Rush’s Timeless Wisdom: Independence Day Education

CLAY: Rush is someone that we keep turning to here for wisdom on events of the day, and he had some thoughts on, well, why America is not divisive, and here is what El Rushbo himself had to say.

RUSH: So Trump stands up for the truth — stands up for the truth of the country, the greatness of the country — and he’s divisive? Trump’s not tearing down statues. Trump is not defacing relics. Trump is not trying to damage or erase our history. He’s trying to restore it and maintain it. That’s divisive? How in the world does Black Lives Matter escape the characterization of “divisive”? How do any of these left-wing protest groups escape that they are the ones who are divisive?

It’s obvious. Some of our schools and universities have become some of the most anti-American places on earth. Indoctrination centers for anti-American propaganda. Campus Reform, great website, they went out; they spoke with young American students ahead of the Fourth of July to see what they knew about the holiday. And even though, even though most of the students that Campus Reform interviewed said that America was a racist country?

Most of them couldn’t answer even the simplest questions about Independence Day. They didn’t have any idea. Fourth of July? They had no idea what it was. College-educated people. Students were asked, for example, what the holiday commemorates. They were asked which year the country declared independence. They were asked which nation the United States declared independence from, and which was fought for American independence.

What war? Many could not answer any of these questions. Some answered that America gained its independence in the twentieth century. Others said the corresponding war was the Civil War, World War I, World War II. They had no concept! How do you get into college and not know it?

BUCK: One of the things, Clay, that Rush is getting at here, I think it’s an important reminder for everyone going into this weekend, it’s impossible to really understand this country and the ideals behind it and the greatness of the Constitution and not feel gratitude for living here, for being here. If you actually know about America, you love America. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t know very much about the country they’ve been blessed to grow up in, live in their whole lives.

CLAY: Yeah, and this is for me. I was a history major in college. And the idea of the historical ignorance that exists in this country, first of all, it sells you on the idea that everything is the most important that has ever occurred in this nation’s history. And also, that we’re more divided now than we ever have been before in the history of the country.

We had an election in 1864 in the middle of the Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln almost lost to George Brinton McClellan over whether the Civil War should continue, and McClellan was the first commander of the Union Army that Abraham Lincoln had selected. It’s kind of a big deal. In 1944, Franklin Roosevelt, in the middle of World War 2, as we are deciding whether to remain committed to the war with Nazis or not or embrace a form of isolationism…

Kind of a big deal on that election, too. And this ties in what we talked about a little bit and have certainly teased several times with what’s going on right now in our Congress. Nancy Pelosi wants to replace any statue that right now is in our Statuary Hall that is inside of our Capitol that they deem to be offensive to their current version of what American history should represent.

And I used to give tours. I went to college in Washington, D.C. I used to give tours of the Capitol. This is in the pre-9/11 days. I could take people onto the Senate floor. I could take them into the House floor. I could take them into the old Senate chambers, into the old House of Representatives. Studying history was profoundly important for me in coming to understand the battles that we fight in the present day.

And I have continued to make these arguments for years. The idea that we would tear down statues or monuments because we have decided that the people who lived hundreds of years ago don’t adequately reflect what we believe today in some quarters of our society? It’s what the Taliban does. It’s not a point of strength to be so uncomfortable with history that you tear down relics of history.

We’ve advanced and made a lot of good moves, Buck. But the idea that we would be in this position of where we’re trying to destroy existing American history is just a fundamental failure. I know you’re a big history buff too. It’s offensive to me that we continue to decide that somebody who lived in the 1800s doesn’t fulfill the expectations of twenty-first century America.

News flash! If you study history at all, many of the people who believe that they’re on, quote, “the right side of history” right now, Buck? They are going to be flagrantly in violation (chuckles) of what people come to support and believe in in the years ahead. Are their statues gonna come down too?