Feeding the Hydra, It Might Just Work
I’ll try to update again tonight on this post addressing some of the good points commenters have made (busy day).
Via Sullivan and Yglesias, I see that various talking heads of the right seem to have initiated the age old dance of cannibalism,
“I don’t rally people and haven’t since the first year of my radio show,” he wrote to POLITICO. “At that time, all local talk hosts were attempting to prove their worth by getting people to cut up gasoline credit cards, call Washington, etc. I thought it was cheap and disingenuous. The few times I did, early on, suggest people call Washington, the reaction to it from the media was that the response was not genuine (I shut down the House switchboard) because people only did what they did because ‘Limbaugh told them to.”
As well as, and more explicitly,
“To say [McCain] would be worse [than Obama] is mindless, mindless, incoherent as a matter of fact. [...] I think there’s enormous confusion and positioning and pandering. It may be entertaining, but from my perspective, it’s not. It’s pathetic,”
It would be easy, of course, to sit on the sidelines and take in the sights with a bowl of popcorn in hand, but I think there is a larger dynamic at play here that warrants consideration. Namely, your choice of old adages that either, “It’s always darkest before the dawn,” or, “Things will always get worse, before they get better.” Each means essentially the same thing, so take your pick, but it strikes me that beyond the kind of jeering that a tripartite battle between Levin, Limbaugh, and Beck would obviously draw from some corners, the intra-nature of the fighting is an important sign to those of us ever disgruntled with personality based politics.
That folks like each of the three above have become the de facto standard bearers on the right is the most overwhelming example of how the practice of politics has become a surreal circus mirror beauty pageant that has largely also signaled the end of political parties as the generators of ideas. While certainly less prominent, a paler version of that truth can also be seen germinating in the ranks of Democrats.
Ideas on all fronts seem, to have taken a back seat to the power of a smile.
And true to form, the more one attempts to chop off the various heads of that hydra, so much the quicker does a new head appear. But when the frenzy and pomposity of those heads trigger a warring amongst themselves, well, something approaching an orgiastic climax of sneering, snarking, and sniping that ultimately kills the beast might be afoot.
Needless to say, this would be a very good thing from my perspective.
It also makes me wonder whether my previous flogging of Andrew Sullivan for feeding that beast via Sarah Palin was well off its mark. It could be that the only way to kill off the prominence of personality-based politics and the talking heads it springs forth is to feed into the very machinations of that process with an eye to the eventual derailing that overbearing egos inevitably bring about. I’m always open to new evidence and it could be that our policy of non-engagement here at the League, trumpeted by more than just E.D. I should note, while noble and well-intentioned, is strategically flawed.
Let them eat themselves alive by throwing chum on the feeding frenzy… how delightfully ironic.
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38 comments
This post lends itself very well to an editorial cartoon…just sayin’
This really isn’t a mini-post.
Jonathan
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I don’t know… compared to a lot of posts I read here it’s pretty “mini”.
E.D. Kain
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Eh. Not mini enough for the sidebar s’all I’m saying.
Scott H. Payne
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Just didn’t feel substantial enough to go main page. But I can change that if you think it worth the space.
E.D. Kain
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I do – but it’s your call, obviously.
machinatiosn
What is this word?
Scott H. Payne
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Machinations, typo fixed.
E.D. Kain
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:42 pm
So you weren’t just speaking Canadian, eh?
Scott H. Payne
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Take off, hoser.
The whole “enemy of my enemy” thing only lasts so long. Eventually you start talking about yourself rather than how awful the other guy is.
Levin seems to be mostly a Constitution Party type, Limbaugh seems to be mostly a Republican Party type, and Beck is a… I don’t know what he is. A Whig, maybe? He’s not exactly Libertarian… but I wouldn’t kick him out of the tent if he happened to wander in and sit down. Or wander in and start flailing his arms and yelling.
Out of those three, Levin and Beck probably are the most likely to start screaming at each other, though. Nobody hates a third partier the way a different third partier can.
Katherine
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Nobody hates a third partier the way a different third partier can.
