Know Your Enemy9 Maalis 2021

The Rush Limbaugh Show (w/ Nicole Hemmer)

No media figure has had a more profound impact on the shape of contemporary conservative politics than Rush Limbaugh. For three hours a day, every weekday since 1988, Rush delighted and ignited his radio audience with a high-octane diatribe against liberal degeneracy — an often comic, always cruel, and never apologetic expression of the white male id. When he died on February 17, 2021, Rush left behind an American media landscape — and a Republican Party — reshaped in his image: a ruinous marriage of entertainment, insular world-building, and reactionary meanness that found its apotheosis in the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

And no one is better situated to elucidate Rush Limbaugh's appeal, his effectiveness, and his impact on American politics than our guest, Nicole Hemmer. Hemmer is the author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics. She's at work on a new book tracing the transformation of right-wing politics in the post-Reagan years — a story in which Rush plays a starring role. Hemmer is also an associate research scholar with the Obama Presidency Oral History Project at Columbia University. And — a skilled broadcaster in her own right — she cohosts the podcasts Past Present and This Day in Esoteric Political History.

We're certain you'll enjoy this conversation as much as we did!

Further Reading:

Nicole Hemmer, "The Man Who Created President Donald Trump," CNN, February 17, 2021.

Mary Harris, "Rush Is Dead, but We're Still Living in the World He Created," Slate, February 18, 2021

Jill Filipovic, "The Life and Death of a Woman-Hater," New York Times, February 20, 2021

William F. Buckley Jr., "Crucial Steps in Combating the Aids Epidemic; Identify All the Carriers," NYT, Mar 18, 1986.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(266)

January 6, Five Years Later (w/ Robert Draper)

For years now on Know Your Enemy, we've taken the January 6, 2021 insurrection as a glimpse of Trumpism unbound—not a few naive Q-anon types and tourists bumbling around, and not an excuse to be black...

12 Tammi 1h 37min

Great Books and the AI Apocalypse (w/ Matt Dinan) [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.We were excited to record and share this conversation with Matt Dinan, a professor who teaches in a Great Books p...

2 Tammi 5min

UNLOCKED: Trump's Big, Beautiful Ballroom (w/ Kate Wagner)

This episode originally aired November 17, 2025 on Patreon — we're unlocking it as a holiday treat. If there's a Trump-era topic that manages to fascinate without being entirely depressing, it's proba...

22 Joulu 20251h 1min

What We Got Wrong (and Right) about the Right in 2025 [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.As the end of the year approaches, we wanted to look back at another year of trying to understand the American ri...

15 Joulu 20256min

One Podcast After Another (w/ Jesse Brenneman)

Given the not-terribly-uplifting streak of episodes we've had lately, we thought it was time for a Know Your Enemy movie night, and were joined by the podcast's intrepid producer, Jesse Brenneman, for...

8 Joulu 20251h 4min

On Friendship (w/ Andy Elrick)

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.Should you try to improve your friends or leave them be? Do friendship and politics mix? Is friendship about virt...

1 Joulu 20251min

The Furious Minds of MAGA (w/ Laura Field)

Laura K. Field's Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right, published earlier this month, is a book we simply had to discuss. Listeners to this podcast will recognize its cast of characters—cons...

24 Marras 20251h 9min

Trump's Big, Beautiful Ballroom (w/ Kate Wagner) [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.If there's a Trump-era topic that manages to fascinate without being entirely depressing, it's probably the ongoi...

17 Marras 20254min