In many ways, Trump was a creature of talk radio, or as former Barack Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau described him: “Longtime listener, first-time candidate.” Trump won, Favreau wrote, “by doing a fairly good impression of a right-wing media celebrity.”įor years, Limbaugh had channeled his mostly male and mostly white audience’s anger at being mocked by liberal elites for their retrograde beliefs. He also created the template that Trump copied so effectively. Instead, he was more interested in triggering the libs - whatever that took. “I never once talked about conservatism” during the presidential campaign, Limbaugh told his listeners after Trump’s election, “because that isn’t what this is about.” He was quick to jettison ideas of “limited government” and in his later years stopped pretending that he was talking about “conservative” ideas at all. But - as he often admitted openly - Limbaugh was not really all that interested in ideas, or as it turned out, conservatism. He might have begun his career with an apparent goal of popularizing conservative ideas, often using parodies and hyperbole. Like his acolytes, Limbaugh was never really a “thought leader” in the conventional sense. Without Limbaugh, it’s hard to imagine having a Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham. But without Limbaugh, you would also not have had a generation of conservative talkers who emulated his populist style. It’s fair to say that without Limbaugh, there would never have been a Trump presidency. He was outrageous, occasionally hilarious and immensely influential. From 1988 until his death, Limbaugh held court for three hours every weekday, thrilling his audience with ribald taunts and a know-it-all’s blustery dismantling of liberal pieties.
At the peak of his influence, he reached tens of millions of listeners every day, far exceeding his nearest competitor in talk radio. Limbaugh, who died this year at age 70 of lung cancer, effectively remade conservatism in his own image as the architect of the entertainment wing that now dominates the GOP.
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