Remembering Rush Limbaugh

I hate rejoicing in someone else’s demise, but in this case, I really don’t have much good to say about him.

His career started in the Reagan era, I believe. I remember him from when Bill Clinton was in office, and he furthered what I now know to be conspiracy theories. (Vince Foster, anyone?) Through the W and Obama years, he got progressively crazier, and Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom as a Republican Cult High Priest. I’m sure his name will be added to the Clinton Body Count list by his successors.

Some people are offended by what is now being said about him by his critics.

How we behave while we are alive becomes our legacy and determines how people will think of us after we are gone. Limbaugh will forever be known as an apologist for the dogmas of the fundamentalist right because that’s who he wanted to be and who he was. He worshipped and served the 45th president because like supervillains, they were both fed and energized by the same psychic toxic sludge. Why would anyone feel offended that his critics now call out the toxicity of his truth? It makes no sense. He had his chance, that’s who he was, and he got what he wanted in that regard.

I do not want to be an apologist. I do not want to be remembered for being steeped in cognitive dissonance and adept at self-justification. (Been there; done that: an excess of my youth, I hope.) I don’t want to be remembered for my dogma, but for my ability to change my mind when I’m wrong. And I don’t want to be remembered for being a number-one fanboy of the man historians are already ranking as the worst president the US has ever had. So I think that I will do my best not to do any of those things.