One of the reasons that longstanding conflicts are so hard to resolve is that the militants on both sides both benefit by provoking one another. Since counter-insurgency tends to rarely result in a decisive elimination of the foe, even though these groups are killing each other they ultimately enable each other. Both societies are dragged down but the militants get to rule in hell.
So, how can this sort of vicious cycle be used for good? Well, as everyone is noting, the Democratic leadership and Rush Limbaugh are now both playing this game. Here's Jason Zengerle explaining how it works:
The thing that makes Rush different from past GOP boogeymen--such as Newt and Bush--is that, because his bottom line is ratings (rather than votes), the Dems' demonization of him is actually kind of good for him...
Which is why Republicans' best move, at this point, is probably just to ignore Limbaugh: don't denounce him (and then inevitably recant), don't praise him; and don't appear on his show. And maybe hope that Clear Channel--which pays Limbaugh his $50 million a year salary and whose parent company just posted a $5 billion loss--goes broke.
I'm guessing Limbaugh is still a profit center for Clear Channel and will continue to be so unless his ego and demands for compensation get bigger than his ratings.
So what are the logical limits of this strategy? Limbaugh's listener numbers probably have an upper bound in the current political climate and I have to imagine he's running fairly near it. There's only so many hours in the day and after a while it isn't news any more. That said, it should be a repeatable trick after this controversy dies down. If necessary, one could also switch to a different demagogue, say Ann Coulter, to keep things fresh. As a side note, if that happens, let's stay away from the misogyny people. Many of the gender-based cracks against her are not clever and ironic because she's such a hater, they're just lame attacks against an easy target. And yes, I include Jon Stewart in that, I love you man, but that one C-PAC attack was beneath you and hurt an otherwise brilliant segment.
Limbaugh could easily stop this any time he wants to, but so long as he personally benefits I doubt he'll care about what he's doing to the party.
Normally of course the Republicans could just put a stop to this. Republicans play this game with Democratic entertainers on a regular basis and it works to a degree. However, our politicians also know how to play the distancing game. If anything, I think we tend to go to far in slamming our entertainers but we've moderated that in recent years. Obama is much more resistant to the urge to Sister Souljah someone than prior leaders. We're at a point now where the choice to defend or distance goes more to the substance of the remarks, and that's a good thing.
However, the Republicans haven't manged to distance themselves because anyone who criticizes gets brutally smacked down. I don't really get why that happens so it's difficult to say how that system can break down. My best guess as to why this is happening is that the Republican base is sufficiently homogenous that those entertainers in a position to challenge Rush don't have distinct fan bases to carry them through. On the other hand, I think Jason Zengerle is wrong about the utility of ignoring him. If enough Republicans ignore him it would break his power, but there's a collective action problem here. The more people that don't appear on his show, the greater the chance to gain publicity from an alliance with him. Moderate Republicans are probably best off breaking with the party or ignoring him, but that won't break his power.
Finally, what are the costs and benefits of this strategy for the Dems? Well we're probably maintaining the radicalism of the Republican base. That said, the Republicans have already practically maxed out their party unity in the House and with several exceptions in the Senate. They're getting serious diminishing returns from the radicalization, so this isn't a huge problem so long as the Dittoheads don't go literally militant. This is probably helping us with moderate and independent voters, but they'll ultimately vote based on the state of the economy so that benefit is short term. As Nate Silver says this is really about three or four votes in the Senate and I think he's right. We need to continue to invite Republicans to vote with us and talk with us while influencing their constiuents to pressure them to cooperate.
Right now, the Democratic Party is in the midst of an audacious domestic project. In addition to dealing with the economic crisis, we're trying to take the high ground and remake America as a solvent social democracy. The core of this project is health care as it is orders of magnitude easier to defend well designed entitlements than to implement them. This isn't as true with carbon cap and trade, but if we get a job rich green sector going than there will be powerful interests fighting to defend the new regulatory regime.
In the longer term, sparring with GOP entertainers is fine, but not at this level. We ultimately are going to have to work to deradicalize the segment of the population that actually thought George W. Bush did a good job. Changing demographics will help with that of course, but in the medium term a two party system where one of the parties is nuts is an extremely dangerous phenomenon.
But aside from ambition what's also vital though is that in this blitz we take prisoners and show quarter. Giving the actual political leaders, not the entertainers, of the other side a respectful hearing is a low cost strategy. Politics is often personal in the Senate and is far more heterogenous with governors and we should exploit that. Real concessions should be limited to those cases where we get something real in return but for matters of tone the public likes Obama's outreaches even when they aren't returned.
So on the whole, I like this strategy. Let Limbaugh have his ratings, we'll be busy implementing a second New Deal. Sounds like a good trade to me.
Comments