Rush Limbaugh's Legacy
Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19).
Rush Limbaugh was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in late January. He announced this on February 3.
He had no warning. He felt poorly on January 12. On January 20, the diagnosis was confirmed.
The five-year survival rate for those diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer is less than 10 percent. Pancreatic cancer is worse -- faster -- but no other cancer is.
He now says he is terminal. He knew he was terminal in late January.
From the moment you get the diagnosis, there’s a part of you every day, okay, that’s it. Life’s over. You just don’t know when. But when you get that diagnosis, I mean, that’s… So, during the period of time after the diagnosis, you do what you can to prolong life, do what you can to prolong a happy life. You measure a happy life against whatever medication it takes.And at some point you can decide, you know, this medication may be working, but I hate the way I feel every day. I’m not there yet. But it is part and parcel of this. It’s tough to realize that the days where I do not think I’m under a death sentence are over. Now, we all are, is the point. We all know that we’re going to die at some point, but when you have a terminal disease diagnosis that has a time frame to it, then that puts a different psychological and even physical awareness to it.
He says it has become manageable. That buys him time. But he is under no illusions. "But there’s always the reality and the knowledge that that can change and it can come back because it is cancer. It eventually outsmarts pretty much everything you throw at it. And this, of course, this is stage 4 lung cancer."
He did not think in January that he would make it to October.
The doctor said, “If you don’t do anything, we’re looking here at a couple of months. If you look at treatment, if it works, we’re looking at…” And then they wouldn’t give me a time. They still won’t. They won’t do that. But I’m just gonna tell you, there is no way back in January and February that I had anything but hope that I would still be alive on this day, October 19th, and that I would be fully productive working.
He added this:
There was no way. I didn’t share that with anybody. So given that as a starting point, given that as a baseline, I’m kicking butt — and the future remains pretty good-looking, given all of that. This is why I say that I always try to keep everything in perspective on a day-to-day basis and to realize that you just don’t know. Nobody does, and you have to give every day…
DAY TO DAY
I have stage III prostate cancer. Most of my subscribers know this. My diary is here.
Prostate cancer has a slow development. It's not anything like stage IV lung cancer. With prostate cancer, it's not day-to-day. It's not even month-to-month. Somebody with stage III prostate cancer has time to make plans. Someone with stage IV lung cancer has almost no time to make plans.
Limbaugh is not making plans. He is on the radio every day. He is too busy to make plans. His treatments weaken him. He will get weaker.
I happened to hear him briefly when I started my car to go out briefly last Friday. My wife listens to AM radio. So, when I turned the key, I heard Limbaugh. I wondered at the time how his cancer was doing. I turned off the radio. But I heard enough to know that he was just commenting on the day's events. Same old same old.
Every day's events add up to just short of nothing by the end of the week. Events disappear into the haze. People are interested in daily events, so they read online articles and watch videos and watch the evening news. But, a week later, the overwhelming majority of whatever it was they listened to attentively is gone from their minds. It just wasn't important. It doesn't leave a trace. If it does, the trace is left on an almost random basis.
Limbaugh has been on the radio ever since 1969 (at age 16). It made him enormously wealthy after 1990. On the day after his announcement regarding his lung cancer, FOX Business reported that his annual salary is $84 million, and his net worth is approaching $600 million.
Twice I sent him a PDF of my book, Stay of Execution. I doubt that it got through to him. He gets a lot of emails from his web page.
JOB AND CALLING
For many years, he has faced the problem of his job versus his calling.
A calling is the most important thing you can do in which you would be most difficult to replace. I don't think he knows what that is. His listeners are about to find out. He will not be replaced. He will simply depart.
His job is obvious. He gets on the radio and he talks about things that will be forgotten next week. Nobody will ever hear those broadcasts again. Once they are broadcast, they are gone. They are too timely to be of any interest a week later, unless he says something goofy, in which case somebody may comment on it on YouTube. But the liberal media have ignored him for years. They don't spend time going after his gaffes. Because he is today's news exclusively, he has become yesterday's news.
What is the most important thing he could do in which he would be most difficult to replace? I feel confident that the correct answer is not this: go on the radio for another three hours tomorrow.
What is going to happen to his money? He and his wife have set up a private foundation. There is no public information about it. He is not going to let the federal government get all of the money. People with that much money don't want the federal government to get its hands on their money, whatever their political beliefs. They have better things to do with their money. They are correct. They really do. No matter how liberal a cause, it doesn't have the power of federal prosecution behind it.
What are his deepest beliefs? He never says. He talks and talks and talks, but we never really find out what his deepest commitments are. Anyway, I have never seen it written up. This final message doesn't give any indication. What are his opinions of God, man, ethics, sanctions, and the future? He has never said.
What are his opinions politically on sovereignty, authority, law, sanctions, and the future? He never says.
What are his five favorite charities? I have no idea. Does he have five favorite charities? If so, why? He never says.
