Thread by @thisniss

Storytime.

When I was 17, I had a friend who was a typical proto-frat boy, rich kid type. He was a Republican, totally worshipped Ronald Reagan.

I privately thought of him as “Alex Keaton,” because this was the early 90’s, and all my other friends were either Dems or apathetic.

When I first met him, he was stiff and a bit stuck up, but basically a sweet guy. We went out a few times, but all we did was argue about tax policy. Even at 17, I knew I couldn’t make it work with a Republican. But we were still friends, and our arguments were fun and friendly.

Then things started to change. We had a few classes together, and we’d always argued about issues. But his tone was growing increasingly hostile toward me, both in and out of class. Our arguments weren’t fun anymore. They were heated. I didn’t understand what was happening.

He started calling himself a “Dittohead” and talking about how great Rush Limbaugh was. He was always repeating stuff Rush said. When I’d try to argue with it, just on the grounds of basic facts, “Alex” would fly off the handle. He’d call me a “liberal whore” and a “Clinton slut”

For the record, this was in the lead-up to the ‘92 election. I did support Clinton, and I was VERY liberal. I was not, in those days, anything approaching a “slut.” I was just female. And I disagreed with Rush. So “Alex” attacked me. Metaphorically at first, and then...

One day, we were staying after school for some nerd activity like drama club or academic team. “Alex” and I had gone to a back hallway behind the gym to get something for our teacher. We were alone and unobserved. He pinned me against the wall and started kissing and groping me.

It took some effort for me to force him off me. I slapped him. He laughed. I threatened to tell both the teacher and his then-girlfriend.

He told me they would never believe me because I was a “liberal slut.” (He *really* loved saying this.)

Then it was my turn to laugh. “A liberal slut who’s valedictorian!” I just walked away from him. It was so absurd, I couldn’t even process it.

I didn’t tell anyone, but he stopped calling me names in class. I think he knew that I could blow his cover if I wanted.

Anyway, over the next couple of months, I noticed that several other guys I knew had started acting like “Alex.” Some of these were people I’d been friends with for years, but suddenly they were just so inexplicably ANGRY and RESENTFUL toward me.

It was like these teenage boys just woke up one day, and they HATED liberals!
They HATED feminists!!
They SUPERDY DUPER HATED feminazis and feminist liberals!!
And they DOUBLE PLUS, UPSIDE DOWN FLYING FLIP HATED anything to do with the Clintons!!!

And sure enough, all of these guys that had previously been my friends but were now so full of RAGE they were glaring at me through a haze were also going around identifying themselves as Dittoheads and singing Hosannas to Rush Limbaugh.

So that freaked me the fuck out.

Now, being 17, and valedictorian and all, I thought I was pretty smart. I thought I could see what was happening. And I thought I knew what I had to do...

I started listening to Rush Limbaugh just to make sure I was right. And wow, was I ever.

I thought, “This Rush guy is taking otherwise decent-ish young men and making them angry. He blames women, and immigrants, and people on welfare, and gays, and anyone he can. He’s like...”

“Oh my god! Rush Limbaugh is HITLER!”

Again, I was 17. Smart enough to recognize the dangers of populist demagoguery, but not sophisticated enough to understand historical context.

So obviously, if you’re 17 and you think you’re witnessing the emergence of the Next Hitler, it’s morally incumbent upon you to try and stop him. Right? Right.

But how?

After a lot of soul searching, I decided I would have to k1ll Rush Limbaugh.

(NOTE: This is not a threat)

Now, I didn’t support the death penalty at 17, and I don’t today. So you can imagine the kind of soul searching that led to this conclusion. It was obvious to me that *someone* had to take out New Hitler, or our society risked becoming a whole country filled with “Alex”es.

But at the same time, murder was murder. Even if I felt like I was killing RL for the sake of America, how could I know? How could I substitute my moral judgment for the civil processes that made our democracy great? Not to mention the fact that I risked creating a martyr of him.

Ultimately, I decided that such a choice should never be left to any individual.

What sets me apart from Rush Limbaugh, I thought, is the certainty that my judgment is fallible and my viewpoint is limited. I can never be the sole arbiter of right and wrong.

So I guess I was smarter and more morally complex than Rush by the time I was 17.

But I’ve also lived all these years with a little voice in the back of my head that occasionally whispers “Yeah. But what if you could have stopped him in 1992?” 😂

I’m going to call this story “Killing Rush” and see if Bill O’Reilly will buy it.