Rush Limbaugh: Segregation Today, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever

      Ok he doesn't say that exactly but it's really in the same vein. He doesn't feel like conservatives should throw in the towel on social issues-they got to keep on fighting.

      "Some Republicans are saying this as well. "Do you realize the golden opportunity this Supreme Court ruling gave you?  Now you've got this off the table! It's a done deal. So just get off of this social issues stuff.  You just got to drop the social issues."  That pressure point has been ratcheted up again, and there is something concomitant with it.  You may have had heard two or three Republican presidential candidates say, "Hey, you know, I fought the good fight like everybody else did.

"But the court has spoken, and gay marriage is now the law of the land, and we must move on. We must drop it."  That is an out, I think.  I think that's an excuse.  That's an excuse for somebody who's really telling you they don't want the fight.  And that's not what we need, folks. I'm telling you, going into 2016 and beyond, we don't want and don't need people who are not willing to fight and stand up for what we believe in, stand up for the founding of this country.: 

     "It's now the law of the land" is an out." 

     "Well, 20 minutes ago and 6,000 years ago, the opposite was the law of the land.  Did the Democrats accept it?  Did the gay activists accept it?  No.  They didn't accept "the law of the land."  They're not accepting anything that is the law of the land.  They're not accepting very much that is traditional.  They're not accepting very much that's institutional.  There's an all-out assault and attack on everything, and specifically now religious liberty. Make no mistake about this."

 http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/06/29/republicans_cannot_win_without_voters_who_care_about_the_social_issues

     Right. I do kind of take his point. I mean until 20 minutes ago gay marriage wasn't the law of the land. Throughout history it wasn't. Actually history goes back much longer than 6,000 years-I guess he thinks Adam and Eve did their thing then-but I'm quibbling. After all, human society itself may not be much older than 6,000 years old. 

    So if there was no gay marriage for 6,000 years and there has been gay marriage for 20 minutes it should be easy to go back right? That's his implication. The reason why it won't be is the asymmetry between social progress and social counterrevolution. 

    I've mentioned this a few times over the last couple of days. Conservatives usually win, they do. Arguably we're a conservative species which is usually to our benefit. 

   Rush likes to say that he's right something like 98.6% of the time and I'd say that conservatives truly do win about that much. Here's the trouble though. Conservatives almost always win but they are also always on defense. All they can do is react-which is clear from the Obama years; try as they might the only thing that really motivates them is opposition to Obama's agenda. 

   So conservatives usually win but the flip side is they're always in sudden death. They can beat back slavery, segregation, women's rights, gay rights, as 50 times, 100 times, 1,000 times. They did this with healthcare going back to Wilson they probably defeated it in one form or another 1,000 times."

  FDR failed, LBJ was only successful in getting it for old folks, Carter said he's go for it but even with supermajorities in Congress did no such thing; Clinton and his wife failed. But Obama succeeded and now conservatives find they can't go back again despite those previous 1,000 victories. 

  Rush argues that conservatives can't win without social issues. The GOP voters are about social issues. 

  "This is not good.  This is not healthy.  It's a way out. And this whole "social issue" thing, here's the bottom line.  Look, at the risk of incurring the wrath of people on the own side of the aisle here, the simple fact of the matter is the Republican Party is not going to win another presidential election if it has as part of its official platform and behavioral characteristic the open disavowing of its voters who care about quote/unquote "social issues."  There's simply too many of them. "

  I think this is true but he simply skates over the fact that even if the GOP is dominated by voters who care about social issues, as a percentage of the general electorate, these voters are shrinking. 

  So he's right but it also opens up a can of worms. The Republicans who think the party can just forget social issues and focus on economics forget that this is how the GOP came back into power with Nixon in the late 60s and early 70s-by focusing on social issues rather than the GOP economic agenda which had been rejected by most Americans. 

   Their success in building the Silent Majority had been predicated in pushing social issues-anti-busing, law and order, the death penalty, anti-Communism, etc.  You know hippie-punching. 

    However, in the 10 years since George W Bush used  gay marriage as a successful wedge issues that some notable African American leaders say even got a few more black folks to vote for him-social issues have totally broken the other way. 

    So yes, you could de-emphasize social issues and focus on economics but that's forgetting that economics is what had been de-emphasized in the Southern strategy to start with. 

   When the GOP starts talking about economics they realize there isn't much appetite to privatize Social Security and block grant Medicare out to the states, end Obamacare, cut environmental and financial laws, and end the corporate tax rate-maybe making up for that by raising the consumption tax as Brownback is now doing in Kansas.