On the day that he got his diagnosis, he realized that he was going to die. He should have figured that out earlier. But, better late than never. Or is it? What should he have done on February 3? He should have told his audience his problem, which he did, but then he should have told his audience about the transition he was planning. How would he not leave them in the lurch? Stage IV lung cancer guaranteed that he was going to leave them in the lurch. He thought he would be dead by October 1.
He should have been interviewing successors the whole time. He should have made the decision no later than July. Then he should have brought the successor on the air for joint broadcasts. This would have made the transition easier for listeners.
Every listener suspects that, in a year, he is not going to be listening to Limbaugh. Who is he going to be listening to? Why didn't Limbaugh want a strong say in this answer? If he thinks that the job is the most important thing he can do, which he obviously does, why would he not be actively shaping the transition? That's the question of succession. It's point five of the biblical covenant model, the political covenant model, and the personal covenant model.
If he has causes that he is in favor of, and he is willing to put up a lot of money to support them, he should share his opinions. He should let his listeners know what these causes are. They are not going to donate huge amounts of money, but they may get interested in a cause. They may be willing to donate time to it.
This was a bad year for him to get the bad news. It is an election year. This is like a flame to a moth for Limbaugh. It's politics, politics, politics. But he should not be talking about politics most of the time. Half of his broadcast should be devoted to building up institutions and movements outside of politics. But he has never believed this. I fear that his listeners don't believe it. He believes in salvation by politics, and salvation never comes.
If he had taken $2 million, he could have created a comprehensive conservative curriculum, grades one through 12. He could have hired the best conservative instructors to write the lessons. With another $20 million, he could have bought a struggling accredited university and turned it into the equivalent of Liberty University. Liberty University is the most influential conservative educational institution in the world. It has over 90,000 students off campus, and 14,000 on campus (pre-COVID). The distance learning program saved the university in the late 1980's from bankruptcy. Ron Godwin took the idea that I gave to Pat Robertson, and which Robertson ignored, which I published in 1983, and he turned it into the university without walls. The faculty used videotaped lectures. That was the source of all the money that has built Liberty University. I told this story here.
In early 2017, I wrote about how any ideological rich man on the Right could do this by purchasing a dying college. Lew Rockwell published it. Limbaugh could have done this with spare change. But he didn't see it. Now it's too late.
He is not going to change the world. Did he intend to? I don't know. He entertained his listeners. He made a fortune. He became a household name. But what will his legacy be? Institutionally, the public will never know. His foundation will give away money. People will be helped, but they probably won't know where the money came from. It will be spent through other foundations. The other foundations will not give him a lot of credit. In any case, he will be dead. He will not be in a position to do anything with the credit.
It is not easy to give money away without causing harm. It takes practice. It takes time. He set aside little time for practice. Now he is almost out of time.
THE REMNANT
Almost no one ever achieves the influence that he achieved. Almost no one ever assembles a following like his. It was a classic example of the remnant. Initially, when he was a radio broadcaster, he gained no following. Then, without any systematic planning, he became a voice crying in the wilderness. The remnant heard about him, and they came. This was before the Web. This was based on a new technology: satellite radio. More than anybody else, he restored AM radio to profitability. It was a dying technology. But it works fine for the audio spectrum, and he was Mr. Audio Spectrum.
He could have created a movement. He didn't. The Tea Party movement was vaguely associated with him, but it came and went like a shooting star a decade ago.
He could have trained them to read serious works. He could have created online courses two decades ago to take serious listeners through a dozen classic free-market and conservative books. He could have trained a cadre of dedicated people. He didn't.
His slogan is "excellence in broadcasting." He achieved that, given the size of his audience and his net worth, but in a year, he really will be forgotten. There will be little trace of him.
Because Johnny Carson interviewed famous people, we can still see the interviews. We watch to see the people he interviewed. The same thing is true of David Letterman. Carson, after his retirement, disappeared. He preferred this. He did not like publicity. Letterman is still around on the cable channel fringes. Jay Leno is on YouTube. They have no influence. They were entertainers, not opinion shapers.
Limbaugh did not interview anybody. There won't be any online nostalgic audio clips of Rush Limbaugh.
CONCLUSION
He says this: "I try to make it the best day I can no matter what. I don’t look too far ahead. I certainly don’t look too far back. I try to remain committed to the idea what’s supposed to happen, will happen when it’s meant to. I mentioned at the outset of this — the first day I told you — that I have personal relationship with Jesus Christ." This is good news. But it came so late in his life.
His challenge now is to build up a legacy that will reflect this. He has so little time.
He has a microphone. But what will he do with it?
Current events are political this year. They are beyond his listeners' power to shape them . . . or his.
He should offer guidance on how to die a good death. This would be on-the-job training for him. He must move from job to calling. He should provide a working model.
He should devote the final ten minutes of his show to this theme.
That would be a great legacy. Those comments would survive online.