His influence on both radio and politics cannot be overstated.ĭuring a phone interview on Fox News following Limbaugh’s death, Fox News primetime host Sean Hannity said, “There is no talk radio as we know it without Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh mocked Democrats and liberals, touted a traditional Midwestern, moralistic patriotism and presented himself on the air as a biting but jovial know-it-all who pontificated ‘with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair,’ as he often said.” The Washington Post’s Marc Fisher wrote, “He saw himself as a teacher, polemicist, media critic and GOP strategist, but above all as an entertainer and salesman. Trump but also a precursor, combining media fame, right-wing scare tactics and over-the-top showmanship to build an enormous fan base and mount attacks on truth and facts.” In politics, he was not only an ally of Mr. Grynbaum described him this way: “He became a singular figure in the American media, fomenting mistrust, grievances and even hatred on the right for Americans who did not share their views, and he pushed baseless claims and toxic rumors long before Twitter and Reddit became havens for such disinformation. He was the good, bad and ugly of American media and American politics. He was both brilliant and bitter, masterful and malicious, alluring yet repulsive, superbly talented and yet supremely contemptible. So as we look back at Limbaugh’s legacy today, there is no simple description. And, yet, that very same show - because of Limbaugh’s bigotry, gaslighting and crass hatefulness - helped to split a nation and lay the groundwork for the political discourse that currently defines our country. Few connected with audiences like the conservative radio host who died Wednesday at the age of 70 after a battle against lung cancer.įor more than three decades, Limbaugh’s nationally syndicated radio show that aired on more than 650 stations from coast to coast drew millions of devoted listeners and helped set the conservative political agenda in this country.
If there was a Mount Rushmore for talk-show radio hosts, there’s little question that the first figure chiseled into that mountain would be Rush Limbaugh.
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