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I was going to write about something else this week, but when I heard about this, I was compelled to pivot: Rush Limbaugh was dropped from a group of investors hoping to put together a bid to buy the St. Louis Rams.
The move capped off a week of rumbling from NFL players and owners and finally, league commissioner Roger Goodell, who said Limbaugh would be a bad fit in the league because “divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about.”
Sure, ever-present racial rabble-rouser Al Sharpton tried to jump on the protest train with threats of a boycott.
But in the end, threats from Sharpton and company had nothing to do with Limbaugh getting dropped. Nor was it an issue of censorship.
It was the good old free market that prevailed.
You know, that thing Limbaugh says he lives and dies by…the same free market that has earned him millions of dollars and millions of adoring listeners who willingly suspend their critical thinking abilities to endorse his every word.
But Limbaugh found out (once again) that his forked-tongue statements don’t play in the real world of the NFL.
A few years ago, as an ESPN commentator, he made an ugly crack painting Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb as an affirmative action hire. Then he tried to deny the remark had racial implications. Never popular with the fans, Limbaugh quickly found himself fired from his ESPN job.
This time it was the NFL owners - a bunch of insanely rich guys who want to get richer – who said no to Limbaugh. They know that in the achievement-based world of pro football, saying McNabb only had his job because he’s black—or likening NFL games to gang encounters between the Crips and the Bloods—just won’t cut it.
The owners listened to the players, many of whom said they wouldn’t play for Limbaugh or take his money. And they thought about the fans, who pay money to watch the games and buy the merchandise.
Give the obscenely rich NFL owners some credit—they get it, and they know that millions of other people who love football get it. To the players and to the fans, Limbaugh’s statements are not the “political satire” or “humor” he says they are – they are racially-based insults.
This decision is not censorship. Limbaugh can still say crap like that all day on his show. And he can still make millions from it. But the NFL owners don’t have to take him on as a business partner if they don’t want to. That’s the free market, baby!
What happened with Limbaugh flies in the face of the new racial peek-a-boo I’ve been watching develop over the last few weeks with conservative Republicans and Libertarians and tea partiers as they try to address claims that some criticisms of the Obama administration are motivated by his race.
From what I can piece together, the new racial dynamic goes like this: “It’s not racist unless I say the “n” word or burn a cross on your lawn. Anything short of that has nothing to do with race, and you can’t prove that it does. In fact, I myself am colorblind. I’m not talking about race…you’re the one who’s bringing it up. Yes, I know that a tiny handful of people in my party or movement are saying the “n’ word and more, but they don’t speak for me and I have no right or responsibility to stop them from expressing their opinion.”
This new-ish thinking is a dodge. Beloved American essayist Garrison Keillor, writing in Wednesday’s New York Times, expresses it best:
Conservatism is a powerful strain in American life that ordinarily passes as common sense. Save for a rainy day. Don’t foul the nest. Don’t burn your bridges. Don’t sacrifice the future for short-term profit. But when it contradicts itself and becomes weighted down with bigotry and cynicism, then it doesn’t hold water any more.
I’m sorry that Limbaugh thinks he is some kind of victim (of censorship? …of reverse racism? of political correctness?) because the NFL owners determined that he would be a financial disaster as an owner.
“This is not about the NFL, it’s not about the St. Louis Rams, it’s not about me,” Limbaugh said. “This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative.
“Therefore, this is about the future of the United States of America and what kind of country we’re going to have.”
Boo hoo. Limbaugh may be able to play that game when he bloviates from behind that big fat microphone at the EIB network . But it doesn’t work that way in the free market of the NFL.
