ON THE SUBJECT OF BOMBS, HOW MANY WAYS DID RUSH LIMBAUGH GASLIGHT HIS AUDIENCE TODAY?

What does Rush Limbaugh think happened today? What does he think about the bombs? On his show today, he didn't say outright that he thinks the bombs are a false flag, but the transcript of one segment of his show appears on his site under the headline "There Are No Coincidences with the Clintons." He says this:

In the midst of this political campaign and the 2016 midterms, how many Republicans have the Clintons or Obama on their radar? ... Are the Clintons an obstacle to the upcoming midterms, the Clintons? No. Is Obama an obstacle in the...? No. I mean, the Clintons and Obama are not even on the radar, except they are today....

I mean, the closest that happens is, you know, when Trump goes to a rally and they start talking about the deep state and Hillary and her buds in the FBI trying to shaft Trump on this phony collusion story, the “Lock her up! Lock her up!” But, I mean, the Clintons are not considered political opponents right up, and Obama certainly isn’t. I don’t know.

Seriously? For the deplorables, the "Lock her up" chants are a highlight of every rally. They can't wait to start this chant. Limbaugh expects his listeners to believe that nobody on the right cares about the Clintons?

But they will believe it. They'll believe it because he said it.

Limbaugh doesn't directly say that Democrats are responsible. But he does say they have a motive and Republicans don't.

... it doesn’t make any sense for a Republican or conservative to do this. If they really care about winning these elections, this makes no sense to do. This is gonna be instant fodder for the Democrats and the media to blame it on Trump and his supporters and/or his… It doesn’t make any sense for you a Republican or conservative to do this, if they care about the elections. None whatsoever. But flip that! Flip that around.

Would it make a lot of sense for a Democrat operative or Democrat-inculcated lunatic to do it? Because things are not working out the way they thought. Do not forget this. It’s why I’ve spent so much time dwelling on this today and the psychology that’s attached to this. This is not going the way they have assured us for the last nine months it was gonna go.

His argument is that the blue wave is failing and Democrats are desperate, because the caravan is going to turn out massive numbers of Republicans. In fact, Democrats still have an 84% chance to take the House, according to FiveThirtyEight, and are in good shape to take back maybe half a dozen governorships. But to Limbaugh, we were doomed, so we had to plant a bunch of fake bombs. Whatever.

But here's some real gaslighting:

I’ve seen some people today who think the Republicans are behind this to try to scare Democrats away from going to the polls. That’s a new one on me. That just doesn’t compute. That’s not the kind of thing Republicans do.

In fact, you remember when Steve Scalise got shot by a deranged Democrat at congressional baseball practice? Do you know what our side said? We did not make it political. The Republicans in Congress said, “This speaks to all of us. We join everybody in condemning this.” The Republicans did not attempt to make that partisan in any way or to try to make hay out of it. I’m not kidding. Go back and look at it if you’ve forgotten this. The Republicans did not make a point of singling out the guy as a Democrat and condemning the Democrats.

In a word, no.

The Scalise shooting took place during the campaign for a vacant Georgia seat in the House of Representatives. Shortly after the shooting, this ad appeared:

The ad, funded by a little-known group called the Principled PAC, opens with sounds of gunshots and footage of U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise being wheeled away on a stretcher after he and other members of the Republican congressional baseball team were ambushed by a lone gunman while practicing in a Washington suburb.

The ad urges Republicans to "stop" [Democrat Jon] Ossoff and claims that the "unhinged left is endorsing and applauding shooting Republicans."

"When will it stop?" a narrator asks. "It won’t if Jon Ossoff wins on Tuesday, because the same unhinged leftists cheering last week’s shooting are all backing Jon Ossoff. And if he wins, they win.”

Also:

The Washington Post reported that ahead of the June 20 special election for a congressional seat in Georgia’s sixth district, Brad Carver, the chairman of the Republican party in a neighboring district, said, “I’ll tell you what: I think the shooting is going to win this election for us,” adding, “moderates and independents in this district are tired of left-wing extremism.”

And there was more:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, appearing on Fox News, called the shootings "part of a pattern" and blamed "an increasing intensity of hostility on the left."

He said conservative college students are afraid they'll be beaten on campus.

"The intensity is very real, whether it's a so-called comedian holding up the President's head covered in blood, or right here in New York City, a play [a production of Julius Caesar] that shows the President being assassinated, or it's Democratic leading national politicians using vulgarity because they can't find any common language to talk," he said.

