"Wow. Now the crazy Left has come out against beautiful women. I’m sure that will poll well…."

Tweeted Ted Cruz, quoted in "Ted Cruz is latest to defend Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ad ripped as 'Nazi Propaganda'" (NY Post).

I already blogged Sweeneygate yesterday, and I wouldn't bring it up again — certainly not just because Cruz weighed in — but it resonates with this New York Times "Opinions" podcast I'm in the middle of listening to this morning:

"Thin, White and Right: The Ideal Christian Woman/How skinny became a conservative calling card."

That's a gift link that goes to the NYT page with the audio and a transcript. Keep in mind that there's an idea that there's something right wing/Nazi about beautiful white women. The NYT isn't quite saying that. The columnist Jessica Grose, interviewed at the link, is working on something (presumably) more sophisticated):

"The [Democratic P]arty’s current 51st seat, held by Joe Manchin, will turn Republican next year. The 50th seat, occupied by Jon Tester..."

"... in heavily Republican Montana, also seems to be gone.... In theory, Democrats could hold 50 seats and break ties by sweeping every other contested race and deposing either Rick Scott in Florida or Ted Cruz in Texas.... It is possible Cruz will be upset, but the chances that occurs and Democrats hold on in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — all of which appear closer than Texas — are remote at best, and fantastical at worst. The race for House control remains a toss-up. It is possible that Trump would have to contend with divided government. But it is almost certain Harris would do so. That means that her legislative ambitions are largely dead on arrival.... Harris is not going to be enacting new social programs, and her latitude in confirming judges and even picking a cabinet will be tightly constrained..... Trump is a different story.... The options on the table in all practicality are Harris governing in conjunction with Republicans, or Trump implementing his unfettered vision of American Orbanism."

Writes Jonathan Chait, in "The Election Choice Is Divided Government or Unrestrained Trumpism/Harris won’t be able to implement her plans. Trump will" (NY Magazine).

To restate that argument: Don't worry that you don't know who Kamala Harris really is, because whatever plans she might be hiding will never be revealed.

And speaking of Ted Cruz, here's a bumper sticker my son Chris photographed in Austin, Texas 2 days ago:

"Speaker after speaker on Tuesday bent their knees, offering tribute to a man who had once insulted them, belittled them and, eventually, defeated them."

"Senator Ted Cruz thanked 'God almighty' for protecting the man who once insinuated that Mr. Cruz’s wife was ugly and his father had been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.... Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, for whom Mr. Trump coined the nickname Little Marco, said the former president had 'inspired a movement' among working men and women.... And Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whom Mr. Trump mocked mercilessly for the height of his boot heels, his polling numbers and his alleged pudding-eating techniques, praised Mr. Trump.... 'Donald Trump has been demonized,' the governor said. 'He’s been sued. He’s been prosecuted, and he nearly lost his life. We cannot let him down, and we cannot let America down.' The parade of former opponents is expected to continue on Wednesday, when a man who privately fretted just eight years ago that Mr. Trump could become 'America’s Hitler' stands side by side with him on the ticket. ..."

From "In Milwaukee, a G.O.P. Transformation From Dysfunctional to Unified/On Tuesday, Republicans effectively took a victory lap in the middle of the presidential race, expressing a sense of invincibility at their convention" (NYT).

"National Enquirer made up the story about Ted Cruz's father and Lee Harvey Oswald, former publisher says."

NBC News reports.

The paper had published a photo allegedly showing Cruz's father, Rafael Cruz, with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963, not long before Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy....

Jordan Peterson overwhelms the NYT columnist Pamela Paul and Cruz crushes Bill Maher.

Bill does stand down amusingly.

Watch "Overtime: Sen. Ted Cruz, Jordan Peterson, Pamela Paul | Real Time with Bill Maher":

Why did Ted Cruz drag Pat Benatar into this?

Ted Cruz: “I don’t think Senate Democrats, if you had video of Joe Biden murdering children dressed as the devil under a full moon while singing Pat Benatar, they still wouldn’t vote to convict.” pic.twitter.com/ysYei6Rr3E

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) June 15, 2023

Let's read "Pat Benatar roasts Sen. Ted Cruz after he suggests she’s demonic" (NY Post). Ah:

Cruz’s comment may have been a reference to the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s 1980 hit “Hell Is For Children.”

