A Bucket of Rush Limbaugh

As many people who visit the blog know, I host a radio show which features regular guests with specific specialities, who occasionally come on and share their wisdom.  One of them is my food expert and wonderful chef, Terry John Zila.

A few years back I asked him, "why are shows like 'Man Vs. Food' so popular?"  Man Vs. Food is a cable show where the host (originally Adam Richman) would go tackle major food challenges at restaurants; like the ten pound hamburger, or the El Diablo chicken wings, or the 5 pound steak with all the sides.  Some of these food items would have a time constraint for consumption to completed by, others would require you just finish everything on the plate.  The show was popular.  A lot of people liked seeing these challenges which appeared on various menus across the country, challenges they themselves would never try.

Without skipping a beat, Terry said "because shows like that allow people to live unhealthy, while not actually engaging in the unhealthy behavior."  He went on to add how many people might look at a ten pound hamburger and say that looks delicious, but they're smart enough to avoid ordering one themselves. Adam Richman could do it for them, subjecting himself to a massive meal.  By the time Richman got halfway through his challenges, it became more of a public service announcement: "here is the professional eater being brought to his knees by this. Don't be dumb enough to try this yourself!"  People lived vicariously through the show, without having to endure the digestive nightmare.

I'd seen this play out every Minnesota State Fair.  When I broadcast at KSTP, we were right down the street from the Sweet Martha's Cookie booth, probably the most popular Fair food booth. People would order the bucket of cookies, a heaping large pail of cookies; easily more cookies than person should eat in an entire year, given to them in one 'serving', a serving which could feed forty people.  I'll never forget the faces of the people as they began their walk from Sweet Martha's to our booth.  Their faces went from pure joy to 'what was I thinking' in a matter of 20 steps.  We'd always have abandoned buckets left on the broadcast stage (and bees), left behind by fools whose internal desires overrode their common sense.

Rush Limbaugh passed away from cancer on February 17th. He was undeniably a racist, sexist, homophobe, bigot, fear mongering jackass.  He was!  That was his brand!  Just some of the things he said:  "Barack the Magic Negro," (towards Latinos) "You're a foreigner...You shut your mouth and get out," he attacked Katrina victims, constantly attacked the black members of the NBA, NFL and the NAACP, "women shouldn't be allowed on juries where the accused is a stud," his insanely racist anti-Asian rant against Chinese President Hu Jintao, he attacked people dying of Parkinson's, called Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" for advocating for universal contraception coverage, referred to LGBTQ+ politicians as "the tranny community," constantly said white people should be proud of their record on slavery, he was the driving force behind the completely made up Seth Rich conspiracy and in turn tortured Rich's family, a career of targeting the homeless, he attacked the dead CONSTANTLY including Robin Williams, George Steinbrenner, Trayvon Martin, and Kurt Cobain (among MANY others), he attacked Joe Biden and Joe Biden's family when he went after Biden's dead wife and child, as well his Beau Biden who died of brain cancer, and he openly mocked and laughed at the victims of AIDS.

Image from Paul Hoppe at Gen.Medium

In case you are missing my point, speaking as a Catholic, Rush Limbaugh is BURNING IN HELL for eternity.  That's not even debatable.

What's stunning is how all the sudden the Evangelicals are now trying to portray Limbaugh as some sort of über-Christian divine being, an angel who had visited earth, taken from us too soon.  These people listened to Rush for years, many of them laughing at his daily unforgivable comments.  For his entire career, Rush's fans never condemned any of Rush's CLEARLY anti-Christian hate speech.  They all heard it, AND THEY LOVED HIM FOR IT...AS CHRISTIANS!

You see, Rush was like a far right extremist political version of Man Vs. Food.  Down deep inside Rush's Evangelical and 'Republican party over Jesus' Christian fans, they wanted to say the racist, misogynist, homophobic, bigoted, anti-Democratic, anti-Immigrant, anti-poor comments Rush was willing to say, but they knew if it came from their mouths, they'd be called out immediately for their anti-Christian behavior.  That's why they adored Rush.  They could embrace the anti-Christian rhetoric/comments without having to say them themselves, just chuckle along with the bigot!  They could eat their 10 pound hamburger, or in this case the 1000 pound crap sandwich, without ever having to chew for themselves. 

And now that he died, the Evangelicals and far right Christians are now looking at his true legacy; the hate and division he sowed, the legacy of anti-Jesus comments he spewed. That's why they are frantically trying to portray him as something Rush Limbaugh NEVER was, a good Christian. They are trying desperately to paint him as something misunderstood, noble and righteous.  He was NEVER that.

Rush fans are walking away from the Rush Limbaugh booth with a bucket of his hate.  They eagerly bought the bucket of venom and loathing, giddy with delight as Rush filled it with more and more anti-Christian dictum.  Now that they're walking away from Rush, they're realizing they've become gluttons, freely gobbling up super size servings of bombastic, evil sermons.  Out of desperation to change their foolish loyalty to 'something the other side just doesn't understand,' they now insist they never embraced what Rush said, but rather they only bought into Rush for the bucket the hate came in.  

Stop lying to yourselves and to everyone else.  You loved Rush for the hate he belched every day.  Evangelicals and far right Christians, just be honest:

"We will miss Rush because he said all the non-Christian things we wanted to scream.  Instead, we never had to say it directly.  All we had to say was, 'I love Rush Limbaugh.'"