"Obama's head needs to roll", said Rush Limbaugh, September 10, 2008, after one of Obama's campaign operatives made what Rush Limbaugh considered to be a mistake and Limbaugh determined Obama should fire himself over it.
The Republican Party has been riding the talk radio bandwagon as it takes the country closer and closer to the edge of the cliff. The driver of that bandwagon is the one who should be fired.
No one is more powerful in the GOP. He's the point man for spreading the think tank generated propaganda used to educate and motivate the base.
No one represents the ideals of new GOP better than Limbaugh and no one has done more to get the party into the Tea Party box it's in now. Until Karl Rove lost the White House and central control of messaging, what are now known as Tea Party members were generally known as dittoheads and kept a lower profile. They are small in number but their coordination and volume makes it easy for media and politicians to call them a popular movement that must be reckoned with. They've been there for 20 years as the pro-corporate made-to-order constituency that the Limbaughs and Hannities could activate whenever the think tanks wanted.
Every day for months on hundreds of the loudest radio stations on the planet, team Limbaugh have been telling their listeners that if the debt ceiling is not raised nothing serious will happen and government will merely have to start getting rid of unions and firing those they have been calling parasites and bottom feeders for years- government employees, public teachers, etc.
Many of those listeners believe that version, and Limbaugh has already made it clear any GOP politician who compromises will be considered a traitor. That is the main reason we are at the edge now. The saner minds in the GOP can thank Limbaugh especially for putting them in this all or nothing position they are in. Grover Norquist, like many recent famous radical Republicans would be small potatoes without Limbaugh. If the country defaults we can all thank Limbaugh as much as anyone.
The consolation for Limbaugh is that in any disaster he will have the biggest soapbox in the country day in and day out, with Fox to put visuals to his work in prime time. He can also be confident that his call screeners will make sure no calls blaming him for missed social security checks will get through and that paid callers will be there to reinforce, defend, and prompt him with a full range of excuses for the GOP and blame for Obama.
Today one of the two major political parties in the United States of America can't even acknowledge the existence of man-made climate change for fear of Limbaugh. If what used to be the Party of Lincoln doesn't want to be the Party of Limbaugh any more it's going to help fire him.
Local and national sponsors of some of the 600 radio stations that broadcast his show need to find alternatives. Do their owners and staff and shareholders agree with the racism and lies and global warming denial? And why, for instance, would national window brands Anderson and Pella advertise energy efficiency on radio stations dedicated to defeating the government subsidies for energy efficiency retrofitting that might explode their business? Many businesses that have suffered from the Bush recession and still advertise on right wing radio stations have conflicts like that.
And Universities that broadcast sports on those stations and give them (and Limbaugh) community credibility need to reread their stated goals and 'mission statements' to see if they condone endorsing the same hate, lying, ignorance, and global warming denial.
Before this country can once again have rational discussions about climate change, money in politics, media reform, supreme court candidates, going to war, and drug policy, Limbaugh needs to be fired.