It's odd that Cruz assumes people know this song, which I see was the B side of "Love Is a Battlefield." This is a recording from 1980. I'm older than  most Americans, and I remember living through the songs of 43 years ago, but I only knew the A side.

Here are the lyrics. To quote a bit: "It's all so confusing, this brutal abusing/They blacken your eyes, and then 'pologize/You're daddy's good girl, and don't tell mommy a thing.... Hell is for children...."

Of course, the Post headline is silly. Cruz didn't "suggest" that Benatar is "demonic." He created an exaggerated image of Joe Biden — something along the lines of Trump's "shoot a man on 5th Avenue" — as a way to say that nothing would be enough to turn Senate Democrats against Biden. Singing "Hell Is For Children" is a stray detail probably intended to add color and coolness, but of course, Benatar doesn't want her song thought of as celebrating the point of view of the child abuser. 

Ted Cruz is able to function within the over-talking shout-fest that is "The View."

This is so good that it makes the View watchable for once! https://t.co/ghbfAbkIvn

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) October 24, 2022

Al Franken reemerges — as a comedian — guest-hosting "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

Sample joke: "Today, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a huge achievement. It makes the single biggest investment in addressing climate change ever. While I’m here, I — I really should talk about some of the other existential threats facing our nation: the enormous gaps in wealth and income, the threats to our democracy. But I really think one of the most serious issues facing our country today is just how big a dick Ted Cruz is."

"As a practical matter, personal loans will sometimes be the only way for an unknown challenger with limited connections to front-load campaign spending."

"And early spending — and thus early expression — is critical to a newcomer’s success. A large personal loan also may be a useful tool to signal that the political outsider is confident enough in his campaign to have skin in the game, attracting the attention of donors and voters alike."

Wrote Chief Justice John Roberts, quoted in "Supreme Court Rules for Ted Cruz in Campaign Finance Case/The Texas senator challenged a federal law that put a $250,000 cap on repayments of candidates’ loans to their campaigns using postelection contributions" (NYT). 

Roberts wrote for the 6-person majority. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the 3-person dissent, said:

"Repaying a candidate’s loan after he has won election cannot serve the usual purposes of a contribution: The money comes too late to aid in any of his campaign activities. All the money does is enrich the candidate personally at a time when he can return the favor — by a vote, a contract, an appointment. It takes no political genius to see the heightened risk of corruption."

For some rhetorical reason, Ted Cruz needed to conjure up the image of "Mickey and Pluto going at it."

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slams Disney for opposing Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law:

“In every episode now, they’re gonna have Mickey and Pluto going at it … You can always shift to Cinemax if you want that.” pic.twitter.com/iZX82OiyC2

— The Recount (@therecount) April 19, 2022

"In four days of Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the phrase 'child porn' (or 'pornography' or 'pornographer') was mentioned 165 times."

"There were also, according to transcripts, 142 uses of 'sex' ('sexual abuse,' 'sexual assault,' 'sexual intercourse,' 'sex crimes'), 15 of 'pedophile,' 13 of 'predators,' 18 of 'prepubescent' and nine of general pornography.... The Republican fixation on pornography continued during Monday’s round of statements by senators before the committee advanced Jackson’s nomination to the Senate floor. A preliminary transcript showed 41 mentions of 'porn' or 'pornography' and 32 mentions of 'sex offenders,' 'sexual assault' and the like.... Republicans on the committee congratulated themselves for avoiding 'personal slanders' of the sort they said Democrats inflicted on Brett M. Kavanaugh after women accused the Donald Trump nominee of sexual misconduct. Yet, they opposed Jackson with the most grievous of personal slanders... Graham: 'Every judge who does what you’re doing is making it easier for the children to be exploited.' Cruz: 'I also see a record of … advocacy as it concerns sexual predators.' Blackburn: 'What’s your hidden agenda? Is it to let … child predators back to the streets?' And, of course, there was Hawley, who previewed the hearings by saying Jackson’s record 'endangers our children.'"

From "Senate Republicans’ unhealthy fixation on child porn, by the numbers" by Dana Milbank (WaPo).

