Sunday Morning Post (V.3, #8) - No Tears for Hate

It is a cold winter morning and the blank page staring at me right now is impatiently tapping its corner as if to say, “We’re waiting!”  So, okay, I do not have any ideas for any deep essay this week.  We’ll mark this with some current events which we can use later on as a historical marker for America’s return from the near brush with the demise of democracy.

This week…Rush Limbaugh died.  I don’t want to presume what others would think, but I will remind my readers that Will Rogers often said that he never met a man he didn’t like.  I will go out on a limb and state that I think Rogers would have made an exception for Rush Limbaugh.

Oh, all right.  We have to give him his due props as a leader of conservative radio broadcasting who built a rabid, loyal following.  In the process he divided our country more deeply than any of America’s enemies could ever hope to do.  Limbaugh pissed off a lot of liberals in his time, so there will be no tears shed for him here.   If we are lucky history will consign Limbaugh to a spot along side Father Joseph Coughlin, a right-wing radio commentator from the 1930s.  I don’t know if anyone misses him either.

Limbaugh appealed to the American common man.  This man is supposed to be rugged, uncompromising, strong-willed and found wandering the Great Plains in cigarette commercials.  And oh yes, lest we forget, this man is white skinned.

One caveat:  this image is a myth.  Sure, there’s nothing wrong wanting to be strong and independent, but we don’t have to live that dream to the detriment of our fellow man.  Limbaugh elevated that myth and pronounced it truth.  Millions bought his argument over the decades, and we will most likely have to put up with his so called “dittoheads” for decades to come.

Limbaugh is remembered for rhetoric stuck in the 1950’s when the “typical” American family was white, uber heterosexual, and lived in the suburbs, enjoying the prosperity and opportunity that the post-war modern era had to provide.  He refined this image by making it very clear that minorities need not apply. 

It seems fitting that this spokesperson for the mythical common man should leave now.  America has been subjected to four years of its darkest elements pushed to the forefront of our national psyche.  What we do with these dark ideas now is anyone’s guess.  They should be discussed with the intention of overcoming our racist ideas once and for all. In any event there is now one less voice on the wrong side of the conversation to contend with.

Not speak ill of the dead?  Rest in peace?  Nah!  Sorry, not sorry.

(Thank you for reading.)