My beef with talk radio, part II: Rush Limbaugh

Continuing this series …

Yesterday, I hit on my gripes with Glenn Beck. When his show ends, though, we’re treated to the most popular radio talk show host in the country … Rush Limbaugh. Arguably, he’s the leader of the Republican Party and/or the conservative movement. I would contend that he’s a disaster for both.

I’m not really sure where to begin with Mr. Limbaugh. As a matter of political strategy, holding with him represents a disaster. The man enjoys using inflammatory rhetoric, dishonest accusations, and childish name-calling. He calls this refusing to give in and standing up for his principles. In fact, though, it has the effect of ruining one’s ability to persuade others.

I, for example, enter discussions with the hope that people will change their minds and come to agree with my position. That isn’t possible if I turn others off by calling them names over and over again.

Rush Limbaugh, though, doesn’t seem to care about persuasion. Rather, I think he’s in it for the amusement. I don’t know if he actually cares about the position that he claims. Part of me suspects that he’s nothing more than a performer — he’s taken on the role of Rush Limbaugh the Crusader and plays his part in such a way that he does his job. His job, remember, is to build a radio audience and attract advertising. It isn’t to advance any kind of social or political agenda.

I find myself at a loss to understand why full-grown, mature adults are amused listening to him refer to commentator Mark Shields as “Maxi” Shields, calling Speaker Nancy Pelosi “Bela Pelosi” or the like. To be honset, this is the kind of humor that I associate with grade-schoolers, making these jokes when their parents aren’t listening. The list of “Jargon of the Rush Limbaugh Show” listed on Wikipedia contains a lot of bathroom humor. This isn’t designed to persuade, it’s intended to amuse those who already agree with him.

The danger of this, of course, is that listeners then emulate this language in outside conversations. To decline to do so, in fact, is seen as weakness of conviction.

To be honest, Limbaugh also demonstrates deliberate disrespect for others. I have a draft post called “Politically incorrect, or just rude?” that highlights a number of his references. Since it isn’t posted, yet, though, here are a couple terms that he uses:

- Info-babe: a reference to a reporter who happens to be a woman

- Chickification: making society female-friendly. Limbaugh particularly referred to this during coverage of the Olympics, when he said that he only watches women’s sports to ogle the women. That, by the way, was his own wording.

If your teenage son made such a comment in public, how would you respond? I’d like to think that you’d see to it that he learned how to show respect for women properly.

Sadly, that kind of comment is too-often celebrated when made by Limbaugh. I stand by my assertion, made in the post to which I linked above, that Limbaugh is not any kind of advocate for family values or any kind of conservative — he’s a crass pervert. He gets away with this because people accept his politics enough to overlook his character.

What about Christians? I don’t really have higher expectations for secular Republicans than the Limbaugh level … but what about my brethren, many of whom love this guy?

I think that we all need to take a step back and look at what his show really is. First of all, let’s look at the show.

Once can’t even start the show without hearing Limbaugh announce that he does the show “with talent on loan from God.” When called on it, of course, he then claims that this is “giving credit where credit is due” as if it’s a sign of devotion. However, I’ve never heard anyone else refer to his/her gifts in this way. Why? Because that’s not what he’s doing. He’s playing his audience. He speaks arrogantly, and then weasels out of it when someone tries to call him on it.

I’m quite certain of this, because I’ve heard callers talk about what God gave them, and I’ve listened in horror as Limbaugh tries to dissaude them from this belief. He encourages self-reliance and the denial of divine gifts.

Like the rest of the Republican Party, Limbaugh knows that he needs to give sufficient lip service to Christians to keep us happy. He isn’t living our life … he just wants credit for doing so. When, for example, has he ever mentioned his church? His pastor? Any kind of religious activity whatsoever?

Never? That’s what I thought.

In defiance of all logic, Limbaugh has a strong following among Evangelicals — the very people who consider fellowship with a church as important to a life lived properly. Limbaugh demonstrates that he lives a very secular life, yet he speaks into the lives of believers and is taken seriously.

This represents a very real danger to the Church.

(Wow, I have a lot of material … I’m less than halfway through my notes, but coming up on 900 words … I’ll cut this short!)

I have been told that Limbaugh’s ego is all show. Check the comments of this post, for example, particularly comment #11. My answer to that is: So what?

Not that long ago, Christians were standing against sex and violence on TV. People don’t really get killed in the making of most TV shows, and most sex scenes are performance, rather than real. It isn’t the reality of the thing that is objectionable — it’s the celebration of it, whether real or not.

Limbaugh makes light of serious issues, and members of his audience who take his lead fail to look at them in a critical light. Limbaugh considers the Abu Ghraib prison situation funny (referring to it as “Abu Grab” and comparing it to frat house parties). The idea of a moral aspect to discussions of torture seems lost on him completely.

In the interest of wrapping this up, I’ll speak last to Limbaugh’s lack of integrity in terms of what he says. Over and over, he says outrageous things and then denies that he ever said it, or says that his critics don’t get his show. This is the sort of thing that should draw outrage from Christians.

Limbaugh is a very vocal and loud part of the Secular Right. He is also a brilliant practioner of Christian Appeasement. Ultimately, he is a showman. He has made himself appear to be something else, because he has a secure audience of devoted fans who think that he cares about the same issues about which they care. He is, though, a showman. He will say or do what he needs to do to keep his name in the news, to attract publicity, and drive his advertising revenue.

Christians should not be looking to this for a spokesman, and should be very wary of anyone who promotes him.

Let us look to the way he runs his show … Consider the fruit of the Spirit. Does his show seem to exemplify love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? I think that one would be hard-pressed to defend such an assertion. Rather, I think his show has been well-defined by the beginning of that passage (Galatians 5:19-23; NIV, courtesy of BibleGateway.com):

¹⁹The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

His show is full of discord, arguably hatred, certainly impurity and debauchery, selfish ambition … I think I’ve made my point. It is long since time that Christians call Limbaugh what he is — a lover of vulgarity who does not speak for us, even if his positions sometimes coincide with ours politically.