What goes around, comes around. Oh, but it came back around in a different form! An unhealthy and fixated form....

It's different but is it worse?

Let's watch Ted Cruz question Ketanji Brown Jackson.

I doubt if much of any great interest can happen at the confirmation hearing. The President has made his choice, and the Senate's role is going to be predictable theater (unless it isn't). But the NYT play by play coverage made me think that things got somewhat lively when Ted Cruz got his go at her:

  

ADDED: It continues — with the discussion of the children's book "Anti-Racist Baby." Cruz was challenging her statement that "Critical Race Theory" is not taught in schools. The book isn't teaching theory. It's a product of theory. I think they all know that's the distinction, but watch if you want to see the exquisite struggle:

ALSO: Even though Biden selected her only because she fell within the pool of possible candidates by being a black woman, I am uncomfortable with subjecting her to special questions premised on her status as a black woman. She is the nominee, and the President's basis for singling her out says nothing about her worthiness of confirmation. Presumably, there are hundreds or thousands of individuals who could have been nominated. It was the President's role to select one. Criticize him if you like. But she deserves exactly the same treatment that would have been given to any of those others, not some special black woman questioning.

"'I don’t buy that,' Carlson said. 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t buy that.' The thing is: Carlson shouldn’t have bought it."

"This, after all, was hardly the first time Cruz labeled Jan. 6 a terrorist attack. He did so the very next day -- 'a despicable act of terrorism' — and in a Jan. 8 tweet. He did so in a local news interview published Jan. 8, as well. Even more than four months after the riot, while voting against the creation of a bipartisan Jan. 6 commission, Cruz was still using that word. 'The January 6 terrorist attack on the Capitol was a dark moment in our nation’s history,' Cruz’s May 28 statement began. That is, indeed, a lot of slipping up to do — over a long time — for a Princeton- and Harvard-educated lawyer.... This wasn’t him slipping up; this was him deciding that the talking point was no longer welcome.... Cruz proceeded to say that he has long labeled those who attack police officers as terrorists and that’s merely what he was doing here. Carlson was again unimpressed and argued — again, validly! — that people who attack police officers should be put in jail, but that doesn’t make them terrorists."

From "Ted Cruz grovels to Tucker Carlson over Jan. 6 ‘terrorist attack’ remark" (WaPo). You don't have to trust WaPo. interview:

I'd like to see a list of all the times Cruz did call those who attack police officers terrorists. But even if he can claim that consistently, over a long period of time, he's used the word "terrorist" in that specific way, it still wouldn't justify calling the January 6th incident a terrorist attack, only calling a subset of the protesters terrorists. To call the entire incident a terrorist attack, you'd need some sort of pre-existing plan to attack the police. 

Does Cruz's position have something to do with the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, where many people came out to protests and then a subset proceeded to get violent? Did he ascribe the intent to commit acts of violence to the entire protesting group? If so, that might explain Cruz's effort at consistency, and it might also cause fair-minded people to take better care in demonizing protesters. 

We need and value our protesters in America. Yes, sometimes, some protesters go too far. They get violent. They break into buildings. But big protests are not terrorist attacks. I can understand the motivation to pressure people to stay home and not even appear in a protest lest they be deemed to participate in terrorism. That's a contemptible motivation. 

Skipping Xi and going straight to Omicron — I'd have made the same decision if it were up to me.

I'm reading "WHO skips two letters in Greek alphabet in naming Omicron COVID variant" (NY Post).

The World Health Organization appeared to skip two letters in the Greek alphabet when it announced Friday the name for the latest coronavirus variant.... Nu and Xi were apparently the next letters in the Greek alphabet that have yet to be used for a variant....

Internet pundits and politicians speculated that the group skipped Nu to avoid confusion with the word “new” and passed on Xi because of its written similarity to the name of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) retweeted a Telegraph editor who cited a WHO source saying Xi was skipped to “avoid stigmatizing a region.” “If the WHO is this scared of the Chinese Communist Party, how can they be trusted to call them out next time they’re trying to cover up a catastrophic global pandemic?”....

Wall Street Journal language columnist Ben Zimmer had a different take. “Kudos to the WHO for skipping over the potentially confusing Nu and Xi names and going straight to Omicron”....

