Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Monday continued to ridicule the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag, a social media campaign started to call attention to the 200 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.
Since Michelle Obama tweeted a photo with the hashtag, conservatives started bashing the effort.
Limbaugh slammed the hashtag on his radio show on Thursday, and then returned to it on Monday to defend his criticism.
“It’s absolutely pathetic and it’s inconsequential,” Limbaugh said. “It’s all about intentions and showing that you care. These phonies on the left get behind their Twitter hashtag campaign and they get credit for caring.”
He said that he couldn’t support the social media effort since he has deemed it pointless.
“I couldn’t, in good conscience, get behind such a thing. I mean, it’s phony. All it is is a cheap attempt to make me look like something. It’s not gonna accomplish anything. I’m about actually doing. It’s the same thing with left-wing policies. Their policies all fail,” he said.
“At least they want to do something, and Rush Limbaugh, he doesn’t even care. That’s the way it all falls out. It’s really a crying shame because it’s not true at all. I just don’t understand applauding futility,” he continued, defending his position.
Limbaugh also criticized Americans who used the hashtag since the girls are Nigerian, not “ours.”
“So somebody is holding members of their group prisoner somewhere, and they want their brothers back, and when they get their brothers back, they supposedly will return our girls. Except they’re not our girls. They’re Nigerian. That was another thing. But that’s insensitive to point out, too, because we’re all citizens of the world now,” he said.
Other prominent conservatives have mocked the use of Twitter activism. Ann Coulter on Sunday responded with her own hashtag iteration, #BringBackOurCountry, which then majorly backfired.
Conservative columnist George Will on Sunday called the social media campaign “an exercise in self-esteem.”
This post has been updated.