Nice to know it isn’t just the left that’s that way. ;)
I like O’Reilly personally.
Jaybird
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Before 9/11, I scheduled my gym trips around him. I got on the eliptical when he started, I got off when he was done. He reminded me of my grandpa.
Then he went apeshit. (In his defense, so did the country.)
E.D. Kain
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Eh. I still like him. He has his apeshit moments, but the last year or so he’s been pretty good.
Jaybird
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
If he’s “back”, I may stop avoiding him. I really did enjoy those months of his show I watched beforehand. He was Irish, blue-collar, avuncular, and he seemed like an actual person who somehow found himself yelling at a television camera.
E.D. Kain
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I don’t watch nearly enough tv to say for sure. He just seemed remarkably honest during the last election, and again during this health care debate – from what little I’ve seen.
Nob Akimoto
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I do agree that O’Reilly seems a fair bit more lucid at times lately. I do wonder whether or not that’s because of Glenn Beck’s presence on the network and the amount of crazy he brings forces others to start being a little saner.
E.D. Kain
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I like Jon Stewart, too, but the last time I saw them together O’Reilly really cleaned up. Stewart was funny at first – but when it actually came time to debate, O’Reilly really stomped him. And Stewart’s usually pretty capable.
Ryan
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:20 am
O’Reilly always comes off very, very poorly when he interviews Barney Frank.
Scott H. Payne
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Yeah, but by your own admission, you were a testosterone ridden hulk of a human being walking through malls with clenched fists staring other people down in the hopes of starting a fight when you were going to the gym regularly. So what does that say about your love of O’Reilly in that same period of time?
Jaybird
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
When Bill-O (as I called him) used a word like “knuckleheads”, I repeated it with a laugh.
So the guy who was on the eliptical who kept to himself but barked out “knuckleheads!” or “pinheads!” or “boneheads!” periodically at the gym?
That was me.
I’m intrigued E.D. Who are the figures on the left and in the Democratic party who corralate with the Levine Limbaugh and Beck on the right?
Scott H. Payne
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Did you mean to ask me as I wrote the post? Or were you actually looking for E.D.’s response?
E.D. Kain
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Good questions – both of you.
I don’t think there are, personally. I think you have your left-wing pundits, to be sure, but for some reason the right has always been better at punditry.
Bob Cheeks
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:23 pm
E.D./Scott/North:
E.D.’s right, there’s no one on the left comparable! Hey, check out Caleb Stegall’s post at FPR (ACORN) and his ‘comment.’ The dude’s genius!
Lev
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:09 pm
There aren’t any equivalent figures on the left. Olbermann, Maddow, and Michael Moore have their followings, I suppose, and occupy varying areas in terms of honesty, civility, etc., but none of them would be able to intimidate a Democratic senator, for example, into apologizing to them.
The reason why the right has more influential pundits is because there’s been an alternative media for the right for quite a bit longer than there has been one for the left. Limbaugh’s been on the air for 20 years now, and over that time his influence has accrued and his recognition has increased. Additionally, the notion of an alternative media for the mainstream left is a fairly new one, as it’s only been a recent development that liberals don’t feel the mainstream media is covering our side of the issues adequately, which means that heavily ideological pundits have been rather marginalized on the left (and since many liberals aren’t fed up with the likes of the Washington Post’s coverage, it might continue to be so for some time to come). And, finally, an important part of liberal self-presentation involves making sober appeals to reason and facts, and there’s a pretty strong anti-populist impulse to most liberals, who find such an approach distasteful. I think that much of this posturing is dreadfully mistaken–a progressive movement absent populism is going to be coastally bound, and will largely appeal to the New Yorker set that still mourns the defeats of Adlai Stevenson–but occasionally it does work out, the current president being a good example of these tendencies.
In essence, conservatives put a premium on populist appeals (more so as conservatism’s intellectual foundations have been ground to dust), and the people who make them (i.e. talk radio guys, most frequently) are the ones who rise to prominence these days. Liberals might well be in the same place at some point in the future, but for the time being the right is essentially being driven by pundits who are in business for themselves and have no stake in the success of the conservative movement itself. After all, did anyone care that Rush Limbaugh opposed Bush’s Medicare bill in 2002, and even for mostly the right reasons?
