Rush Limbaugh, conservative radio pioneer, dies at 70

Rush Limbaugh, the monumentally influential media icon who transformed talk radio and politics behind the microphone in his decades and helped shape the contemporary Republican Party, died Wednesday morning at the age of 70 after a battle with lung cancer, his family announced.

Limbaugh’s wife, Kathryn, made the announcement in his radio program. “Losing a loved one is terribly difficult, even more so if that loved one is bigger than life,” she said. “Rush will forever be the greatest of all time.”

The radio icon learned that he had stage IV lung cancer in January 2020 and that he was awarded the President’s Medal of Freedom by President Trump days later. President Melania Trump then handed America’s highest civilian honor to Limbaugh in an emotional moment on the heels of his devastating cancer diagnosis.

“Rush Limbaugh: Thank you for your decades of tireless dedication to our country,” President Trump said during the speech.

Limbaugh is considered one of the most influential media figures in American history and has played a consequent role in conservative politics since “The Rush Limbaugh Show” began in 1988. He sits behind his Golden EIB (Excellence in Broadcasting) microphone and has spent Limbaugh more than three decades. probably the most beloved and polarizing person in the American media.

The program, which began 33 years ago with the national syndication with only 56 radio stations, has become the most listened radio program in America, according to the program’s website, and has been broadcast on more than 600 stations. Up to 27 million people tuned in weekly and Limbaugh lovingly referred to his passionate fans as “Dittoheads”, as they would often say “ditto” if they agreed with the iconic radio host.

In his last radio broadcast of 2020, Limbaugh thanked his listeners and fans and revealed at the time that he had exceeded his prediction.

“I am not expected to live today,” he said. “I was not expected to go until October and then to November and then to December. And yet, here I am, and today I had problems, but I feel pretty good today.”

Limbaugh helped boost Trump’s influence ahead of the 2016 election, simply by taking him seriously as a candidate when other established conservatives wanted the former reality television star nowhere near the Republican Party. Many of Limbaugh’s listeners eventually became Trump supporters and the radio legend continued to defend Trump during his presidency despite occasional differences of opinion.

In the heat of the 2020 presidential election, Limbaugh presented Trump in October for an unprecedented two-hour “radio march,” during which the president virtually took control of the coveted gold microphone to answer questions from the host and his listeners.

Limbaugh, born in Cape Girardeau, Mo., on January 12, 1951, began his radio career in 1967 as a ‘helper’ when he was just 16 years old. He eventually studied disc jockeying and worked at a small station, about 100 miles south of St. Louis. Louis, while in high school.

“I was completely consumed,” Limbaugh told the New York Times in 1990, noting that his idol was a Chicago host named Larry Lujack. By 1971, Limbaugh was a morning radio host in Pittsburgh, where he was strangely told to discuss a certain amount of “farm news” because the area was surrounded by many farming communities. In 2007, he explained to listeners how the young radio host was able to retain listeners despite the bizarre requirement.

“The last thing the audience of my program cares about is farm news. When farm news arrives, bam! They pushed the button and went to another place. So we had to figure out, ‘Okay, how do we do that and the license I change the farm news every day in a funny way with sound effects on the farm and the roosters crowing, and so on, and I’ll mock the prices of the feed or whatever it is so we can say “We’re doing barn news,” agricultural news. There were all kinds of things like that, “Limbaugh told listeners.

The period gave a glimpse into Limbaugh’s early days and proved that he was a master at keeping the audience busy from an early age. Limbaugh said he realized America was the ‘largest country ever’ when he traveled to Europe and Asia in the late 20s and early 30s, an experience that helped shape his political views.

“I know the United States is young compared to countries in Europe and Asia that have been around for hundreds of years. These are thousand-year-old civilizations,” he told listeners in 2013. “So, I’m going to Europe and say, ‘Wait a minute. Why is this bedroom so damn old-fashioned and not working? What the hell is that? They call it a toilet?’ Then I began to ask myself, ‘How can it be that we, who are only 200 years old, are light years ahead of people who have lived a thousand years?’ “That’s why I started thinking about it. It was a matter of curiosity for me, and not from a braggadocios point of view.”

