RUSH: Let’s start with Steve here in Birmingham, Alabama. It’s Open Line Friday. Great to have you, sir, on the program today. Hello.

CALLER: Thank you, sir, for taking my call. Good morning. Mega dittos. Mega prayers going back to 1990. I love you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir. Appreciate it very much.

CALLER: Get right to my point. So I am perplexed and I’m disturbed by what some of these Republicans are doing primarily with respect to impeachment, and I don’t get it. My case is point is Liz Cheney, whom I used to respect tremendously, but her statement on impeachment could have been written by Nancy Pelosi, and I don’t get it.

RUSH: Wait, now. Seriously? Don’t misunderstand my tone. I’m not trying to be condescending. I’m just a little somewhat surprised, you really don’t understand why Liz Cheney has the opinion she has?

CALLER: Well, no. And not just her. I mean, some of them I do understand, like Romney I guess, but so many of them I don’t. I mean, if they’re trying to unite, they’re doing the opposite. They’re turning off millions of people unnecessarily. They’re currying favor of people who don’t like him in the first place who are gonna throw ’em overboard the first chance they get. I don’t see the endgame in doing this.

RUSH: The endgame, for the people that you have mentioned, the endgame is the destruction of the entire MAGA movement, even if it means the Republican Party is adrift in the wilderness for 30 years. We’re gonna get rid of MAGA, it’s gonna have nothing to do with the Republican Party going forward. That’s the battle within the Republican Party. The Republican Party has its own establishment types. They have members that are as pro-deep state as Democrats are.

And the names you mentioned are people who are. And get rid of Trump and now getting rid of MAGA, since Trump is gone, now we’re gonna get rid of Trump’s agenda. That’s what this is. It’s no different than when you go back to 1989 when Reagan left after two terms. What’d the Republican Party do? I don’t know how old you are, Steve. The Republican Party immediately began to eliminate anything that Reagan had to do with anything in terms of policy.

George H. W. Bush ran for election claiming to be Reagan’s third term. And he got elected on that. But he started raising taxes. He did everything the opposite of what Reagan did, started making deals with the Democrats. And the reason was that the Republican establishment back then had no use for conservatives, no use for us, no use for conservatism.

Reagan was so popular, though, that they had to hide, and they had to vanish into the tall grass for as long as Reagan was around. But when Reagan’s two terms were over, they roared back and attempted to take hold of the party. That’s exactly what’s happening now. You can talk MAGA, conservatism, the Republican establishment does not like upstarts. And that’s what you’re watching happen here.

CALLER: Can’t you do that without going all-in with Nancy Pelosi? I mean, you can take a little milquetoast approach to it without being so far gone.

RUSH: Not if you’re afraid of her. Not if you’re afraid of Democrats’ dominance. Not if you’re afraid of being expelled from establishment, not if you are afraid of being denied the benefits of being in the establishment, no. But, look. The hatred for Trump among Washington establishment types, be they Republican or Democrat, is so virulent, it is so powerful, it’s so all-consuming that it takes precedence over everything else.

It’s a sign of Trump’s effectiveness. It’s an example of how good he was, how effective he was. They’re scared to death of him still, after he has retreated and is now holding court at Mar-a-Lago, they’re still scared to death of him. That’s why they want to impeach him. That’s why they want to run around claiming he can never run for office again. Everything they’re doing to Trump is unconstitutional, but they don’t care. If they can pull it off, they’ll pull it off.

CALLER: Well, I’m disheartened. But I’m hopeful that —

RUSH: Tell me why. Tell me why. This is interesting to me. And again, as I say, please don’t misinterpret my tone. I’m not trying to be critical at all. I’m just being passionate in my explanation here. What is disheartening about this to you?

CALLER: It’s disheartening because Trump — President Trump, excuse me — built an enormous coalition that brought people from outside the party —

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: — inside the party.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: And we could — I mean, even if Trump, President Trump isn’t going to be the leader going forward, we can build on what he’s done and make it even bigger and stronger rather than completely tear it down and go back to square one.

RUSH: Exactly right. There’s 75 million, bare minimum, 75 million people who voted for Trump. That’s a political party right there, my man. That is a political party. And it’s got to be dealt with. If you are part of the Washington establishment, the 75 million that voted for MAGA, that voted for Trump, we can’t have that. So not only do you have to take out Trump, you have to destroy his agenda at the same time. You can’t let somebody else pick up the mantle. But there are lots of Republicans who want to. Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Matt Gaetz. There’s a bunch of them. Jim Jordan. There’s a bunch of them that want to pick up that MAGA vote base and grow it.

CALLER: And, similarly, the long knives are out for them within the party.

RUSH: Well, there you go. I mean, exactly right. Exactly right. I wouldn’t look at it as a disheartening thing. I mean, you can if you want, but it’s not really new, which is my point to you. The Republican – I’ll look for a better word than “establishment,” but it works. The Republican establishment has always opposed conservatism and conservatives.

But when it is obvious that conservatism and conservatives are the dominant force in the Republican Party, they are smart enough to attach themselves to it and try to benefit from it for as long as that period of time lasts. But they never convert to conservatism. They do their best to make you think they are, but they don’t and they aren’t.

Now, the reason that so many people, the names you mentioned are so bent out of shape is because Trump really is or was the antithesis of what these people think that successful people in their business are. They were royally offended by Trump’s very life. The fact that he was breathing air and was doing with it what he was doing, just offended the hell out of them.

It’s as though Trump was going to define them, and they didn’t want to be thought of as Trump, they didn’t want to be thought of as acolytes, they didn’t want to be thought of as supporters, they didn’t want to be thought of as kindred spirits because Trump’s mannerisms were so offensive. It’s not even about, in large part, it’s not even about issues, although it is, but some of the anger at Trump and resentment at MAGA exists because of Trump’s personality. Anyway, Steve, I’m glad you called. I appreciate it. End of Transcript,