If you think not using "Xi" was about undue deference to Xi Jinping, I challenge you to pronounce "Xi," not the Chinese leader's name, but the Greek letter. After you get that right, imagine audio reports about the virus that use that bizarre sound and millions of people trying to understand what they are hearing. 

If you get that far and still think WHO should have proceeded through the Greek alphabet in order, imagine all the reports of the "Nu virus" and assert with a straight face that that would have worked out well. 

Now, good for you, you've achieved peak Cruzosity!

"According to a new book, Obama called Trump a 'madman,' a 'racist, sexist pig,' 'that fucking lunatic' and a 'corrupt motherfucker.'"

 The Guardian reports. 

The book is "Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Donald Trump" by Edward-Isaac Dovere. This is the same book that quotes Jill Biden saying that Kamala Harris should "go fuck herself."

According to the article, Dovere writes that Obama preferred Trump over Ted Cruz as the candidate, because he thought Cruz is much smarter than Trump. To that, I'd say that there are different forms of intelligence — Obama ought to know — and Cruz has strong conventional indicia of intelligence but Trump is some sort of genius. The challenge is to have enough intelligence of your own to discern what field of human endeavor is the dimension of Trump's genius. If you fall short, you will find Trump is a big idiot.

Later, Obama — speaking to "big donors" — said Trump  is "a madman." 

Obama also said things like "I didn’t think it would be this bad," "I didn’t think we’d have a racist, sexist pig," and "that fucking lunatic." I consider all those statements meaningless fluff... other than the "I didn't think," which I regard as Obama's excuse for not using his clout against Trump. Why give Obama money now when he didn't even help get Hillary elected?

I only signed up for Spotify because I wanted to hear what Joe Rogan had to say about the crisis in Texas...

... but I keep getting this: 

  

I was going to get interested in the other features of Spotify — maybe use it as my music source — but I'm only here because of Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan won't play. 

I tried Googling for an answer, and came up with hopeless junk like this. I'm about to give up on Spotify. They're asking $9.99 for their service. That would be a great deal if it worked. But if the app is balky and malfunctioning, they ought to pay me. 

ADDED: I wondered, who owns Spotify? Spotify is its own company, a Swedish company, with global headquarters are in Stockholm. "On 6 February 2019, Spotify acquired the podcast networks Gimlet Media and Anchor FM Inc., with the goal of establishing themselves as a leading figure in podcasting." It's a year later. You bought Joe Rogan. Make your podcasting work! 

BUT: I am able to play this podcast using my iMac (desktop), using the Spotify app. Within 2 minutes, they're talking about Ted Cruz going to Cancun. Joe asks a good question: What could Ted Cruz do about the problem in Texas? It's bad optics, but he had no way to help, did he?

UPDATE: It’s now a day later, and the Joe Rogan podcast is working fine. And I’ve become absorbed in creating playlists of music for myself. The app works very fluidly for that. I’d gotten out of the habit of listening to music, and this may change that. It’s certainly worth $9.99 a month. Quite aside from Joe Rogan, the music experience is quite elegant. I’m listening more, and I’ve completely shed the desire to own recordings.

"Lindsey Graham, who says that Trump is a 'handful,' a word usually leveled at spirited women, is going to Mar-a-Lago this weekend to golf with his sovereign lord..."

"... and try to explain the importance of the 2022 midterms to Trump’s legacy. But Trump doesn’t give a damn, except how he can use the midterms for revenge or self-promotion.... By coddling Trump on his election fakery, the Republicans gave it so much oxygen, it led to tragedy. Trump, the supreme ingrate, wasn’t grateful for McConnell’s nay vote. He promptly composed a masterpiece of spleen, a statement threatening to primary Mitch’s candidates and calling him 'a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack' who lacks political wisdom, skill and personality.... Ted Cruz’s truckling may be the most jarring, given Trump’s attacks on Cruz’s wife and father in the 2016 campaign. But I’ve always said the story of Washington should be titled 'Smart People Doing Dumb Things.' Cruz wouldn’t even study with people from what he called 'minor Ivies' while at Harvard Law School but didn’t think twice before leaving Texans starving, freezing and dying to go catch some rays in Cancun and then blaming his daughters. We’ll see if Trump can sustain this king-in-exile routine without the infrastructure he once had. Consider his asinine election challenge with all those crazy lawyers. Ever the shrew, all he has left now is his forked tongue."

