Rush of sympathy won’t be coming
Limbaugh’s death gets just a shrug and a ‘that’s a shame’
When I heard that Rush Limbaugh died, I shrugged. I didn’t mourn his death. I didn’t celebrate it. I kept eating my lunch without any pause. By dinnertime, I realized that my apathy isn’t shared by most people. Americans either idolized him or despised him. Limbaugh couldn’t find the middle of an Oreo cookie.
“Rush Limbaugh made his career lying to his audience, stoking misogyny, and fueling racism,” said Angelo Carusone, president & CEO of Media Matters for America. “He entertained listeners by mercilessly mocking and maligning anyone who didn’t resemble his typical listener — straight, white, conservative, and male — and that cruelty eventually became a central tenet of modern conservatism.”
Carusone’s unsolicited eulogy is 100% accurate, I say.
“Rush Limbaugh deserves to be recognized for what he was: a liar and misogynistic right-wing hack,” said Bridget Todd, a spokeswoman for UltraViolet, a national women’s advocacy organization.
“For decades, the ‘Rush Limbaugh Show’ was a personal soapbox for Limbaugh to promote lies, conspiracy theories and baseless attacks,” she said. “The damage Limbaugh caused to our society will live beyond the onslaught of news alerts and the media stories surrounding his death that we’re seeing today. To this we say, good riddance.”
My social media readers echoed similar feelings.
“Hell just got a little hotter,” one reader commented.
“He had a large role into turning the Republican Party into the hate-filled, fascist, anti-democracy organization it is today,” one reader added.
Another reader took a more moderate stance: “I won’t speak ill of the dead but it won’t stop me from hitting the like button on whoever does.”
You get the point. Nonetheless, at what point do we allow our
distaste or hostility toward someone to overshadow our respects for that person after death? Is there a period of grace (not so much grief ) that should take place before publicly wishing someone into hell? Should our morality transcend someone’s mortality?
It’s not like Limbaugh — who I have no kind words for — was a murderer or pedophile or serial rapist. Limbaugh was a talk radio host, an entertainer, an unflinching conservative and an electrifying lightning rod for contentious issues in a deeply divided nation. Limbaugh died Wednesday from lung cancer. He was 70.
An Associated Press story stated, “Limbaugh took as a badge of honor the title ‘most dangerous man in America.’ He said he was the ‘truth detector, the ‘doctor of democracy,’ a ‘lover of mankind,’ a ‘harmless, lovable little fuzz ball’ and an ‘allaround good guy.’ He claimed he had ‘talent on loan from God.’ ”
It’s no conspiracy theory that Limbaugh paved the way for the current Trumpism movement, long before the former president coveted the nation’s highest office. Limbaugh’s loyal following of “Dittoheads” eagerly jumped from one bandwagon to the other as Donald Trump rode to prominence as a rogue conservative. Limbaugh’s death serves as a harbinger for how America will react the day Trump dies. Both men will forever be immortalized and demonized, just as Limbaugh’s life has been since his death.
I feel badly, of course, for his loved ones who are mourning his death. Then again, the same sentiment can be said for any loved one of anyone who has ever died. It doesn’t matter if the decedent was an international celebrity or a local statistic.
I once told the family of a killer who was convicted and sentenced to death that I was sorry for their loss. It didn’t mean I wanted that inmate to live one more day after his execution at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. I was simply being polite. This was all I could muster about the death of someone that meant nothing to me. Good riddance indeed.
Should we feel the same about Limbaugh, whose death reflects the death of something deeper in our society. Politeness? Civility? Respect for the dead? I’m not sure. Nearly a century ago, famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow wrote in his 1932 memoir, “I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.”
I’ve had this experience on a few occasions with people who had just died. Should I have immediately killed my animosity toward them at the moment of their death? Should I have not wished they went straight to hell, whatever that meant to them?
On the other hand, Limbaugh showed no respect for broad swathes of people who didn’t look, vote, or believe like he did. He pompously amplified hatred, hostility, bigotry and divisiveness, sometimes in the same diatribes invoking God, Jesus and Christianity. Limbaugh’s politics consistently trumped his humanity.
His death won’t be the demise of similar traits in tens of millions of Americans who survive him and glorify him. Limbaugh’s legacy will live on regardless how many people hated him. I’m not applauding his death. I’m also not grieving it. My attitude is more like Jerry Seinfeld’s character on his eponymous TV show. Whenever something bad happened to other characters, Seinfeld said with an uncaring shrug, “That’s a shame.”
It doesn’t convey empathy or sympathy or even a smidgen of interest. Just a generic acknowledgment with a hint of snark. I guess this is how I felt about Limbaugh’s death. I’m not virtuous enough to adopt the adage, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Nah, not for this guy.
If I was that classy, today’s column would never have been written. Consider it an ode to Limbaugh’s legacy.
Efforts by Gary to work with the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice to defer loan payments that are part of a consent decree with the Gary Sanitary District are moving forward.
Deputy Mayor Trent McCain said the administration has reached a principled agreement with the federal government regarding the payment due for 2021 and are working on an agreement concerning the 2022 payment, but it is not yet firm.
The city did not have to pay the Jan. 31 installment of the loan for $600,000, McCain said.
“The EPA and DOJ have approved our request to defer 2021 in principle. We still have to formalize the modification in writing and present it to the court,” McCain said.
How quickly the modification is approved depends on the courts. If the court determines the modification is minor, no hearing will be required. If the modification is considered substantial, a hearing will have to take place, McCain said.
The city is negotiating similar terms for the 2022 payment of $1 million and is hopeful to reach a similar agreement, McCain said, adding all the parties involved appear to be on board.
“We don’t want to jinx it, but right now we feel confident in the data we provided to the government and our plea for this deferral,” McCain said.
Mayor Jerome Prince said since the city was able to get the 2021 payment deferred, it freed up a significant source of revenue for the city. He said the city is looking to invest some of those funds into a larger truck for general services.
McCain said the city initially requested the deferral as the Common Council was considering raising the trash collection rates as requested by the administration. Council members at the time were presented with three options for trash collection rates in an attempt payback shortages for trash collection fees for the years 2018, 2019, and 2020 when the 3% per year escalator in the contract with Republic Services was not applied to the rates.
Council members were given the option to set a rate that would not include the catch-up funds needed. The second option raised the rate to make up for the shortfall, but not pay for services to city buildings and residential drop off sites. The third was to raise the rate to cover both the shortfall, the 3% escalator and the $650,000 for city and drop off services.
Members approved the second option.
McCain said by not having to make the $600,000, the city will be able to pay for the city services.
“We will not be able to restore citizen drop off,” McCain said.
The deal with the government does not absolve the city from making the required payments to GSD. Instead the payments will be tacked on to the end of the current term, extending it by two years to 2025, McCain said.