Limbaugh continued the memory path: ‘I was literally interested in how it happened, and then I started thinking about all the other things in which we led the world: manufacturing, technology, innovation, invention, creation, and it all had lead back to freedom and freedom and the pursuit of happiness and dreams that come true and work hard for everything you want and to be able to do what you love, and not just have to dream about it. ‘

PHOTOS: RUSH LIMBAUGH THROUGH THE YEARS

From then on, Limbaugh believed that ‘American exception’ should not be rejected, and his conservative views became more prominent.

“We stood for the concepts stated in our Declaration of Independence: Right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. We stood for it, and we were the beacon for it, and to this day the oppressed of the world are still trying. to come to this country, ‘he said.

Limbaugh also blamed William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the National Review, for teaching him to articulate conservative views.

“He is personally responsible for teaching me to shape and frame my beliefs and to express them orally in a concise and understandable way,” Limbaugh once said.

In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission repealed the Fairness Doctrine, a policy that had been in place since 1949 and mandated that both sides of controversial political issues should have equal time on radio programs. The FCC ruling paved the way for Limbaugh to broadcast his conservative views without being punished by the government, which quickly led to the now prominent radio format he pioneered.

After local radio appearances in Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Sacramento, Limbaugh ended up at WABC in New York shortly after the Fairness Doctrine was repealed. It was there that he talked about radio forever when ‘The Rush Limbaugh Show’ became a cultural phenomenon for the message and the way it was delivered.

“Unlike most radio talkers, who influence a comfortable, intimate style, Limbaugh sounds like he’s on a soapbox. He’s intoxicated by words, especially words that flow from his own lips. His vocabulary is extensive; his diction tends to the grand formal, though overblown to the point of self-parody.His nervous energy plays out through hands that never stop moving.They rattle on the papers, slap on the desk, hit the console.Whap! Whap! Whump! This muted percussion is frequently heard in the air, a rhythmic accompaniment of Limbaugh’s voice, ‘author Lewis Grossberger wrote in 1990 in New York Times Magazine.

At one point after struggling early to gain success in the radio industry, Limbaugh left the industry temporarily and worked for the Kansas City Royals baseball team. Luckily for conservatives and ‘Dittoheads’, he eventually returned to radio.

“Thank you for everything you do to promote Republican and conservative principles. Now that I have retired from active politics, I do not care that you have become the number one voice for conservatism in our country,” President Ronald Reagan once wrote. in a letter to Limbaughthat published in 2003 by National Review.

“I know the Liberals call you ‘the most dangerous man in America,’ but do not worry about it. They said the same thing about me. Keep up the good work. America needs to hear how things should be, ‘Reagan continues.

Limbaugh was eventually inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. He was a five-time winner of the National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Award for ‘Excellence in Syndicated and Network Broadcasting’, a best-selling author of the New York Times and was named one of Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People in 2008 and one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2009.

While Limbaugh made his career on radio, a speech he delivered at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2009 is widely regarded as one of the most important moments of his career – a statement of “who are conservatives” who the crowd bursts forth with chants of “USA! USA!”

“We love people. When we look out over the United States of America, when we’re everywhere, when we see a group of people, like this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see people. We do not see groups. We do not see victims. We do not see people who want to exploit us. What we see – what we see is potential. We do not look across the country and see the average American, the person who makes this country work. We do not see the person with contempt.We do not think the person has what is needed.We believe that the person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path such as heavy taxes, regulations and too much government, ”Limbaugh told the crowd.

“We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love our founding documents, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence,” he continued. “We believe that the preamble of the Constitution contains an indisputable truth that we have all been endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

In 2001, Limbaugh was diagnosed with an autoimmune inner-ear disease that drastically affected his hearing.

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In 2003, Limbaugh visited himself in a treatment facility after becoming addicted to pain medication he had prescribed after back surgery. Also in 2003, Limbaugh resigned from a short role as ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown” after making controversial comments about the then Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, who was reportedly overrated by media members who wanted to see a black man quarter should flourish.

Limbaugh is survived by his wife.

Fox News’ Charles Creitz, Yael Halon and David Rutz contributed to this report.