Rush Limbaugh’s death two years ago this week left a void in conservative media that younger, more versatile contenders are still trying to fill.

Why it matters: Today, no one radio host commands the same level of power and influence that Limbaugh did, but a number of new voices are emerging — blending the reach of traditional and digital platforms — and collectively proving to be more powerful in shaping conservative opinion for younger audiences.

“The world is changing and there are questions as to how Limbaugh, had he lived and remained healthy — based upon his mindset and his approach to the business — would have remained as pertinent as he was,” said Michael Harrison, the longtime editor and publisher of TALKERS, a radio trade publication.

“He was not as flexible when it came to social media and some of the other forms that it takes right now to be a media presence as opposed to just a radio presence,” he added.

Driving the news: Several conservative radio hosts have been competing for listenership in Limbaugh’s former noon to 3 pm ET time slot.

While none of them have the same reach that Limbaugh once had on radio, they are much more active across a wider array of platforms, often reaching younger audiences. By the numbers: Limbaugh’s show was broadcast to over 600 stations across the country, but many stations have opted to carry different programming in that time slot after his death.

Premiere Networks, a radio subsidiary of iHeartMedia, filled Limbaugh’s time with a new show from conservative media personality and sports journalist Clay Travis and political commentator Buck Sexton that is broadcast across 400 stations. Conservative commentator and talk radio host Dana Loesch and Radio America struck a deal with Audacy in 2021 to make her show available in 11 of their markets, expanding her program’s reach to over 230 stations. Cumulus Media’s Westwood One debuted a new conservative talk program in Limbaugh’s old time slot, “The Dan Bongino Show,” in 2021, across more than 100 stations across the country. Of note, Bongino said last year he would end his commitment once his contract expired with Cumulus in mid-2024. Be smart: Other station groups have opted to lean into local radio talent.

WSB Radio moved Erick Erickson into Limbaugh’s slot in the Atlanta region. Audacy Philadelphia replaced Limbaugh’s show with local host Dom Giordano. State of play: While their distribution footprints are smaller, these hosts are much more active on digital platforms than Limbaugh ever was, reaching younger audiences.

Sexton has a daily weekday podcast. Travis sold his entertainment sports blog, OutKick, to Fox News in 2021. Loesch, in addition to her radio show, authors a Substack newsletter and hosts a show on The First, a conservative network on DirecTV and its streaming services. Bongino hosts a podcast and a digital streaming show, in addition to being active on the conservative video streaming platform Rumble. Between the lines: Podcasting has become a huge opportunity for radio hosts to expand their reach. And video platforms like TikTok and Reels have made it easier for podcasters to gain new audiences quickly.

The “800-pound gorilla” in conservative podcasting is Ben Shapiro, said Howard Polskin, conservative media expert and author of The Righting, a conservative media blog. Shapiro’s podcast is syndicated for radio. Until last year, he hosted a live hourlong daily radio show for Westwood One as well. The Daily Wire had three of the fastest-growing podcasts on the right by percentage growth in Q4 last year, according to an analysis of Castbox data by Polskin. Two of its podcasts, “The Ben Shapiro Show” and “The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast,” had the highest number of subscribers. The Daily Wire has 2.8 million followers on TikTok, and its editor emeritus Ben Shapiro has 1 million. The big picture: One major shift in the post-Limbaugh landscape has been the rise of ideologically-driven personalities who aren’t wed to the Republican party line.

Provocateurs from outside traditional party politics, like Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and Dave Portnoy, are driving a new strain of American political conversation. “People are ideological, they hold sincere beliefs that remain unchanged regardless of party convention, which is why they tend to disregard typical party talking points,” Loesch told Axios. “I think this is why you see people like Tucker and myself performing well with our audiences.” The bottom line: “Limbaugh has been replaced in terms of the coveted noon to three Eastern time slot by a number of hosts — all of whom should be taken seriously — but none of whom are of the stature that Limbaugh was on,” said Harrison.

