Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday announced he will order flags across the state to be lowered to honor recently deceased right wing radio host and hate purveyor Rush Limbaugh.
“I know they’re still figuring out the [funeral] arrangements but what we do when there’s things of this magnitude, once the date of internment for Rush is announced, we’re going to be lowering the flags to half-staff,” DeSantis, a devout Trump supporter, told residents in Palm Beach County, as local NBC affiliate WFLA reports.
“There’s not much that needs to be said, the guy was an absolute legend,” DeSantis continued. “He was a friend of mine and just a great person.”
Limbaugh spent decades pushing his unique brand of hate and grievance, frequently attacking LGBTQ people, Black, Hispanic, and other people of color, equality, women, feminism, science, democracy, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, many Democrats, people suffering illness, and other, often vulnerable targets.
Among the most frequent responses to Limbaugh’s passing on Wednesday were reminders of how the far right wing radio “shock jock” during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis would joyfully read aloud the names of the disease’s victims, often to music.
“Iowa’s Cedar Gazette reported in 1990 that Limbaugh’s ‘AIDS Update,’ a recurring segment in which he made jokes about a disease that had killed more than 100,000 people in the United States the previous decade,” Snopes reported after Limbaugh’s death, “started by playing songs such as ‘Back in the Saddle Again,’ ‘Kiss Him Goodbye,’ ‘I Know I’ll Never Love This Way Again,’ and ‘Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.'”
Media Matters put together this clip of some of Limbaugh’s vile lies and attacks (caution: trigger warning):
The announcement DeSantis will order flags flown at half-staff was met with anger and shock from some parts of the state.
Hat tip: Michael Rajner
Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license