Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh is blasting Jeb Bush’s insistence that Republicans must offer an alternative to outlandish proposals such as the Green New Deal.
Limbaugh noted the former Florida governor and presidential candidate was discussing in a television interview whether there would be a primary challenger to President Trump in 2020.
“I think someone should run just because Republicans ought to be given a choice,” Bush said. “It’s hard to beat a sitting president. But to have a conversation about what it is to be a conservative. I think it’s important. The Democrats now are proposing new ideas, some of which I think are way out there. And if Republicans think they can just say, ‘That’s bad,’ and not offer a compelling alternative, that can be bad for us.”
Limbaugh disagreed.
“This right there is one of the big problems. In fact, I saw it earlier today while watching Fox,” he said on his show Friday.
“You notice what Jeb said here? ‘[I]f Republicans think they can just say, ‘That’s bad,’ and not offer a compelling alternative, that can be bad for us.’ So I’m watching Fox today, and I think. … Yeah, it was Sandra Smith. She was interviewing somebody. I don’t even remember who, but it was about the Green New Deal. And her question to whoever she was talking to, ‘Well, what is the Republican answer to it?
“‘So Mitch McConnell’s gonna have the vote and they’re gonna try to defeat it. What is the Republican answer to it?’ You see the trick here? The Democrats propose anything – in this case, the Green New Deal. It’s literal insanity. Why do we have to have our own version of it? This is how the left sets the narratives. This is how the left establishes memes. This is how the left moves their agenda! We’re sitting around, biding our time, minding our own business, trying to keep all these outside influences away from us,” he said.
“The left comes along with some brand-new, hare-brained idea, either national health care or climate change, Green New Deal, and Jeb Bush just said, ‘It’s not enough to say ‘no.’ We can’t just say no. We have to come up with an alternative!’
“No, we don’t have to come up with an alternative. If climate change is a hoax, why do we need to have any kind of an alternative to deal with it? Why can’t our plan be to illustrate why people and how people are being lied to about this?
“Without getting into the weeds of climate change, ask them, ‘Why in the world do you think you’re not paying enough taxes?’ and spell out the dollar amounts and how much this is gonna cost, and tell ’em how much freedom they’re gonna lose, and tell them how much more difficult life is going to get. Why do we have to join in in this? Virtually every idea the Democrats have, the Republicans come along and think they have to have an answer to it.”
He said the GOP sabotages itself by trying to offer alternatives.
“There is no alternative to it. It’s a bad idea! It need not ever see the light of day,” he said. “We need not help it along at all. And the idea that we can’t sometimes just say, ‘That’s bad,’ and have that be our position? Why the hell not!”
