Conservative media godfather Rush Limbaugh died yesterday. Tributes came in from the right while liberal outlets could not resist slamming Rush and sneering at his audience.
Summary
Talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh died at the age of 70 yesterday succumbing to terminal lung cancer, his wife reported at the start of his daily radio show.
- Tributes poured in as Limbaugh’s mentees mourned his passing, with Glenn Beck calling Limbaugh “an icon. A patriot. A revolutionary that saved radio.”
- Critics and friends alike credited Limbaugh for the rise of the current stable of conservative media outlets.
- His daily radio show reached 27 million people on 600 stations nationwide, earning a reported $85 million in 2020 according to Forbes.
- Axios, like many mainstream and liberal outlets, couldn’t escape reporting without mentioning Limbaugh’s ability to create controversy, painting him as someone who had a “long history of racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks.”
- Slate took Limbaugh’s death as an opportunity to blame him for the state of American politics (ignoring the left’s use of identity politics as a front for wealth redistribution), saying he “perfected” political polarization.
- Limbaugh, a prominent cigar smoker, was remembered by Cigar Aficionado magazine, which earned a finger-wagging from Huffington Post for failing to note Limbaugh died of lung cancer.
- The New York Times pulled no punches and devoted its coverage to denigrating Limbaugh and his listeners, saying he “fomented mistrust, grievances, and even hatred on the right for Americans who did not share their views”, as if the cancel culture inside the New York Times’ own newsroom didn’t exist.
- Jack Fowler, Vice President of National Review, eulogized Limbaugh, whose death he called a “powerful loss to conservatism”, and that his friendship with National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr. intertwined the magazine with Limbaugh’s radio show as a duo to expand the conservative movement.
- Former President Donald Trump called into Newsmax TV to comment on the passing of his “great friend”, reminiscing on awarding Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the 2020 State of the Union.
- The Federalist dedicated its podcast yesterday to discuss Rush’s legacy, saying he pioneered media criticism and unified a group of Americans who felt unheard.
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© Dallas Gerber, 2021
