The other day, Rush Limbaugh made the following comments about the presidential election on his radio program:

I really think that the solution to our problems is not really political.  I think conservatives are seen by young people and the Left and the pop culture the way they are not because of what these people have been taught about conservatism.  It’s purely cultural.

I must confess, I think the solution will be found in ideology, but I must confess, I think I’ve been a little wrong.  My only point here is I’m just scratching the surface on this, by the way, so I’m speaking off the top my head here, but I really think that the way this is going to have to be attacked and dealt with is not to set politics aside. I’m not saying that none of this is political, but it’s a cultural problem we face. The reason conservatives have been so maligned and are so maligned, the reason people who don’t know us think of us the way they do is not because they understand politics.  It’s a cultural thing.   Ace of Spades

My initial reaction to Limbaugh’s bumbling, stumbling remarks were, to put it succinctly, No Shit, Sherlock!

In the year of Our Lord 2012, Rush Limbaugh and other Mortimer Snerds of the conservative movement have finally come to the earth-shattering conclusion that the culture just might have something to do with why Romney lost the election and why our country is where it is today.  Wow!  What an awesome epiphany!  And keep in mind, folks, that Limbaugh makes millions and millions of American bucks to preach this kind of pathetic non-insight from his pompous radio pulpit.

The insular stupidity of conservative ‘leadership’ manifested by the egotistical bombast of the Rush Limbaughs of our conservative world, is glaringly front and center and conspicuously on display.

All through this election season, conservative Talking Heads did nothing but groan on and on endlessly about Ronald Reagan and 1980, comparing Obama to Jimmy Carter and hence showing just how frighteningly oblivious they were to the obvious fact that 30 plus years had come and gone since the Reagan revolution.  And surprise, surprise, in the 21st century, the American people have turned out to be a very different political animal indeed.

Guess what, boys and girls?  A few cultural changes have been going on during these past decades since Reagan took the White House.  Yep, decades.  My, my, how time flies, and yet our conservative ‘leadership’ still dreamily drifts along in their antique 1980 Gipper-mobile.

Well, a little reality check here for the perpetually ignorant know-it-alls.  During Reagan’s reign, while conservative Republicans were gleefully rubbing their hands together believing that victory was certainly their very own, the Left was exceedingly busy digging away in the cultural trenches, shaping the electoral mindset and laying the groundwork for a progressive coup d’etat.

During 1980-1981, I was working part-time for the Veterans Administration in an ongoing struggle to pay my college tuition.  The VA building where I worked had a large open floor plan with scores of desks lined up across the office, all occupied by dutiful VA employees shuffling through their daily paperwork while listening to ear-plugged transistor radios.

On the afternoon of Monday, March 30, 1981, the Veterans Administration erupted in shouts of jubilation as news of the assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan spread across the office floor.  VA employees cheered and clapped, some standing on their desks shouting for joy, Reagan’s been shot! Reagan’s been shot!  My supervisor, a Black gentleman, ordered one of my work colleagues to stop acting like a jackass and to climb down from his desk top.  He instructed all of us to get back to work and to remember that no matter how we had voted, the shooting of a President of the United States was no cause for celebration.

My supervisor’s little mini speech caused another supervisor on the floor, also a Black gentleman, to come running into our work unit yelling at my boss, repeating almost hysterically, What’s he ever done for us?!   What’s he ever done for us?!  My boss, a tough and very strict manager from the Old School, shrugged off this verbal assault and would have nothing to do with what he saw as an unseemly and despicable reaction to the shooting of a President.  And needless to say, there were moans and groans of fierce disappointment from my work companions when it became clear that Reagan had survived the attack.

This very troubling scenario took place at a federal government agency in 1981.  Gee, I wonder if any other anti-conservative, anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-Constitutional cultural crapola has managed to infiltrate our society since then?  Now let’s put on our thinking caps, kiddies, and see if we can puzzle out this complex conundrum.  After all, even the likes of Rush Limbaugh needed 31 years to come to the startling conclusion that something called culture just might, just might, have an overwhelming impact on politics.  Sweet Holy Mother of God, help us!

Conservatives have no one but themselves to blame for the devolution of our Republic. Too many conservatives have been monumentally stupid, smug, gutless, self-absorbed, and down right lazy, believing all they ever had to do to preserve our liberties was show up at the polls to cast a vote for the Right guy or gal.

Over these past decades, we have lost a voice in major media outlets.  We have lost a voice in academia.  And we are losing the primary and secondary school systems to boot.  Yet STILL much if not most of conservative strategy, effort, and time continues to focus solely on the next election and the next candidate.  Even the great patriotic awakening of 2009 that gave birth to the Tea Party movement is almost exclusively mired down in the mud of election politics.

When will it collectively dawn on our ‘leadership’, that if the fate of our Republic hangs by a thread on the outcome of one damn election, then we have already lost the cultural soul of our country.  And if we’ve lost the cultural spirit of America, WE CAN’T WIN ELECTIONS.

So, as Mr. Limbaugh et. al. gaze with wonderment at their bulbous belly buttons pondering the next campaign and the next quick and easy political fix to what is and always has been a long-term cultural disease, we better start looking for new and aggressive conservative leadership and we better start looking NOW.