This week, I interviewed my buddy Rachel Maddow on KKZN AM760 - the big drive-time progressive talk radio show here in Colorado that I'm guest hosting. You can listen here.
Our discussion dealt with a number of issues, but the one I found most interesting was our talk about progressives inadvertently building up conservatives. I told her my concern was that with the rise of progressive blogs, radio shows and television programs comes the demand from bloggers and hosts for conservatives to push off of, and with Republicans basically locked out of power, that demand can sometimes inflate the relevance of opponents who are - by basic legislative and political metrics - irrelevant.
I told Rachel I worried that, for instance, her criticism of Newt Gingrich - while substantively on point - was building up the relevance of a guy who is absolutely irrelevant, that, in fact, progressives are helping Gingrich more than hurting him by attacking him because he needs the attention. She responded by saying she, too, thinks about this all the time - that with the GOP trying to reform its parties, all kinds of conservatives want to be attacked by progressives so that they can brag about being the Left's biggest enemy. But she also said that with the Republican Party in such disarray, people like Gingrich are in leadership roles by virtue of the vacuum, and therefore they require scrutiny.
I can't argue with that - and I don't think there is one right or wrong answer about when to go after a Republican so as to set back the conservative movement and when going after a Republican would actually help the conservative movement. However, I do think it is important for us all to think about this strategic question in all of our work.
We've got to get out of the habit of trying to posterize every right-wing lunatic that gets three sentences in a New York Times story. We've got to get out of the habit, for instance, of using blogospheric space and resources to berate David Brooks everytime he hands down one of his elitist manifestos. We've got to get out of the habit of expressing public "outrage" of every irrelevant, out-of-office Republican from Mitt Romney to Mike Huckabee everytime they open their trap. We have to stop pretending that Eric Cantor has any power whatsoever in a House where the minority is the least legislatively relevant group of people in Washington, D.C. We have to do this for two clear reasons.
First and foremost, as said above, most of these conservative targets of our ire are absolutely irrelevant - indeed, the only way they remain relevant is because we're attacking them. The way to keep these extremists down is, more often than not, to ignore them.
Second, we have other more important battles to fight. Some readers ask me why I spend so much time trying to pressure, cajole, and criticize the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. The answer is based in empirical math: The Obama administration and congressional Democrats - not Republicans or the right - have the vast majority of power to actually change laws. They control the presidency and have huge majorities in Congress. Sure, Republicans still have that one extra Senate vote to filibuster stuff, but by and large, if we win the battle over progressive policies inside the Democratic Party, we're most of the way there in the battle to see those policies pass into law.
I give Rachel a lot of credit - she's one of the only people on television to understand this latter point. She's one of the only voices on television who doesn't just carry water for Democrats, but actually explicitly goes after what she calls "conservadems." I also give her a lot of credit for acknowledging publicly that she thinks about this strategic question of whether she's helping the Right, more than hurting it.
I hope all of us - including, I might add, me - can think hard about this as we move forward in our work. I hope, for instance, President Obama thinks twice before ever using his platform and his presidency to build up the relevance of the legislatively irrelevant House Republican Caucus again.
Obviously, I understand where the reflex comes from. Progressives and the Democratic Party have been in the minority so long that we've taken on a bunker-ish, War Room personality. That was entirely appropriate in years past. When the GOP ran the show, someone like Eric Cantor was actually important - and someone like David Brooks actually had influence that mattered to people other than his fellow cocktail party chatterers in D.C.
But now we're in the majority - both in the country at large on issues, and in the Congress. With that power comes responsibility - not just to pass legislation, but to not inadvertently use our power to build up the obstruction to that legislation.
