Lengthy but interesting read about Rush Limbaugh (his rise to "fame" and his seditious influence) for those of us fortunate not to have had to experience him. Thank eff he's dead is all I can say.
www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/rush-limbaugh-dead-trump-ruined-america-1129222/
Limbaugh might have begun as a ratings-obsessed provocateur, but he became one of the most influential subversives in American history. If we didn’t fully recognize that before 2020, or January 6th, we ought to know it now. No single person — not Reagan, not Cheney, not McConnell, not Trump, not Q — has contributed more than Limbaugh to the mass derangement of white America.
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It’s hard to convey, so many media eras later, what a phenomenon The Rush Limbaugh Show was. Within a year of the C-SPAN telecast, Limbaugh was beaming out to 530 stations, with 25 million listeners, and hosting a 30-minute syndicated TV show (also with no guests) produced by Roger Ailes, who would go on to launch Fox News in 1996.
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That’s how the right wing’s first alternative-news bubble was built. “Rush started this thing,” says former Sen. Al Franken, who responded to the Limbaugh peril with the 1995 bestseller, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot. “And he was good at it. I mean, he’s awful, obviously, a monster, but very talented. Three hours a day is a long time to do ‘unguested confrontation,’ which is the actual name for his format. You listen to most of these guys, they just have nuts calling them, they agree with the nuts; and that’s how you fill three hours. Not this guy. You have to give him that. At the same time, for — what? — 30 years now, it’s always been true: If there’s some awful right-wing thing happening, chances are that Rush was behind it.”