Rush Limbaugh

• Born: January 12, 1951
• Birthplace: Cape Girardeau, Missouri
• Died: February 17, 2021
• Place of death: Palm Beach, Florida

Rising to become the voice of conservatism in the 1990s, Limbaugh changed the course of talk radio and arguably mass media in general. Known for his outspoken, controversial views on many social issues, he influenced national politics and culture.

Rush Limbaugh began taking courses at Southeast Missouri State University in 1969. After one year, he left college to pursue a career in radio. During the 1970s, Limbaugh worked as a disc jockey at several Top 40 radio stations in Pennsylvania and Kansas City, Missouri. In 1979, he took a position as promoter of the Kansas City Royals baseball team and dropped out of the radio business. In 1984, Limbaugh returned to radio as a talk-show host at KFBK, an AM station in Sacramento, California.

After just over three years in Sacramento, Limbaugh began searching for a way to break into the national market. With help from friend and colleague Bruce Marr, The Rush Limbaugh Show began broadcasting nationally from New York on WABC on August 1, 1988. Limbaugh’s audience size in 1988 was approximately 250,000 listeners, and his show was carried on fifty-six stations. Limbaugh’s format was unlike any other on talk radio at the time. He did not have guests or do interviews. Rather, he addressed what he deemed relevant social and political issues as they occurred. He was told that such a format would not work, but it proved popular with many listeners thanks to his outspoken, colorful style and his . He was a prominent voice of the political conservative movement by the early 1990s.

In 1992, Limbaugh began airing his “Morning Update,” a ninety-second blurb on AM radio during morning rush hour. In 1993, he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. By the end of the 1990s, Limbaugh’s audience had grown from 250,000 per week to approximately twenty million, and the number of stations that carried him had grown to nearly six hundred.

From 1992 through 1996, Limbaugh had a syndicated half-hour television show, which he used as another vehicle to provide commentary on contemporary politics and society. He also authored two books in the 1990s, The Way Things Ought to Be (1992) and See, I Told You So (1993), both of which reached number one on the New York Times Best Sellers list. He later released several other books during his career.

Along with his considerable popularity, Limbaugh also attracted much controversy and criticism over the years. His attitudes on issues such as feminism and environmentalism and his comments about women, racial minorities, and the LGBTQ community, were often deemed offensive by more mainstream media outlets. He also frequently made false and misleading claims on various subjects. However, his supporters welcomed the image of political incorrectness and overlooked his factual distortions. Indeed, Limbaugh's reputation for aggravating Democrats and other liberals became one of his biggest selling points.

Limbaugh also drew attention for his personal struggles over the years. In 2003 he acknowledged an addiction to prescription painkilling drugs, which he said began after a surgery in the late 1990s. He was arrested for drug fraud in 2006, but charges were dropped as part of a deal in which he entered a treatment program.

In the early twenty-first century Limbaugh was a noted supporter of the Republican administration of President George W. Bush and then a prominent critic of Democratic president Barack Obama. He signed lucrative deals to continue his radio presence in 2008 and 2016. He strongly supported Republican president Donald Trump, who awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2020. That year Limbaugh also announced he had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Limbaugh , a former smoker, died on February 17, 2021, of lung cancer

Impact

Limbaugh became one of the best-known and influential media figures in the United States, and his pioneering brash style defined a new era of talk radio and political commentary in general. He blazed a trail for other successful conservative media figures such as Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck. Limbaugh's impact was also felt in actual politics, as he helped shape right-wing opinions and was credited with helping the Republicans win control of Congress in 1994. His success also brought deep controversy, however, and critics have argued that he contributed to the deepening of partisan political divisions and embraced inflammatory rhetoric at the expense of factual accuracy and civility.

Bibliography

Barker, David C. Rushed to Judgment: Talk Radio, Persuasion, and American Political Behavior. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.

Limbaugh, Rush. See, I Told You So. New York: Pocket Books, 1993.

Limbaugh, Rush. The Way Things Ought to Be. New York: Pocket Books, 1992.

Pasley, James. "The Life of Rush Limbaugh: How a Loud-Mouthed Conservative Sacramento Disk Jockey Transformed Politics and the Media." Business Insider, 10 Feb. 2020, www.businessinsider.com/who-is-rush-limbaugh-radio-host-life-2020-2. Accessed 12 Oct. 2020.