Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh used the case of a salon owner in Dallas jailed for refusing to shut down during the coronavirus pandemic to highlight what he said was a more dangerous problem facing the country: The rise of authoritarianism in American politics.
“She’s just basically flying in their faces,” Limbaugh said of Shelley Luther, who was sentenced to a week in jail by Judge Eric Moye, a Democrat elected in 2008 who told her she owed an apology to the elected officials she had defied.
Luther told the judge she had always respected authority and was simply trying to earn money for her family.
Limbaugh said he sympathized with Luther’s situation and applauded her for trying to earn money the way she always had, regardless of public health mandates in the state.
“Look, I’m not gonna ask for a handout. I’m gonna open my salon. My people working for me have to eat, their kids have to eat, my kids have to eat,” Limbaugh said, describing Luther’s thinking. “She literally was arrested for opening her salon because she and her stylists are having a hard time buying food.”
Limbaugh continued: “They don’t have any money. They need to get back to work. They didn’t demand that some government fix the problem. They didn’t demand a handout. They didn’t demand some paycheck protection plan or some other form of assistance. They went out and solved the problem as they have been taught, as they lived, as they were raised.”
Several elected officials, including Gov. Greg Abbott, whose executive order Luther violated, called her jailing inappropriate.
“Compliance with executive orders during this pandemic is important to ensure public safety; however, surely there are less restrictive means to achieving that goal than jailing a Texas mother,” Abbott said.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on Fox News on Wednesday night that Abbott cannot pardon Luther because the judge found her in contempt of court.
Limbaugh called Moye’s decision an obvious power grab and political move.
“Folks, this is a tinderbox situation that is, I fear, being replicated in many parts of this country where these authoritarians are,” he said. “You know, all politicians have a craving for power. It is a miracle the United States Constitution still rules the roost. It is an abject miracle.”
The veteran firebrand host called it “amazing” that “everybody we’ve elected has decided to subordinate themselves and their power.”
“I fear that’s coming to a change,” he said. “I think some of these blue state governors and so forth are so infatuated with this new power that have had found that the natural authoritative tendencies that people in politics have.”
