MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

It’s the strategy, stupid.

• Posted by Beth on September 25th, 2005 filed in Blogs, General, Politics    

I just read an excellent post (”Deep Thinkers“) at JustOneMinute about the power of the blogosphere, which was in response to Peter Daou’s The Triangle and the Limits of Blog Power. Basically, Daou analyzes the difference between the Right and Left sides of the blogosphere, and concludes that we on the Right are an echo chamber, and the Left is spending too much time ineffectually bashing Bush. Tom Maguire disagrees with much of Daou’s lefty groupthink commentary, and this is noteworthy:

Over in my slice of reality, I could rally up plenty of right wing bloggers who couldn’t give two cents for Bush’s approval ratings. Getting proper conservatives elected in 2006 and 2008, and finding someone (anyone!) to provide credible leadership on Iraq specifically and terror generally - that will excite right wing bloggers.

I’ll add that the Right is far from an echo chamber; if anything, that’s the domain of the Left and their “Dear Leader ChimpyShrubHalliBushi’iteler Lied, People Died” chant.

Anonymous Liberal sagely adds in the comments:

That being said, the conservative triangle seems to have broken down recently (especially post Katrina). The mainstream media has been fairly reluctant to repeat White House talking points, and, as you point out, conservative bloggers/commentators (to their credit) have been fairly open in expressing their dissatisfaction with various Bush policies (particularly spending and cronyism).

But the fact that conservatives have been openly critical of Bush lately doesn’t undercut Daou’s basic analysis. Indeed, it reaffirms it. It explains why the White House has been having such a hard time influencing public opinion of late. With a suddenly uncooperative media and blogosphere, Bush cannot complete the triangle. Not enough people are repeating White House talking points. (If anyone cares, I have a fairly lengthy post discussing Daou’s piece at my own site.)

I wouldn’t say “White House talking points” is accurate, but it is on point; a more accurate statement would be that conservatives (especially bloggers) have been violating Reagan’s 11th Commandment (of which I am fond of repeating): “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.”

Does this mean we should all nod our heads obediently and never disagree? Of course not. There’s always been disagreement within the ranks of the right, but the difference is that before the Information Age and the rise of blogs, Republicans were better focused, had a better sense of priorities. And let’s be honest: bloggers are a pretty mouthy, independent bunch (myself included), some being almost rogues. Nothing wrong with being outspoken and independent thinkers, of course–but far too many are honestly very poor political strategists.

Discussing activism, Tigerhawk comments,

It goes more deeply than that. Republican activists at the grass roots come from churches or small businesses. Democratic activists come from “social change” organizations, NGOs, and so forth. The former have no particular respect for “dissent,” so even if they might disagree with a course of action, they will go along with it, perhaps after having expressed their disagreement. The heroes of the right are often authority figures. The left admires “dissent,” and “speaking truth to power,” and its heroes challenge authority. Who is going to have more message discipline?

That sounds pretty accurate to me. But bloggers? Bloggers, even on the right, tend to resemble Tigerhawk’s example of left-wing activists–doing a lot of shouting and sniping (even Bush-bashing) on a dizzying number of issues.

In other words, no message discipline.

So what’s the answer?

Stop right now with the attacks on Bush and the GOP. For God’s sake, there’s ENOUGH of that already on the left. There is a way to disagree without being destructive: Michelle Malkin disagrees often with Bush, but she generally doesn’t call him “weak” or other such nonsense. The way to effect change is not to sit at a blog and say “Bush is acting like a liberal again, bitch, bitch bitch.” I’ll use Malkin again here, since she has the most influence of conservative bloggers and is the link between us and the mainstream media: her method isn’t just bashing, she gives phone numbers and email addresses to which complaints can be directed along with the background of the story. Mindless bitching and generalizations do no good.

All the loud criticism and hand-wringing does is encourage people to stay home on Election Day (including Congressional elections). What COUNTS is votes. So you don’t like Bush’s immigration policy? Fine. He’s not running for re-election, but other Republicans are. Taking this issue (for example) and using it to paint the entire party as weak or “not conservative” (or whatever) is dangerous business, because it encourages defection to honestly irrelevant and impotent third parties, if any political participation at all. (See also: Ross Perot, Ralph Nader.)

So you don’t think the GOP is conservative enough, or you don’t like everything they represent? OK, fine. Does the Democratic Party represent you better? Basically, that’s your choice right now–no third party, not Libertarian, not any–is going to suddenly gain national power any time soon, and you might as well play with the cards you’re dealt. What are the most important issues today? I submit that the War on Islamofascism and judicial activism are, and I doubt that many any would disagree. I repeat, you have two choices: the Democratic Party’s approach, or the Republican Party’s approach. Either get on board, or surrender to the other side.

This means not only cut the destructive sniping, it means–crucially–no more attempts on the life of the GOP. Specifically, withholding political contributions, and encouraging others to do the same. So you don’t want to give contributions to the RNC? Fine. Pick candidates running in 2006 that you like, and send money to their campaigns, then. Better yet, send money to those in tougher races. You may not be happy with the Republican Congress, but it’s a lot better than a Democratic Congress! Think: if Congress were controlled by Democrats, would we get any good judicial nominees confirmed–or even nominated? Wouldn’t Bush have to pick “safer” nominees?

So you don’t like the Patriot Act, and you don’t like the current immigration policy? With a Democratic congress, you would likely have a weakened Patriot Act, but you could forget about immigration reform. Don’t forget about Guantanamo, while you’re at it. That would be history. And furthermore, imagine the Congressional meddling in military operations (see also: Vietnam).

Fed up with the current Federal budget? Me too. I think it’s a joke to imagine that the Democrats would do any better, though! So when I read something like this,

the GOP majority has been spending federal tax dollars like drunken sailors since 2001

I’m even more disgusted. Not because of the rate of spending, but because 1) war is expensive, duh, and 2) not ALL of the GOP slurs like a drunken sailor, and here’s one example:

Sen. Richard Shelby says it’s time for the federal government to go on a massive diet to pay for hurricane relief, and he’s willing to start by delaying many of the highway projects and other earmarks he lured for Alabama.

Good. Excellent. And note that while Mark Tapscott complains about the GOP as a whole “losing its soul,” Michelle Malkin puts the target on specific offenders.

Basically, all I’m saying is we have to choose our battles. All I’ve seen lately is bitch, bitch, bitch on the Right, people saying things like “why do we even have a Republican Congress?” Guess what: you’re not going to get your way on everything; politics is a game of compromise, like it or not. I’d be happy to have it all go my way, but I’m a realist. There are certain issues I simply don’t write about here that others do, and that’s because I know some things I have to let it go for the sake of the big picture. On those issues, I act, but I do it quietly, behind the scenes, if you will. There’s a reason why we have access to the phone numbers and email/postal addresses of the White House, our Senators and Representatives, and our Governors, and there ARE organizations who work those issues (i.e. the budget, immigration, etc.).

I have no illusions that political bloggers are going to change people’s politics, but bloggers DO have the power to change methods of activism. Unfortunately, I see most bloggers doing it all the wrong way. I wish some conservative bloggers had Karl Rove mind-control devices implanted in their brains.

I’ve referred to this before, and I will again. Read Hugh Hewitt’s book If It’s Not Close, They Can’t Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It. It’s focused on the 2004 election, but the lessons still apply.

It’s the strategy, stupid.