RUSH: This push for socialism Venezuela… I often ask the question, “What is the lure?” There isn’t a successful example of socialism anywhere in the world. It’s never, ever worked. It’s never fulfilled even 1% of its promises. So what’s the lure?

It reminded me of Churchill. Churchill gave every ounce of energy he had in the forties, late thirties, trying to warn the British about the dangers of Hitler and Germany’s National Socialism.

And at the beginning, people rejected Churchill, and thought Hitler was no big problem. Especially since Hitler promised not to invade Britain. “Then who cares what Hitler does?” That’s what Churchill was up against. It just reminded me of the repeating-cycle nature of history. We’re going through it once again as though nothing has ever been learned.

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RUSH: Paula in Cincinnati, you’re up first today on the phones. I’m really glad you waited. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you?

RUSH: Fine and dandy. Thank you.

CALLER: You’re fired up today. (laughing) I made a comment when I called in and I would just like to share it with you. So I’m of a seasoned age, and I used to think maybe 20 or so years ago that, you know, I mean, the Republicans would win, you know, the presidency and everything would be fine and then, you know, eventually the Democrats get a turn and, you know, that would be fine as well and, you know, two parties would just each take their turn in winning and that they wouldn’t really make any drastic changes because each party certainly has the best interests of the country at heart.

I mean, I used to think that their families live here too and they have to live with all these changes that they make. But I really don’t believe that anymore. I don’t understand what the Democrats’ desire is in terms of destroying everything that has made America great and everything that has made America the envy of the world. I’m not really sure what it is that they hope or what they imagine that they’ll be left with if in fact they were to win and accomplish everything that they want to do.

I mean, America is not the Democrats’ playground. America is not their Tinkertoy set where they can do whatever they want and, you know, someone can dismantle it and everything will be fine because the damage that they’re doing is long lasting. And I can’t wrap my brain around —

RUSH: Let me tell you why you can’t.

CALLER: — why they’re doing what they’re doing.

RUSH: Let me tell you why you can’t wrap your head around this. By the way your observation of the past is right on the money and it wasn’t that long ago. When a party lost the presidency, they looked inward and say, “What did we do wrong?” They accept the results of the American people. The American people’s decision mattered, what the American public opinion was mattered. And if you were rejected, then you had to go look at yourself and figure out what you’d done wrong and try to fix it the next time around.

And even if that wasn’t exactly what went on, it was still the illusion, and that’s what most voters thought, that there was an understanding that power is gonna be shared, that nobody wins everything. You’re asking, what’s happened to the Democrats?

The Democrats now want to rule America after having destroyed it, and you’re asking yourself what’s there gonna be to rule? Where’s the playground if they’re gonna tear it apart and destroy it, what do they want to rule over? And so that’s a big intellectual disconnect. You can’t understand wanting to control what you are destroying. Like would you want to live in your house after you’ve burned it down? No.

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: The reason this is hard to understand and the reason it’s hard for a lot of people who are not ideologically oriented is that people don’t understand what’s happened to the Democrat Party. And they don’t understand, in the process, what has happened to Washington. The Democrat Party has transformed, and it has been under the influence that has been increasing over the years of a socialist, almost a Marxist way of thinking.

The Democrat Party implanted literal Marxist and communists in universities as professors and presidents. Natural leaning progressives and leftists have been in charge of pop culture, you know, what’s on TV and what isn’t, what’s in the news and what isn’t, what books are published and which aren’t. This has been going on for 50 or more years. And it’s just now coming to a head.

The effort to influence and take over the Democrat Party by international socialists has reached the point now where it has become obvious. Twenty years ago we were warning people this was happening. Thirty years ago I was trying to get people to understand where they were headed, but I was thought of as an extremist, using too much shock therapy. But that is what is happening.

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Now, back to the Paula in Cincinnati. I don’t want spend too much time, but her question is really legitimate, and I think it applies to a lot of people. Your memory of American politics is where both parties, they may have disagreed about things, but it was thought that there was something very important in common, and that is that everybody, Republican and Democrat, wanted the best for the country. The disagreements were about how to achieve that.

This is what I grew up… Well, I didn’t grow up thinking that, but a lot of people do. Most people grow up thinking that both parties are patriotic and they have the best interests of the nation at heart. They just have different philosophies or theories about how to do good for the country and what is defined as being good for the country. People who have believed that all their lives are now watching the Democrat Party, and if they’re paying attention, it’s not making any sense.

The Democrat Party is openly criticizing the country, blaming the country, trying to tear the country apart. “Why? What’s changed?” they’re asking, and the answer is… This is why I have been insistent that people learn ideology, learn liberalism and conservatism. Learn to spot liberalism, “progressivism,” whatever, because what’s happened is… You know, I just saw James Clapper on CNN and he’s talking (impression), “Well, the Russians have been, uhh, trying to influence American elections since the 1960s. We’ve gotta be honest about it.”

Hell’s bells, there’s no question about it! The Russians, the Soviets back then were attempting to infiltrate as much of America, as many American institutions as possible. They succeeded in infiltrating American education. I mean, that’s probably their greatest infiltration success is the American education system. They have successfully infiltrated American entertainment, pop culture. They have successfully infiltrated American publishing.

Many think that they have successfully infiltrated the mainstream media. But it’s been an ongoing effort. It’s been something that… The Soviets always had, you know, very long-range plans. Their objectives were not to accomplish everything next year, next four years, next five years. You know, they’d never stop attempting to achieve the objective, and so it has been a slow, creeping — at least that of it that can be seen. It actually hasn’t been slow.

The effort the Soviets and communists around the world have made to infiltrate America have been pretty rapid. The difference is now that it’s reached the point where it’s obvious now. It’s just that people don’t associate it with the Democrat Party because of the old-fashioned view that the parties are all the same in terms of wanting best for America and just have different philosophies in how to get there.