And Michael Caputo, a former Trump adviser, was even more blunt in an interview with a Buffalo radio station. "For nine months, Democratic Party leaders have lied, regularly calling me and my friends traitors, so forgive me if I'm not more tender with their karma in Alexandria," Caputo said.

And Limbaugh himself? He politicized the shooting repeatedly.

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh accused the liberal mainstream media of radicalizing James Hodgkinson, the man suspected of shooting House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and four others on Wednesday....

"I have been worried for quite a while about the cumulative effect or impact of this constant anti-Trump hysteria everywhere in mainstream media: New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC," Limbaugh told listeners....

"I have been very concerned about what all of this is doing to the average, base Democrat voter. I have sensed them getting more and more fringe and imbalanced, and the evidence for it is everywhere in the things that they tweet. They openly promote violence, and advocate some of the most despicable things happening to their political enemies.

"The hatred is raw, it is undiluted, it's just savage. These are the mainstream of the Democrat base, and I don't have any doubt that they are being radicalized."

Limbaugh noted Hodgkinson's favorites on television included "Comedy Central, Bill Maher and left-wing comedians."

And he added: "Rachel Maddow was his all-time favorite. He thought she should run for president. These people have radicalized guys like this all over this country"

He noted the shooter was convinced Trump should be removed from office.

"So the shooter was acting on the fake news, the big lie, that Trump had colluded with Putin," Limbaugh said.

"This guy believed everything he heard. This guy soaked it up and believed everything and thought Trump should be sent packing along with the Republicans. The Democrat base voter who shot up the Republican Congress...in Virginia, he was a mainstream Democrat voter."

Also:

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh charged Wednesday that CNN is uninterested in covering an apparent history of public comments against President Trump by the man who shot up a recreational congressional Republican baseball practice....

"CNN is spending an obviously noticeable lack of time explaining who the shooter is," Limbaugh said. "In other words, CNN is not very interested in who this guy is. They will show his driver's license and picture occasionally but any history of the guy's deep devotion to various media celebrities, various media broadcasts, publications, his tweet history and all of that we've shared with you, CNN is not getting. CNN viewers are actually being given a high dose of the Republicans and Democrats coming together on the House floor today after the event. Do you find that somewhat curious?"

Limbaugh suggested if the gunman had shot up Democrats and had been a vocal conservative, CNN would have played up his politics more.

If "everything happened the opposite of the way it did," Limbaugh said, "the only thing you'd be seeing on CNN is a never-ending profile of the shooter as negative and penetrating as they could make it."

And earlier this year:

Rush Limbaugh is questioning why, in his view, the anti-gun outcry has been significantly louder in the aftermath of the Parkland, FL school shooting than it was in the wake of the shooting at the GOP Congressional baseball practice in Virginia last June — which severely injured House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA).

During his opening monologue Monday, the conservative host claimed that there was far less anti-gun rhetoric in the wake of the Congressional baseball shooting — which Limbaugh noted was carried out by a Democrat and targeted Republicans.

“Can anybody remember any over-the-top anger reaction afterwards about getting rid of guns?” Limbaugh said. “You cannot.”

The host added, “I can damn well guarantee you that there was not a cacophony of outrage and protest over guns after that shooting. CNN didn’t have a town hall.”

But the audience will believe nothing like this was ever said by Limbaugh or other Republicans. Limbaugh's listeners are easily led.

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I'll also note that Limbaugh thinks today's events were an excellent time for some trolling. He said:

... clearly America has become a very dangerous place for Democrats. What can we do to protect our Democrats? What can we do to help ensure the safety of our Democrat friends? It seems to me the best way to ensure their safety is to get them removed as often as possible from public life....

With Democrats under siege, Democrats under assault like this, it would only be responsible and compassionate to vote them out of office and remove them from the public sphere in which they exist and are for some reason being targeted here by people apparently sending them bombs....

We would like to do everything possible to see to it that future bombs are not sent and that future bombs like those today don’t go off. And as I say, protecting Democrats our number one objective here. The best thing I think you can do if you’re worried about the safety of Democrats is simply vote them out of office. Remove them from daily public political circumstance where they can’t anger so many people. Just a public service.

Bill and Hillary Clinton are out of office. Barack Obama is out of office. Eric Holder is a private citizen. George Soros is a private citizen. The New York employees of CNN are private citizens.

But I'm sure this was hilarious to Limbaugh's audience.