From "The Tale of the Untamable Shrew/Republicans are still trying to muzzle a smack-talking Trump" by Maureen Dowd (NYT). 

1. Dowd is comparing Trump to Kate, the shrew in Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew." As I've said more than once, there is something womanly about Trump. And there are times when the way people react to Trump is like the way they react to an untamed woman. Dowd talks a lot about "Shrew" but also wanders all over the place and never really explores the hypothesis that Trump's wildness is something like a nasty woman. Why do we feel this deep need to control him? What does it say about those who think that he did not belong in our serious, well-established institutions and that he spoke with shocking directness and exhibited self-dramatizing emotion?

2. Here's a whole Wikipedia article on the "nasty woman" meme that originated in the 2016 campaign.

3. Is it true that the word "handful" is usually leveled at spirited women? I'd guess it's mostly used about children — a nice way to say the kid is hard to manage. If you say it about an adult, you are loading in the concept that you are into manipulation. Both "manage" and "manipulate" are built from the Lain word for "hand" ("manus"). If you think an adult is a "handful," maybe you ought to consider why you're putting your hands on her/him.

4. Let's take a closer look at the last sentence of the column: "Ever the shrew, all he has left now is his forked tongue." I see 2 ways to go with this:

a. Metaphor screw up. A forked tongue is characteristic of some reptiles, notably snakes. A shrew is a small mole-like mammal.  If you don't mean to refer to the animal, but only to the extremely irritating person, then don't bring up an animal characteristic like "forked tongue." Sharp tongue would be fine.

b. Microaggression alert. Are we still using "forked tongue" to refer to lying?! I would have thought it was relegated long ago to the dustbin of potential microaggressions. Background from Wikipedia: "This phrase was... adopted by Americans around the time of the Revolution, and may be found in abundant references from the early 19th century — often reporting on American officers who sought to convince the tribal leaders with whom they negotiated that they 'spoke with a straight and not with a forked tongue' (as for example, President Andrew Jackson told the Creek Nation in 1829). According to one 1859 account, the native proverb that the 'white man spoke with a forked tongue' originated as a result of the French tactic of the 1690s, in their war with the Iroquois, of inviting their enemies to attend a Peace Conference, only to be slaughtered or captured."

"I never would have made that Nazi comparison if I’d known everybody was going to be such a Nazi about it."

 

"SNL" lampoons Britney Spears, Ted Cruz, Andrew Cuomo, and Gina Carano. There's some good enough stuff in there. The best is Pete Davidson's Andrew Cuomo impersonation.

"Supplied with Cruz’s address by a knowledgeable friend, I drove the fifteen minutes from my Houston apartment to the uber-rich River Oaks neighborhood where Cruz lives."

"From the street, Cruz’s white, Colonial Revival-style mansion looked dark and uninhabited.... [T]hen I heard barking and noticed a small, white dog looking out the bottom right pane of glass in the senator’s front door.... As I approached to knock, a man stepped out of the Suburban parked in Cruz’s driveway. 'Is this Senator Cruz’s house?' I asked. He said it was, that Cruz wasn’t home, and identified himself as a security guard. When asked who was taking care of the dog, the guard volunteered that he was.... I took a photo.... Some on Twitter have questioned whether the dog is in fact a poodle, suggesting alternative breeds such as a Bichon Frise. I couldn’t get close enough to tell, and I’m no canine expert, but 'Ted Cruz’s poodle' just sounds funny. As soon as I posted the photo on Twitter, noting that Cruz 'appears to have left behind the family poodle,' all hell broke loose...."

From "Ted Cruz Abandons Millions of Freezing Texans and His Poodle, Snowflake" (NY Magazine).

It's creepy going to someone's house like that, and the dog is clearly better off at home with a trusted person taking care of him, but Ted Cruz's trip to Cancún at this time when his state is in crisis has been deemed the top story of the day, and everybody always wants to hear about dogs. 