Thanks to the internet, “There probably never will be another one,” he added.

Sara Fischer

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CALL TO ARMS

In the last week, Joe Biden’s handlers decided to have Josef Stolen commit an act that was so controversial, so unconstitutional, that it would knock the Afghanistan fiasco off the News Misleadia headlines. It worked, of course, as it would with a willing sycophantic press.

Leaving aside for a moment that this behavior is very reminiscent of Barak Obama’s tenure — and all that the similarities imply — let’s dwell for a moment on his actions.

The two most controversial initiatives and utterances were:

1) That he was going to use Executive Orders to force all businesses with 100 or more employees to mandate vaccinations (or enforce weekly Covid testing), and

2) That if Governors opposed him, he would ‘get them out of the way.’

To the first initiative, it is quite clear that this is an wildly unconstitutional act, with utterly no basis in law. That is not how this nation works. If he wanted such a scenario to be implemented, he should have asked Congress to pass a law, had the Senate ratify it, then signed the bill.

To the second statement, that he would ‘get governors out of the way’: While it sounds like bullying and bravado, Biden actually has a vehicle he can use. It is called the Insurrection Act. It can be used for two reasons: If a State has difficulty with rioting and civil disorder, the Federal government can either be asked by that State, or simply step in, with troops. The second reason it can be invoked is that a State willfully disobeys a Federal law.

The Insurrection Act, written in 1807, has been employed (for the second reason, willful disobedience of a State) several times in our history, one such example (in 1963) being when National Guard troops were deployed to escort black students to the University of Alabama to enforce a desegregation law.

If the States of Florida or Texas refuse to permit or help enforce the (admittedly unconstitutional) the vaccine mandate on companies who employ 100 persons or more, these States risk Biden invoking the Insurrection Act and marching National Guard troops in to force cooperation, or shut those companies down.

The only recourse for those states that wish to defy this unconstitutional Executive Order is to go through the courts on an expedited basis.

So, what are we, the common citizen, to do? Individual acts of violent resistance are possible, but unlikely to cause change, unless very spontaneous and widespread in nature. Organized acts of violence are even less likely to cause change, what with modern surveillance and infiltration techniques available to the Federal powers.

But there is something we can do.

We can stand in SOLIDARITY with one another and RESIST all the unconstitutional acts, both those that exist now, and those that will surely come in the wake of the present lawlessness.

Do you remember, during the Trump administration, how most of his initiatives and efforts were stymied by many who simply refused to comply? Often, they had ‘RESIST’ on blue bumper stickers on their cars. Through the actions of individuals who were imbedded in government, and those who were not, many of Trumps’ initiatives were slow-walked or thwarted. We can do the same.

RESIST. Do not comply with an illegal Executive Order. If you can afford to, make the employer fire you, then lodge a wrongful termination lawsuit, and contact your State to join a class action suit against this illegal executive order. In the meantime, get employment at a company that has 99 employees.

STAND IN SOLIDARITY. Stand together with your compatriots. Do not abandon them. If you know of someone who forced an employer to fire them in defiance of an illegal Federal Executive Order, see if you can support them financially a little. If you can afford to, and are vaccinated already, claim you are not. Force your employer to fire you. File lawsuits. Grind the machine to a halt. Organize, protest, shut things down, just as the left did.

To signal our solidarity, do as the left did: Put a bumper sticker on your car that has the word RESIST on it, to signal to like-minded citizens that we stand together. We will make ours Red, to distinguish ourselves from the leftist.

Do this with absolutely every illegal proclamation that emanates from this out-of-control, Obama-directed White House.

SOLIDARITY. RESIST.

A quick note about this very forum: We have our differences among ourselves. Now is the time to put aside those differences and unite against a common foe: Dictatorship. I don’t care if you are pro-vax. I don’t care if you are anti-vax. I do care if you oppose tyranny. WE MUST STAND IN SOLIDARITY.

