Friday on his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh said given the state of affairs in the country, particularly in the wake of last week’s events in Charlottesville, VA, it could be said the country was on the cusp of a second civil war.

Limbaugh insisted much of the angst was being driven by forces from the outside wanting to see the United States cease being a “super powerful nation.”

Partial transcript as follows (courtesy of RushLimbaugh.com):

America is under attack from within. Our culture, our history, our founding are under the most direct assault I have seen in my life. And I’m sure it’s the same with you. We haven’t seen anything like this. You might even get away with saying that we are on the cusp of a second civil war. Some of you might say that we are already into it, that it has already begun. However you characterize it, though, we are under attack from within. And it’s being bought and paid for by people from outside America, in addition to inside.

I’m thinking of people like George Soros and any other number of international financiers whose objective it is to take the United States out and down as a superpower, to literally erase the United States as a powerful or super powerful nation.

Now, folks, in order to defend America, which I believe is incumbent upon all of us, in order to defend America, you have to begin knowing our history. If you’re gonna defend the United States of America, you have to know our history. You have to know the purpose of the United States of America. You have to know unequivocally and proudly the United States’ place in history. And that is why erasing and distorting our history is crucial for the left to succeed.

None of this that is happening on the left is random. None of the riots, none of the protests. They are not the result of the left being offended by individual acts. Antifa didn’t show up in Charlottesville because they found out something was going to happen that offended them. They showed up in Charlottesville to create mayhem and cause hell. They showed up in Ferguson, Missouri, to do the same thing.

They showed up in Baltimore to do the same thing — and wherever they show up today and tomorrow and next week, it’s by design, on purpose, has an objective and an agenda. And that agenda is to erase American history. That agenda is to distort, erase, and impugn our history. It is crucial if they are to succeed. Because, you see, if enough Americans can be persuaded that America, as founded, is unjust — if enough Americans can be persuaded that America as founded is inherently racist and immoral and illegitimate — then it will be all that much easier to erase America as founded.

The two go hand in hand, which is the objective of all of these groups on the left. Whatever they’re called and wherever they go and however they organize and whatever their day-to-day purpose, their objective is to erase the history of America. It’s to restate it, to recharacterize it in such a way as to convince a majority of Americans that their country is illegitimate and has been from the get-go — is unjust and racist and bigoted and has been from the get-go.

If enough Americans can be persuaded of all of that — that America is inherently racist, that America is and has been a lie — then it’s over. That is the objective, and we are in the midst of it. Sometimes you’re so close to the forest you don’t see the trees. That’s what we are in the midst of here: An ongoing effort to erase America by discrediting the entire premise of our culture, our history, our founding. The objective is to create in as many American minds as possible that America as founded is not worth defending. Serious times.

This is a very, very serious effort that is underway. Sadly, it has a lot of allies. It has a lot of people helping it that ought to be opposing it, but they are choosing what they think is the path of least resistance, which is defined by the media. You’ve got several Republicans who I believe are unwittingly participating in the effort to cast America as indefensible, particularly with Donald Trump as president. Trump as president is, in their view…

The attacks on Trump, the characterization of his presidency, is designed to show how really flawed America is. That somebody like this could be elected, that means it’s time to get rid of the Constitution. That means it’s time to get… Whatever made Trump possible, it’s time to change it and get rid of it. This is very, very serious stuff happening here, and it has the aid and support of the media, which means it has the aid and support of the worldwide left and the Democrat Party.

America’s profound morality, kindness, widespread prosperity, and design for equal opportunity should be self-evident. But that assumes that factual, historically accurate reporting in education is taking place, and we know that it isn’t. It is a shame and a near crime that the profound morality and greatness and kindness and widespread prosperity and equal opportunity that is America isn’t known. It is a crime that those characteristics of our country are in the process being recast and erased. We are getting hysterically inaccurate reporting.

We have been in the midst of hysterically inaccurate education for generations. America is unique. America copied no other country. Every other country was a copycat of others, with governments that denied individual freedom, denied opportunity, denied sovereignty. That’s what was copied. Tyranny was copied, nation to nation, people to people. That is the history of humanity: Living in tyranny, living under authoritarianism, living in poverty, living in sickness — until the United States came along, which copied nothing.

The United States and its founders rejected all of that tyranny, oppression, poverty. In America, the individual was the supreme power. That is being erased under the premise that the individual is corrupt. The individual is likely a racist or a transphobe or a homophobe or some other ill-prepared sack of humanity, and so we need to overcome the corruption that is the individual, that incomparable embrace of humanity that is the United States of America.

There’s no place on this planet that human beings would rather be than the United States of America. And yet people born and raised in this country have been persuaded that America is a sinkhole, a hellhole, a sewer, a garbage dump, or a dungeon, and they’re in the process of actually creating all of that — under the guise that civil rights, equality, and liberty. The incomparable embrace of humanity that is the United States is under attack. Leftists, Democrats seek control over 100% of the population. They accomplish this with lies, such as the Affordable Health Care Act.

They accomplish it with one lie after another. The lies being told today are the lies designed to convince people their country is not worth maintaining as it is, their country is not worth maintaining as founded because it was founded as racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic (you know the drill), immoral and illegitimate. Ignorant people will not remain free for very long. The media is working on a path parallel with school systems to actively and passively distort information to wipe out from the vestiges of our history and our memory any collection of stories that testify to the greatness of America and her people.