According to a new Scott Rasmussen poll, only 34 percent of American voters believe our federal government supports the founding ideals of America. While on the surface that might seem like a disappointing number, to me it is hopeful. It means that Rush, like always, was right on target. And thanks in large part to him, two-thirds of Americans understand what our founding ideals are — and they correctly understand that Big Government has fallen short.

For the better part of 33 years, Rush Limbaugh informed and educated America about the profound uniqueness of our nation. He not only embraced “American Exceptionalism” as a political doctrine — his life embodied it. Rush was proud to be an American; he was proud of what America is, a country like no other in the world.

Over the years he challenged his vast audience to compare our nation to countries and societies formed long before America was founded. Why is it, Rush would ask, that America has dwarfed those nations in such a relatively short period of time? How could it be that a nation not even 250 years old could rise to become the world’s only true superpower?

While he never proselytized from a religious point of view, he often pointed to what George Washington and other Founders referred to as the hand of Providence that guided our nation through the American Revolution to the eventual acceptance of a Constitution that would change the world. America — as founded — did something no other Republic or nation-state did before it. First and foremost, it declared in its founding documents that rights do not emanate from man. Rather our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were granted to us by our Creator. By God.

These include the right to free speech — particularly political speech — the right to bear arms, the right to own private property, and the right to be free of the abuses of big government, including unlawful or politically-oriented searches and seizures of private property.

Rush, citing Justice Neil Gorsuch, pointed out that “Daniel Webster said it took 6,000 years for a self-governing people to arrange our Constitution.”

That’s just another way of saying how unique and unprecedented and miraculous the United States is. In 6,000 years [of recorded history], it wasn’t until the United States Constitution that the concept of individual freedom and liberty as a tenet of our creation was enshrined in the founding documents of the country. In every other country in the world, the majority of citizens lived in some kind of tyranny or bondage or poverty — and that was the expectation. However you were born was how you died. The concept of an improving standard of living or freedom of choice from the state was a foreign concept until our nation declared its independence from the king. The fact that it happened after 6,000 years, the fact that it has maintained for over 200, is indeed evidence of blessing and a miracle. And it does require a certain level of informed people living in the country to hold on to it. What frightens me is that the Democrat Party today is constituted to undermine these concepts.”

Rush was right to warn us. For three decades he chronicled what the left was doing to America, demonstrating how they use emotional messaging designed to make people believe they are on the “right side of history” by deserting the founding principles of this country. One has only to look at the mess on the southern border to see this playing out: thousands upon thousands of illegal “migrants” are “surging” into the country, because the left would have you believe it is bigoted to demand the borders and laws of America be respected. Those who point to the Constitutional charge to maintain and defend our national borders are demonized as racist or xenophobic.

It doesn’t stop at the border. Every day we see more and more American corporations supporting the “cancel culture” by joining Democrat political fights like the phony battle over producing identification to avoid voter fraud. We see the basic concepts of law and public safety being overturned in once-great American cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and New York. All run by Democrats.

Rush was outspoken about the economic harm that liberals have brought to the cities, shut down by power-mad politicians, to supposedly “stop the spread” of the coronavirus. He defended the founding ideal of the right to pursue individual happiness and prosperity.

Our Founders demanded freedom from oppressive taxation without representation. In that Rush, too, was a leader. When he left New York and moved to the Southern Command in Florida, he made no secret of the role oppressive taxation played in his decision. Today thousands daily are leaving high-tax blue states in favor of lower tax, pro-freedom red states. It is undeniable that people are waking up to the idea Rush often articulated: “It’s your money!” It does not belong to the government. You earned it, and you have a right to keep as much of it as you possibly can.

The ideals of our founding include free speech, and while the left is doing all they can to silence dissent, for over three decades Rush wouldn’t play along. He refused to be canceled; because his bond was with his audience, he would not roll over to the “Hush Rush” movement. He pushed back against the attempts by small groups of agitators to use social media to harm his broadcast enterprise, and he called them out. Today we see leaders emerge on the right who are gearing up to battle the leftist cancel culture in the court of public opinion — and in our courts.

Rush spent three decades praising the spirit of “rugged individualism,” the belief that individuals, following their passion and ambition, were capable of doing great things. He knew by the way he lived his life that failures don’t define a person; the ability to rise from failure — in some cases multiple times — showed a person’s (and a country’s) true character.

Rush Limbaugh was the de facto head of the conservative movement in America. While he gave deep and sincere deference to William F. Buckley, Rush did something that no one else did. He brought millions into the fold who had never before realized they are conservatives. Using conservative ideology as a framework, Rush defended the institutions and traditions that made America great. Some of those institutions were cultural, for instance his defense of the American work ethic. Rush not only praised the people who “make this country work,” he explained that the success accrued from hard work is nothing to be ashamed of. Profits are not evil; they are the result of hard work and are earned.

Rush defended the economic institution of capitalism. He went back to the first Thanksgiving and shook up the myths that had been taught to, and accepted by, American schoolchildren for generations. The true story of Thanksgiving was not about helpless settlers being saved by Native Americans (who later got sports teams named after them). No, it was the failed socialist system being replaced by a wildly successful capitalist model that the Pilgrims and the Native Americans were celebrating.

Rush’s defense of America, her traditions and her people inspired us; he made listeners feel good about this nation and her heritage. He brought a cheery optimism to the American people, and encouraged the “can-do” spirit. Perhaps that optimism about America and her future will be Rush’s greatest legacy.

Above all, Rush was the self-described “Mayor of Realville.” He was well aware of the history of America, including the “original sin of slavery.” He saw what we all see: the decline of our cities, the horrid state of American education, the rise of violent crime, and the liberal aversion to punishment. He saw and discussed the riots, the wave of America hatred from the left, not just in this country but around the world.

But the Mayor of Realville saw something else. He saw the real America. The hard-working, law-abiding, tolerant, good-hearted, generous, loving people who make America great. And he was their champion. He was their voice. He loved them, and they loved him.

That is why to me, my Rush — my hero, my friend, and my boss — is as deserving as the other great men on Mount Rushmore to be remembered for what he has done for this great nation of ours. Rush Limbaugh is the Modern-Day Founding Father.

Illustration ©2021 by Christopher Hiers for The Limbaugh Letter