But the short answer to this is that Marxist influences and socialist influences have now taken over the Democrat Party. And accompanying the takeover is an attitude or an aura of confidence. They don’t have to mask it anymore, they don’t have to apologize. They feel very comfortable and confident talking about how unjust and immoral America is and how the founding of the United States of America disqualifies America going forward. That America cannot be fixed, the original sins of America are such that America needs to be remade.

Even if we’ve fixed slavery, we can’t erase the fact that we were founded with slavery. And even if women can now vote, we can’t erase the fact that at one time they couldn’t. And so since America was founded as a slave state, it remains a forever stain no matter what. That’s racist, that’s bigoted, that’s unjust, it’s immoral, we’ve got to wipe the slate clean. And they’re making no bones about this is their objective.

And they attack capitalism under the same basis. Capitalism is the result of a bunch of rich white guys setting up a country for themselves and their families to the exclusion of everybody else, which led to a big differential between the haves and the have-nots, and the have-nots have finally had it, they’re through playing the game, and they have what the haves have, and so a revolution is justified.

We must get rid of this unfair economic system, capitalism, and so we’re gonna impose socialism on everybody because now we’re gonna have equality and now we’re gonna have fairness and now we’re gonna have no stress, a utopian circumstance, even though it’s never worked anywhere. And this is what we’re in the midst of.

This is why I continually point out that this overlap that people think exists, that there’s something in common between the right and the left, Republicans and Democrats and that little bit of commonality is that we all want what’s best for America. No. I don’t think there is any overlap which is why for the longest time I’ve been so opposed to this notion of reaching across the aisle and compromising.

Compromise with what? There’s nothing across the aisle that I want to participate in and help make stronger. The other side of the aisle, as far as I’m concerned, needs to be defeated, and continually, over and over and over again.

So that’s what’s changed. The Democrat Party has been slowly — I wish there were a more eloquent, flowery way of pointing it out. But they have been slowly but surely infiltrated. And, by the way, you can have some Democrats alive today who 30 years ago were totally unlike they are today. Same people. But they, too, have been affected. They have been infiltrated. They have had their minds changed by the powerful forces working on the party.

And of course if the majority of the party is seen to be progressive, if you want to matter in that party, that’s what you have to be as well. So there’s peer pressure, any number of other things forcing members of the Democrat Party to sign on to this massive, radical shift to the left.

But it is built on a foundation that America is a lie, that there is no American exceptionalism, that America’s no greater than any other country. In fact, America may be worse because America’s done so much damage in the world. That America wouldn’t even be a superpower if it weren’t for our own thievery. We have stolen all of these ideals and resources and riches and treasure from everywhere else in the world, things that we didn’t have and had to steal. And then once we got these things, we stopped sharing them.

Then you add to that that America’s destroying the planet via climate change. See how this all comes together to, at its base, elementary level, blame America for what is wrong in America and the world. And then to set America up as illegitimate and in need of being eliminated and rebuilt. And that’s what the Democrat Party message is today. And that’s how they’re attracting people to it.

And so you have thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people arriving here illegally made to order for the Democrat Party. They’re not worried about the rule of law. America deserves this because America made these people poor. America’s the reason they’re poor. We stole their countries from them. We stole their land. We stole their resources. These people just want what’s theirs back.

And if they have to come here and destroy and infiltrate America and upset our applecart to get it back, well, then we have to put up with it because that’s what they deserve. It’s hideous. It’s despicable, and it’s hideous, and you can see where it leads by studying California or, better yet, study Venezuela, or any other socialist, communist nation where their dreams have never panned out.

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RUSH: Here is Megan in Baltimore. Great to have you. I’m glad you waited. Welcome.

CALLER: Thank you so much, Rush, thank you for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: In the first hour you mentioned you don’t understand the appeal of socialism to all the people who are now subscribing to that idea. I’m a Millennial, and I think that part of it, we’re seeing the fruits of bad Boomer parenting, that it’s all tied in with the idea of everyone gets a trophy growing up, the fairness is imposed by the authority figures of our lives instead of seeing some people exceed and excel and some people fail.

And there’s also the idea that every — you know, the young people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’s trying to push forth this idea of socialism is great, they have been told their whole lives, “You can do anything you want,” and they have the arrogance to assume, “Oh, well, when we try it it’s not going to fail. We’ll do it right.” So I think that’s the appeal, especially to the Millennial crowd.

RUSH: I think all of that’s exactly right on the money. I think the appeal of fairness, that nobody loses like they do in capitalism, that there’s no mean-spiritedness. Socialism to them means that all of the things that make people uncomfortable and nervous somehow vanish. And because nobody has essentially any more than anybody else and everybody’s treated the same, everybody’s equal.

Of course, all these premises are forever universally flawed. There is no such thing as sameness or equality and there’s no such thing as universal fairness. I mean, how do you even go about defining that? But as principles they are lofty ideals and even if they failed everywhere in the past, what’s wrong with trying again? Because what if we actually pull it off? I think that’s part of the allure too.

The bit about unfairness and nobody loses is a big deal to a lot of people in the Millennial generation. You’d be amazed at the number of 24- and 25-year-olds who think they have sacrificed so much and criticism is unfair and not having what they want is unfair, because they have sacrificed so much. What they mean by sacrifice is, in their minds they have worked so hard and simply making the effort or intending to make the effort deserves the payoff, warrants the payoff.

But it’s really easy when most people don’t have nearly as much as the 1% do, it’s easy to demonize the people that have, and it’s easy to demonize the system that produced the 1% if all you’re doing is being emotionally attached to all of this. I appreciate the call, Megan. Thanks.