Shutterstock
When Rush Limbaugh got his start in the early 90s, to say he was provocative is to put it lightly. His radio show had a particularly controversial segment during which Limbaugh would give an “AIDS Update,” reading off the names of people who had died from the disease and playing comical sound effects. The segment was introduced with the song “I’ll Never Love This Way Again” by Dionne Warwick. At the time, Warwick was a very outspoken AIDS Activist.
Warwick famously forced Ronald Reagan to publicly say the name of the disease for the first time on a public broadcast in 1987. A common criticism of Reagan’s presidency is that the conservative legend didn’t do enough to address the AIDS epidemic. The prevailing conservative thought at the time, leftists accuse, was that, since AIDS primarily affected gay people, that it was something they could just brush under the rug and ignore.
Limbaugh himself never took his fame lightly. He said in interviews that he had immense respect for his audience, and that he was aware of his unique position as the mouthpiece for an entire political movement. Through the 90’s and into the 2000’s and 2010’s, Rush Limbaugh was the voice of the conservative sphere.
Limbaugh was a savvy broadcaster. Despite the outrageous nature of some of his opinions and segments, like the aforementioned AIDS Update, Limbaugh managed to attract huge sponsors and keep himself in the public eye. His smooth radio productions, complete with sidekicks and musical guests, were undeniably entertaining.
Working class, blue-collar Americans on their way to work would often catch Rush Limbaugh over the airwaves and hear his distinctive baritone carrying messages espousing the conservative worldview. This would often encapsulate his particular axes to grind: sometimes, the target would be the LGBT community. Other times, it might be a prominent African American like the Reverend Al Sharpton or notably basketball player Magic Johnson, complete with a far from politically correct impersonation.
However, no matter what jokes he was telling or what guests he had on, Rush Limbaugh was consistently whip-smart, always one step ahead of those he’d marked as enemies. While activists expended energy on two fronts, trying to continue their work while also fending off the verbal barbs from Limbaugh, he was already pivoting to his next success. No matter how much the left may have hated him, Limbaugh was the caustic voice of the working class, spitting venom and winning all the way to the bank.
Was he controversial? More than you could ever know. He was also successful, savvy, and unrelenting. Modern conservative talk radio has much to learn from Rush Limbaugh.
