{"id":12899,"date":"2021-02-28T11:02:51","date_gmt":"2021-02-28T19:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12899"},"modified":"2021-07-26T06:03:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T13:03:00","slug":"losing-an-american-genius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/losing-an-american-genius\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing An American Genius"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rush Limbaugh created modern national talk radio as we now know it\u2014from nothing. For over three decades he kept at rapt attention weekdays\u2014live from noon to three\u2014the largest conservative audience in broadcast history. Over 15 million tuned in each week.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last week\u201432 years, and over 23,000 hours of on-air commentary after Rush went national in August 1988\u2014he is gone, at 70 years young.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By the 1990s he had become the voice\u2014literally and iconically\u2014of the conservative movement and its hot\/cold liaisons with the Republican Party. Rush was hated by the Left because he was deadly effective in fighting them, and feared at times by the Republican establishment\u2014because he could also be deadly effective in fighting them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Limbaugh had an uncanny sense of what conservative populism could do\u2014such as abruptly end Barack Obama\u2019s control of Congress after just two years, in the sweeping Tea Party midterm election of 2010.&nbsp; And he also instinctively sensed what it should not do: endorse Ross Perot\u2019s Quixotic third-party surge of 1992 that eventually would split the conservative vote and ensure Bill Clinton the presidency with just 43 percent of the popular vote.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amgreatness.com\/2021\/02\/24\/losing-an-american-genius\/\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Rush Limbaugh created modern national talk radio as we now know it\u2014from nothing. For over three decades he kept at rapt attention weekdays\u2014live from noon to three\u2014the largest conservative audience in broadcast history. Over 15 million tuned in each week.&nbsp; Last week\u201432 years, and over 23,000 hours of on-air [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3m3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12189,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/limbaugh-a-genius-at-radio\/","url_meta":{"origin":12899,"position":0},"title":"Limbaugh: A Genius at Radio","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Genius\u00a0is often defined in myriad ways. One trusted criterion is the ability to do something extraordinary in a field where others could not \u2014 and doing something that perhaps will never be done again by anyone else. By that measure, Rush Limbaugh certainly is\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2923,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/more-on-rush\/","url_meta":{"origin":12899,"position":1},"title":"More on Rush","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner All these highbrow conservative attacks on Limbaugh keep missing the point. 1) There is a certain sort of genius there that can do 15 hours of talk per week, ad hoc, and hold an audience of 20 million plus for over 20 years. There\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;March 2009&quot;","block_context":{"text":"March 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/march-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9415,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hillarys-neoliberals\/","url_meta":{"origin":12899,"position":2},"title":"Hillary\u2019s Neoliberals","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Some Republicans have cultural and political affinities that are pulling them away from Trump and toward Clinton. By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/National Review Online Many elections redefine political parties. The rise of George McGovern\u2019s hard-left agenda in 1972, followed later in the decade by Jimmy Carter\u2019s evangelical liberalism, drove centrist\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Campaign 2016&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2016","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/campaign-2016\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2906,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/from-vs-limbaugh\/","url_meta":{"origin":12899,"position":3},"title":"From vs. Limbaugh","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online In the end, the controversy boils down to an argument of the moment versus one of the ages. Frum believes that conservatives have to change their message to appeal to new constituencies without which the Republican party will lose future elections. Limbaugh argues\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;March 2009&quot;","block_context":{"text":"March 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/march-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12889,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/remembering-rush-limbaugh-with-comments-from-dr-victor-davis-hanson-heard-exclusively-on-the-trevor-carey-show\/","url_meta":{"origin":12899,"position":4},"title":"Remembering Rush Limbaugh With Comments From Dr. Victor Davis Hanson Heard Exclusively on The Trevor Carey Show","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Listen to \"Remembering Rush Limbaugh With Comments From Dr. Victor Davis Hanson Heard Exclusively on The Trevor Carey Show\" on Spreaker.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2802,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-did-republicans-lose-their-appeal\/","url_meta":{"origin":12899,"position":5},"title":"Why Did Republicans Lose Their Appeal?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"And how can they get it back? by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Colin Powell keeps insisting that the Republicans lost the presidency because of right-wing extremists like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, who, in his view, have become the public face of the Republican party, and thus will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;May 2009&quot;","block_context":{"text":"May 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/may-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12900,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12899\/revisions\/12900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}