Time-Traveling Horses and Unexpected Readers: Rush Limbaugh’s Historical Fiction and the White Supremacist Blueprint

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Race, Racism, Representation, and the Politics of Reading (Table 30)

Abstract

U.S. libraries and classrooms are under siege by private and governmental entities working to simultaneously ban justice-focused literature and inundate these spaces with ultra-conservative materials. We conducted a critical content analysis of the best-selling historical fiction series, Rush Revere: Time Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans by Rush Limbaugh. The analysis worked to answer two central research questions: 1) How does the Rush Revere series promote white lies about U.S. history? and 2) What does the Rush Revere series reveal to unexpected readers who do not hold dominant identities? Findings illuminate how each book individually centralizes an aspect of white supremacy–exceptionalism, capitalism, militarism, patriotism, paterialism–that collectively then creates the blueprint to indoctrinate young readers into white supremacist ideology.

Authors

• Noreen Naseem Rodriguez, Michigan State University

• Andrea M. Hawkman, Rowan University

• Sarah B. Shear, University of Washington - Bothell

• Acelynn C. Perkins, University of Colorado - Boulder