If you want to understand Rush Limbaugh's poisonous impact on our politics, you couldn't ask for a better guide than @rickperlstein, the great historian of the New Right.

So I talked to Perlstein at length about Limbaugh. Great big-picture stuff here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/17/rick-perlstein-rush-limbaugh-death-legacy/

A few highlights.

First, @rickperlstein notes that even back in the late 1980s, it was already clear that Limbaugh had a genius for making reactionary whites feel like they belonged to a movement, like they had a home:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/17/rick-perlstein-rush-limbaugh-death-legacy/

. @rickperlstein also points to how badly Limbaugh "deranged our public life."

"People were being taught that nothing liberals could do, nothing Democrats could do, could be anything but a diabolical conspiracy to destroy them."

Great context here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/17/rick-perlstein-rush-limbaugh-death-legacy/

You kiddies on here don't know how bad the right could be in the 1990s.

Well, @rickperlstein gives us an extremely bracing reminder.

This is a big part of Limbaugh's legacy:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/17/rick-perlstein-rush-limbaugh-death-legacy/

Importantly, @rickperlstein notes that the Limbaugh/Gingrich nationalization of scorched earth politics actually took *southern* politics national.

And Limbaugh's reactionary audience had affluent components, just like the 1/6 rioters:

(cc @AdamSerwer)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/17/rick-perlstein-rush-limbaugh-death-legacy/

And finally, here @rickperlstein takes us straight from Rush Limbaugh to birtherism to Trump and QAnon and Marjorie Taylor Greene and the violent insurrection at the Capitol:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/17/rick-perlstein-rush-limbaugh-death-legacy/