Fight over Rush Limbaugh’s true legacy began immediately after his death Reactions to Rush Limbaugh’s death immediately devolved into arguments on social media on Wednesday — reflecting the fact that Limbaugh was always an American symbol of division. Right-wing media outlets and personalities extolled Limbaugh as a trailblazer — but the trail he blazed was exactly why critics derided him. The New York Times podcast host Jane Coaston summed it up this way: “Rush Limbaugh was the first person I ever recognized existed largely as a Rorschach test,” she said on Twitter Wednesday afternoon. “There is no talk radio as we know it without Rush Limbaugh,” fellow broadcaster Sean Hannity said on Fox News in the minutes following the announcement of Limbaugh’s death.