Critics Bristle as Rush Limbaugh’s Death Prompts Nauseating Celebrations — Of His Life

Tommy ChristopherFeb 18th, 2021, 9:49 am
 

Rush Limbaugh’s death prompted a gusher of reactions from devastated fans and elated critics, but there’s a third category who memorialized the bigoted radio host by pushing back on the nauseating gradients of lionization by the media.

You can count me among the latter group, and absent from the sub-category of Limbaugh opponents who high-mindedly scolded the “rot in Hell” crowd for not holding their tongues while the body cooled. I don’t believe this death is worthy of celebration, and generally don’t believe in cheering anyone’s death, but people who live with the harm Limbaugh created deserve their voice.

In fact, it is that harm that makes Limbaugh’s death particularly unworthy of celebration, because that harm will outlive him by at least a generation. That’s also why I feel little outrage toward the predictable lionization of Limbaugh by the conservative media, and reserve it for the nauseatingly anodized takes like CNN host Brian Stelter’s insistence that liberals could learn a lot from Rush’s “connection” to his audience — as if Limbaugh’s racism, bigotry, misogyny, and toxic lies were somehow divorced from it.

Or MSNBC’s mercifully brief yet equally sickening entry. Like Stelter, MSNBC’s prerecorded obit (a phenomenon that was brilliantly sent up by Dana Carvey in a 1996 SNL sketch) included a chunk on Limbaugh’s racism wrapped in praise of his position in the talk radio landscape and the conservative movement.

But the really stomach-churning part was anchor Andrea Mitchell’s whitewashed intro as she reported the news.

“NBC News has just confirmed reports that long time radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has died at the age of 70,” Mitchell said, then added “He of course has been a fixture of conservative politics and on the airways for decades, revolutionizing conservative radio, later becoming close public ally, supporter, and defender of the former president.”

The privileged impulse for the media to “both sides” racists like Limbaugh or Donald Trump slid into relegating the radio host’s racism to a 20-second footnote in death, surrounded by a laudatory 3 minutes on his “brash” rise in radio.

In the interest of correcting that imbalance, here are some more pointed and representative commemorations from social media users — absent the unbridled celebrations that the unharmed find so distasteful.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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