Dogs are at the top of the list of things deemed newsworthy that are not in fact newsworthy. Get dogs in your story and you'll have masses of readers. It's especially good if a dog saves a child, but the very best is when a Republican does something that can be presented as hurting a dog, like when Mitt Romney strapped his dog to the roof of his car and when mean old Trump offended all of dogdom by failing to own a dog. 

Now, we have Ted Cruz not bothering his dog with needless plane trips and confinement in hotel rooms. The heartless wretch!

ADDD: "'Ted Cruz’s poodle' just sounds funny." That is a microaggression! It is an old stereotype that a gay man would have a poodle. "'Ted Cruz’s poodle' just sounds funny" is a homophobic microaggression. 

Here's a 2014 article in the Village Voice, "Fifi or Fido? New York’s Gay Men Defy Worn-Out Canine Stereotypes": "The old stereotype held that like attracts like: the prissy hairdresser with a pampered, manicured poodle or Chihuahua; the growly muscle bear controlling a giant, ultra-butch Great Dane or mastiff...."

And years ago, Dan Savage, who is gay, told a story on "This American Life" about his anxiety about being seen with a poodle:

Rush Limbaugh has died.

Here's how it looks on The New York Times front page, replete with a misspelling of "provocateur":

   

If you click through, the misspelling is gone. The obit is headlined: "Rush Limbaugh, Talk Radio’s Conservative Provocateur, Dies at 70/A longtime favorite of the right, he was a furious critic of Barack Obama and a full-throated cheerleader for Donald J. Trump." Excerpt: 

His wife, Kathryn, announced the death at the beginning of Mr. Limbaugh’s radio show. “I know that I am most certainly not the Limbaugh that you tuned in to listen to today,” she said. “I, like you, very much wish Rush was behind this golden microphone right now.... It is with profound sadness I must share with you directly that our beloved Rush, my wonderful husband, passed away this morning due to complications from lung cancer.”... 

A divisive darling of the right since launching his nationally syndicated program during the presidency of his first hero, Ronald Reagan, Mr. Limbaugh was heard regularly by as many as 15 million Americans. That following, and his drumbeat criticisms of President Barack Obama for eight years, when the Republicans were often seen as rudderless, appeared to elevate him, at least for a time, to de facto leadership among conservative Republicans. 

Such talk became obsolete in 2016 with the meteoric rise of Mr. Trump, who, after several flirtations with presidential races that were never taken very seriously, suddenly burst like a supernova on the national political landscape. Mr. Trump became president and Mr. Limbaugh, off the hook, became an ardent supporter. 

“This is great,” Mr. Limbaugh, sounding positively giddy, said of his new champion in the White House. “Can we agree that Donald Trump is probably enjoying this more than anybody wants to admit or that anybody knows?” Like dreams coming true, Mr. Limbaugh hailed the president’s efforts to curtail Muslim immigration, cut taxes, promote American jobs, repeal Obamacare, raise military spending and dismantle environmental protections....

The obituary headline at The Washington Post is "Rush Limbaugh, conservative radio provocateur and cultural phenomenon, dies at 70." Very nicely, this begins with a 6-minute clip where we see the great radio performer in his element [ADDED: I was reacting to the first few seconds. Now that I'm watching the whole thing, I can see it's quite clearly the case against Rush. Sorry for the misdirection.]

 

The text at WaPo is also much better than at the NYT, because it stresses radio performance over political effect, and there's just no question of Rush's greatness in the medium of radio. All can agree:

Rush Limbaugh, who deployed comic bombast and relentless bashing of liberals, feminists and environmentalists to become the nation’s most popular radio talk-show host and lead the Republican Party into a politics of anger and obstruction, died Feb. 17 at 70.

I like that the first adjective there is "comic." 

He saw himself as a teacher, polemicist, media critic and GOP strategist, but above all as an entertainer and salesman. Mr. Limbaugh mocked Democrats and liberals, touted a traditional Midwestern, moralistic patriotism and presented himself on the air as a biting but jovial know-it-all who pontificated “with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair,” as he often said.

 WaPo also gets it right that Rush did not support Trump in the 2016 primaries:

A lifelong deficit hawk who supported Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Mr. Limbaugh often blasted businessman Donald Trump, saying, “Trump is not a conservative.” 

Much more at that link.