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Like many conservative Millennials, I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh. My working-class parents kept our radio on the local news talk station year-round. In the more temperate seasons, our family's kitchen windows would often be wide open, freeing El Rushbo to wage his liberty-loving crusade against the corrupt Clinton administration into our otherwise-quiet neighborhood street.
My parents adored Rush. I adore my parents. Rush, like few others, was a generational influence. And last week's epic speaker battle in the U.S. House revealed that Rush's passing has left a gaping void among the pundit class on the political Right.
Following a disappointing midterm election and decades of broken promises by Republican leadership, a band of conservative representatives threw down the gauntlet in a manner we have rarely witnessed. For months, they had worked in good faith to outline reforms needed to restore the House to operate on behalf of the American people. GOP leadership, believing it would have a comfortable majority following the midterms, chose to blow off the conservatives.
GOP leadership paid the price for its arrogance—a long-overdue development. The result was a raucous showdown over four days, where 20 principled, organized, and committed conservatives held the line and secured potentially transformative rules and process changes that will allow Congress to better represent the will of the people. These changes, formally adopted just last night, may well reignite the dormant spark of deliberation in our republic.
These reforms incorporate myriad changes to how the House operates, including new points of order against unauthorized appropriations, restoration of the Holman Rule to target specific accounts within administrative agencies, at least three House Freedom Caucus conservatives on the Rules Committee (which determines the amendment process for the floor), the creation of a modern Church Committee to expose and disarm the weaponization of federal agencies against the American people, and single-subject bills that are debated individually and not rolled into massive thousand-page omnibus packages.
It is no surprise that the corporate press, their taxpayer-abusing allies on K Street, corrupt political mercenaries like Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) and Mike Rogers (R-AL), and hedonist institutions run by woke leftists decried these 20 patriots in some form as "terrorists" and the "Taliban" for daring to stand up on behalf of beleaguered American workers and families.
But what to make of the panoply of conservative political commentators who lined up to knife these lawmakers all last week, only to vainly attempt to save face following a hard-won victory by the 20 conservative congressmen?
Ben Domenech, a longtime conservative thinker who cofounded The Federalist and now works for The Spectator, unthinkingly asserted that the 20 lawmakers simply wanted plum committee assignments—a patently false claim dishonestly laundered into the media bloodstream by Team McCarthy. He has since suggested that the reforms may well change things, but that the broader fight could have occurred behind closed doors. Does Domenech not understand that an open floor vote was the only leverage these brave 20 lawmakers had at their disposal? Or is it that Domenech—like high-profile conservative pundit Ben Shapiro—simply isn't plugged in to the day-to-day battles on Capitol Hill and therefore did not understand what was actually transpiring there?
Sean Hannity, who has long enjoyed cozy access to Republican politicians, hid behind his "conservative" credentials that have never been legitimate. During the speaker fight, Hannity happily levied leadership-driven propaganda against Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), stating that her anti-McCarthy position would somehow derail the Republican agenda and embarrass the party. Hannity's FOX News colleague, Brian Kilmeade, went even further, calling conservatives "insurrectionists" for daring to attempt to fix the long-running dysfunction in the House that results in $1.7 trillion omnibus monstrosities.
Shapiro, as well as reliably conservative radio host Dana Loesch, obsessed over who these conservative "rebels" wanted as speaker, undermining the obvious position that these 20 lawmakers were focused on what they wanted, not who should wield the gavel. It was quite clear that if McCarthy would not relent, a Republican lawmaker capable of garnering 218 votes would very obviously materialize and consent to the changes being requested.
But perhaps the single conservative pundit who behaved most egregiously last week is none other than radio host Mark Levin, the so-called "Great One." Levin, to put it mildly, wet the proverbial bed. He attacked patriots like our mutual friend, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), with the false claim that Roy "had no plan," and suggested that if the 20 "rebels" did not cave, they should be primaried by "real constitutional conservatives." He even suggested that Roy and the other conservatives were akin to former congressional disgraces, Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Liz Cheney (R-WY).
Setting aside the fact that it is patently insane to suggest that Chip Roy is not a real conservative, Levin showed his complete lack of character by falsely suggesting, after conservatives achieved their bold victory, that he had inside knowledge the whole time about how things were going to ultimately unfold.
As someone who, shall we say, knows that isn't true, Levin should publicly apologize to the 20 conservatives who laid it all on the line for the American people. And if he cannot do that, he should consider hanging up the mic.
All these issues underscore the reality that the political Right has a major pundit problem. One way to solve it is to elevate different and better voices on national matters. Voices such as radio host Erick Erickson, Russ Vought at the Center for Renewing America, and Newsweek's own Josh Hammer are all people conservatives should pay attention to, moving forward. They not only got it right, but all understand the importance of breaking the corrupt Washington cartel.
The broader "thinking class" on the Right is simply not meeting the moment, and the speaker battle last week demonstrated as much. Until that dynamic fundamentally changes, the status quo will endure, conservative lawmakers will remain outgunned as they battle a fetid D.C. swamp, and our republic will continue to atrophy.
The 20 conservative "rebels" deserve our wholehearted praise for their courageous stand, which has given working Americans a chance at actual representation in the U.S. House. And they deserve very public apologies from all the pundits who attacked them when it mattered most.
Rush Limbaugh once said that, "The truth is its own power. The truth will out."
One of those truths is that conservatives miss Rush—a little more with each passing day.
Drew White is a public policy consultant and a former U.S. Senate staffer.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
