Rush Limbaugh Claims Unemployed People Aren’t Working Because They Have Food

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Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 11:57 am

On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh said that the unemployed aren’t working and are living the good life because they have food.

Here is the audio from Media Matters:

Transcript via Rush Limbaugh:

LIMBAUGH: H: Stephanie in Vincennes, Indiana, I’m really glad you waited. I appreciate your patience. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: I’m kind of frustrated with the whole thing, and I can’t understand why there’s so many ignorant people out there who don’t see what Obama is doing.

RUSH: Let me ask you, Stephanie, I asked myself today, everybody does, not just you, why do you think that so many are ignorant about what Obama is doing?

CALLER: I guess they’re not listening to the news —

RUSH: No, no. No, no. Why do you think there are so many, not why are they ignorant. Why are you convinced there are so many who are?

CALLER: Maybe 47% of ’em are because of the handouts.

RUSH: It’s a serious question because I think this is what the election’s all about. We are assuming — I do, too — that the country is just lazily apathetic, that whatever bad thing happens, nobody’s bothered by it. Nobody’s bothered by the ambassador being shot. Nobody is bothered by Obama blaming the video. Nobody is bothered by high unemployment. Nobody is bothered by the economy never in a state of recovery in three-and-a-half years. Nobody is bothered by the fact they can’t make any money anymore. Why do we all think nobody cares anymore? What’s the evidence?

CALLER: The media.

RUSH: A-ha.

CALLER: The media, you know, they lie. They’re not telling the truth.

RUSH: So you think more people do care about this, we just don’t see reporting on that?

CALLER: Right. Right.

RUSH: Or are you hoping? See, isn’t the great fear, isn’t the great fear that you’re right, that a majority of people just don’t care. Like, you can say 23 million people aren’t working, but they’re eating and they’re using their cell phones, and they’re able to watch the NFL on their flat screens.

CALLER: Right. And, you know what? I couldn’t watch the ball game last night.

RUSH: Why not?

CALLER: I don’t have a big flat-screen TV.

RUSH: Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

CALLER: I work. I don’t depend on the government —

RUSH: I see. You work.

CALLER: — to give me handouts. Yeah.

RUSH: You work so you don’t have a screen.

CALLER: Well, I don’t have a big flat-screen TV.

RUSH: Yeah. Yeah. I got you.

CALLER: But I work, and I don’t expect somebody to hand me —

RUSH: I’m gonna give you the answer. The answer to the question is in the polls. When you see on one hand the country literally disintegrating and everything about it that made it great under attack, when you see high unemployment, home values plummeting, all the evidence of economic collapse, all the debt, when you see all the unemployment, and then you see Obama at 47% with 50% approval, you say, “How the hell can this be?” And that makes you ask, “Why and how have all these people grown so apathetic?” It’s the polls that make you think this way, right?

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: Okay. And that’s exactly what they’re trying to do.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: The purpose of the people right now, most of them doing these polls, they’re trying to make news, not reflect it, they’re advancing an agenda. They’re all Democrats. They’re all liberals. They just have different jobs. The polls are the replacement refs. They see certain things. They don’t see other things. They don’t call certain things, and other things go by. In this case, what they’re trying to do is exactly what they’ve done in your case: frustrate you, make you pull your hair out, say, what the hell’s happening to the country? They want you thinking the country’s lost. They want you thinking your side’s lost. They want you thinking it’s over for what you believe. And that makes you stay home and not vote. That’s what they’re hoping. That’s why you have to fight it every day, Stephanie.

Just like Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and the vast majority of Republicans in Congress, Rush Limbaugh believes that the reason why unemployed people aren’t working is because they have food. Mitt Romney’s comments about the 47 percent being victims weren’t an isolated episode. Romney’s comments weren’t just Richie Rich talking out his wealth bubble. Much of the Republican Party truly believes that the unemployed are lazy and we need to stop feeding them in order to get them back to work.

Much like Herbert Hoover, the modern Republican Party thinks that they can starve America into a better economy. Republicans had learned from Hoover’s mistake, and tried to avoid saying what they really believe out loud, until Mitt Romney got caught by the hidden camera.

Limbaugh’s exchange with the caller is a textbook example of the kind of targeted class warfare the right is practicing. The caller is being persecuted because she works while lazy (probably black) people get to stay home and watch the game on their flat screen TVs. The flat screen TV and the cell phone have replaced the Cadillac in the right wing myth of the welfare queen.

Limbaugh’s claim that all the pollsters are liberals will certainly come as a surprise to Rasmussen and the dozens of Republican pollsters and polling firms out there. There was none of this griping about polls until after Obama opened up a lead. If the polls show Obama winning, they must be liberal. Since virtually all the polls show Obama leading, it follows that all of the polls are liberal.

Mitt Romney’s comments about the 47 percent are what the Republican Party really believes. Republicans have failed to learn from the mistakes of Hoover, which is why they are poised to repeat his results on Election Day.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

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