Conservative host Rush Limbaugh said that riots are now commonplace any time a police officer is involved in a shooting.
"It seems like riots are almost expected now when there is a cop shooting. A cop shooting, period. Don't care about the details," he said.
"The riots are new normal," he added.
During an episode of his show, Limbaugh said President Barack Obama announced when he became president that such incidents would no longer happen.
"We aren't going to have these kinds of divisive squabbles any longer because the election of the first African-American president would finally mean that we had matured and seen the error of our sinful past," Limbaugh said.
Limbaugh lamented the state of race relations in the U.S., saying, "Look where we are. We're nowhere… our culture is being roiled. Our society is being torn asunder. There doesn't seem to be any desire for hope and change to mean anything positive. There doesn't even seem to be any desire to want to try to unify, to get along."
The election of the first black president was supposed to bring about "a new sensitivity, a new awareness," Limbaugh said.
The host bet that when the public hears news of a police shooting, the first thing they think is, "When will the riots start?"
"This isn't the way it was gonna be. Hope and change, first African-American president, unity, postracial, postpolitical, postpartisan. Hell, it's post-American, if it's anything. It certainly isn't postracial. After eight years of the Obama administration, racial tensions seem to have percolated, seem to have gotten worse, when everybody thought that they were going to get better or even disappear," Limbaugh said.
Limbaugh said he believed that the election of the first black president would not mean less racism, but more.
"I have been proven right. I thought the election of Obama was going to increase racial tendencies because I understand the race hustler business. I understand the people who don't want there to be an end to racial strife in America," he said.
The election of Obama led to the "unspoken deal" that if anyone disagreed with Obama, they were racist, Limbaugh said.
"It worked in basically neutering the Republican Party," Limbaugh said.
For racism to get better in America would require willingness to change on either side, according to Limbaugh: "Who were the racists that were going to stop being racists after Obama was elected? That's what was going to have to happen."
Obama mentioned Limbaugh during a speech, and said that conservative media has made the presidential election closer than it should be.
"If all you're doing is watching Fox News and listening to Rush Limbaugh and reading some of the blogs that are churning out misinformation on a regular basis, then it's very hard for you to think that you're going to vote for somebody who you've been told is taking the country in the wrong direction," the president said, according to CNN Money.
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