, even if he was far from his first choice, he was a better option than Obama. He made the same rationalizations and justifications for supporting McCain, who was also not Rush’s first choice.
 
So I got invested a decent bit in politics back then, certainly more than what I previously had but obviously nowhere near as much as I do now. As a result, I began to pay more attention to what Rush was saying as well. It certainly helped that my dad would often put him on the radio when he picked me up from school, at least for the short amount of time that I wouldn’t take the bus home.
 
And so, my journey went as follows: I became a Republican in large part because my parents were Republicans and taught me right from wrong (for the most part, at least, as even they were still on that same journey as me). They, themselves, became Republicans because they were in finance, and what Republicans propose economically are what always made sense for them. Then, we became conservatives.
 
Funny enough, this happened in part because of Obama. Early in his administration, quite literally on his third day in office, Obama had reportedly told Republican leaders who were invited to the White House to “quit listening to Rush Limbaugh.” “You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done. There are big things that unify Republicans and Democrats. We shouldn’t let partisan politics derail what are very important things that need to get done.”
 
For all the “unifying” that Obama was seemingly trying to do there, he went on to say to a Republican critic: “I won. I will trump you on that.”
 
Clearly, Obama was as full of crap back then as we always knew he was. But at any rate, that’s not what I want to focus on. Following that moment in the White House, Fox News reported on it, and my mom asked: “Who’s Rush Limbaugh?”
 
She went on to look him up and that is how my parents (and eventually I) started listening to El Rushbo. So thank you, Obama. You are at least part of the reason as to why my family and I are as conservative as we are today.
 
And so, we became Republicans, and then through Rush, we became conservatives. After that is when my mom and I became Christians, some time later, at least.
 
And that’s all well and good, but you might be asking how that relates to what Rush means to me. Well, I think it was a little important to share this backstory of mine, detailing the journey of my conservative politics. It is because of Rush Limbaugh that I am a conservative, particularly as much of one as I am.
 
He (as well as my parents who also deserve credit for this) taught me not what to think but how to think. To analyze things with a critical eye. It’s why I analyze what Leftists say and can discern what they mean or imply from them.
 
I attended the Rush Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies and that is a school from which one does not graduate. Even now, with Rush’s passing, there is plenty that we can learn and know from him.
 
It’s because of him that I have been writing these articles for the last four years. I even sought a career in radio so that I could become “the next Rush Limbaugh” before I realized that even speaking for half an hour became tiring for my throat. Not to mention I think I can convey messages more clearly in the written form, particularly as this mode of communication affords me more time to think about what I want to say and how to say it.
 
Of course, now, I no longer want to be “the next Rush Limbaugh” not merely because I hardly think I’m cut out for radio, but also because there simply cannot be a “next Rush Limbaugh”. When they made him, they broke the mold, as those who listened to Rush through Rush 24/7 understand. I cannot aspire to be someone I’m not, or the “next” someone I’m not. I can only be the best version of myself and I think that’s what Rush would want of me.
 
Kathryn Limbaugh opened Rush’s show on the 17th to convey the sad news of Rush’s passing. She pointed out how “Rush will forever be the greatest of all time. Rush was an extraordinary man, a gentle giant – brilliant, quick witted, genuinely kind, extremely generous, passionate, courageous, and the hardest working person I know…”
 
“He was polite and respectful to everyone he met. Even most recently when he was not feeling well in the hospital, he was so appreciative to every single doctor and nurse and custodian and first responder. He never wanted to put anyone out, and always thanked them profusely for their help.”
 
Rush was someone who unabashedly and unapologetically loved his country, our military, flag, Constitution, and Founding Fathers. It’s because of that love that he wanted to defeat the Left, who bear the exact opposite feelings about all those things.
 
He’s someone who touched the hearts of tens of millions of people every day for 32 years. You can tell what awesome things he did in his life by the way people reacted to his death. Those who loved him and love this country mourned, while those who loathed him and loathe this country vilely celebrated. He was loved by all the right people and hated by all the right people. I saw it as a badge of honor for Rush that the Left reacted the way that they did. That Rush had enemies means he stood up for something, and particularly, for the right thing.
 
That he was loved by God is infinitely more important than that he was hated by the Left and Satan. He now rests with the Lord, free from the evil cancer that damaged his body, and probably striking up a conversation with Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, to name a few, about how silly the Left is for believing they are headed for victory.
 
Rush was a big part of my life and a big part of how I have shaped my life and my beliefs. I didn’t always agree with Rush, though the times I disagreed were as few and far between as the times in which he was wrong. That is to say, I would disagree with him 0.2% of the time, agreeing with him the other 99.8%.
 
Though he and I never met, as I said earlier, he was my brother in Christ. I am young, so I don’t plan on meeting my Savior in heaven any time soon, and by extension, America’s Anchorman. But what I will try to do from now on will be the same as what I hopefully have been doing for the past four years: write truthful articles that convey why the Left is evil and ought to be defeated and destroyed. This is what Rush, in his own way, did for over 30 years. With talent on loan from God, and by the Grace of God, he did all he could with the time that the Lord gave him, and I hope to do the same.
 
God bless Rush Limbaugh and may his soul rest in peace, as we all know he is.
 
Romans 14:8
“For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”