SOLIDARITY. RESIST.

This post is in memory of Rush Limbaugh, who passed away one year ago today.

Find the October 2016 broadcast HERE.

The leftists saying things like “Rush Limbaugh will rot in hell”–and far worse things I won’t repeat–are given full expression on Twitter and Facebook. In spewing their hatred and vitriol, they reveal their own deep-seated fragility and terror of honest, logical truth. In behaving with less composure than even the most immature of children, these self-conscious poseurs exhibit the VERY qualities they have accused Donald Trump, his supporters and all other thinking nonleftists of exhibiting. Try to remember that these wretched specimens of psychological self-torture and unsustainable self-loathing are the most pitiful creatures alive. Rush Limbaugh understood this better than most, which is how he put them in their place so artfully and skillfully for many, many years.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Rush Limbaugh was one of the greatest figures of the last half-century and he could personally take credit for millions of people becoming conservative. He was a legend, an icon and he will be missed. In honor of a great man, here are Rush’s 20 greatest quotes.

20) “The liberals, you see, do not want to confront conservative ideas; they just attack conservatives as a group, and particularly their motives. If you believe what they say about us, you would think that if someone like Bill Bennett, or Jack Kemp, or myself were driving through South Central Los Angeles and looking at the slums and poverty, we would go: Oh, man, this is great – they’ve got nothing, so that means we get more. It’s simply preposterous. We all want to live in a great country. And for the country to fulfill its potential, you need individuals to be the best they can be – not the government taking care of people.”

19) “For government to give, it must first take away.”

18) “The people that make this country work, the people who pay on their mortgages, the people getting up and going to work, striving in this recession to not participate in it, they’re not the enemy. They’re the people that hire you. They’re the people who are going to give you a job.”

17) “Now, what is the left’s worldview in general? What is it? If you had to attach not a philosophy but an attitude to a leftist worldview, it’s one of pessimism and darkness, sadness. They’re never happy, are they? They’re always angry about something. No matter what they get, they’re always angry.”

16) “I’m a huge supporter of women. What I’m not is a supporter of liberalism. Feminism is what I oppose. Feminism has led women astray. I love the women’s movement — especially when walking behind it.”

15) “Liberals always exempt themselves from the rules that they impose on others.”

14) “Bigot: A person who wins an argument with a liberal.”

13) “Liberals measure compassion by how many people are given welfare. Conservatives measure compassion by how many people no longer need it.”

12) “Conservatism is an active intellectual pursuit; it requires constant vigilance. It has nothing to do with feelings. Liberalism is the most gutless choice you can make. You just see suffering and say, ‘Oh, I feel so horrible!’”

11) “I’m convinced that a lot of people simply don’t know what’s available out there and how it is possible to find a job and work your way up if you are willing to accept responsibility for your life. I know what it’s like to be on the bottom. I’ve been broke. I’ve been fired seven times from jobs. And I don’t even have a college degree. But I didn’t blame anyone else for my problems. I knew that if I didn’t try to solve them on my own or with the help of friends or family members, no one else was going to take care of me.”

10) “I’m not opposed to the protection of animals. But the best way to do that is to make sure some human being owns them.”

9) “Morality is defined by individual choice.”

8) “No nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity.”

7) “End results that work that don’t involve government threatening liberals.”

6) “Let me tell you who we conservatives are: we love people. When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don’t see groups. We don’t see victims.”

5) “In a country of children where the option is Santa Claus or work, what wins?”

4) “The world’s biggest problem is the unequal distribution of capitalism. If there were capitalism everywhere, you wouldn’t have food shortages.”

3) “Progress is not striving for economic justice or fairness, but economic growth.”

2) “You know why there’s a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one.”

1) “What about feeling sorry for those…who pay the taxes? Those are the people NO ONE ever feels sorry for. They are asked to give and give until they have no more to give. And when they say ‘Enough!’ they are called selfish.”