Kyle
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Paul Krugman? But more seriously, I think it comes from which media you’re looking. Lev makes a good point about conservative domination of talk radio and that medium’s built influence over 20 years, which created a demand for conservative punditry that could transfer to Cable & Internet. Which is why, I think, we’ve seen such a quick rise of conservative media outlets via cable/internet.
However, during the age of talk radio, where did the left get their news/political commentary? Columnists? Books? Revolving door of gov/academics? My general impression is that while there aren’t many “mainstream” liberal pundits. There are comparatively more mid-level, niche political commentators on the left (jesse jackson, alfie kohn, noam chomsky, gore vidal)
I guess I’d say they exist, they’re just not as notable or as widely influential.
North
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:22 pm
I guess so Kyle but I’ll see your mid-level niche political commentators and raise you the christian coalition and their armies of mid-level pastors and super pastors.
(Oh and yes Scott I guess I was adressing the question to you. particularily regarding this paragraph: “That folks like each of the three above have become the de facto standard bearers on the right is the most overwhelming example of how the practice of politics has become a surreal circus mirror beauty pageant that has largely also signaled the end of political parties as the generators of ideas. While certainly less prominent, a paler version of that truth can also be seen germinating in the ranks of Democrats.”)
Kyle
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:23 pm
you win. I was actually thinking along those lines but in an effort to be brief I was less than even-handed.
“raise you the christian coalition and their armies of mid-level pastors and super pastors” Can we make this a game? Please.
Your flock has grown by 10%, level up.
A black person has become president do you support him (lose 5% influence) or oppose him (gain half hour television time, 50% chance of flock increase)?
North
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:26 am
It is a game, it’s called national politics. We’re playing for people instead of chips tho.
Jaybird
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Well, there was Donahue for about a minute and a half.
Poor guy. I liked him best as a guest on Bill-O.
I admire your policy of not feeding the talking heads. I wish I had similar discipline, but oh… it’s so, so easy and gratifying to decry the frothing idiocy of the right-wing commentariat.
I don’t talk about talking heads because I don’t ever watch or listen to their shows, because I don’t watch much broadcast/cable TV in general, because I don’t care too much for the medium… non-engagement, for me, is because I don’t want to sit through hours of talk and/or yelling and/or crying when I could be reading, unless I’m getting paid for it.
“While certainly less prominent, a paler version of that truth can also be seen germinating in the ranks of Democrats.”
This is obviously untrue. NOTHING is paler than the Republican Party.
The left and right have different frequencies. The left will have effective talk radio hosts (other than NPR) the day after christian rock takes over the air waves or creationists establish substantial inroads in the upper echelons of academia.
This is revolution from the bottom up rather than the top down. The liberals are so used to the top down model that they think Beck et. al. are stirring up people who would be happy with Obama.
In California, the farmers are angry. The government is denying them needed water in order to save a fish. If there were no Glen Beck, these farmers would still be angry. It is not over by a long shot. Next year ARM’s are going to reset and we will see another wave of foreclosures. The banking crisis is not over. The FDIC does not have the assets to cover all the banks on the troubled bank list and every Friday they announce the failure of more banks. Because of high unemployment, the government will begin paying social security benefits out of the general fund sooner than predicted. People are exhausting their unemployment benefits. When Cap and Trade is passed the people will see their energy bills sky rocket. As Obama has said, this is necessary for people to accept alternative energy.
Why can’t these people have an outlet for their frustration? As they say, complaining is good. The time to worry is when they stop complaining because that is when they are planning something.
The Left has Olberman and Maddows, while the Right has Beck and O’Reilly. What is the big deal?
“While certainly less prominent, a paler version of that truth can also be seen germinating in the ranks of Democrats.”
I think you really undersell the history of American politics here. George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, US Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Ike, Kennedy, Reagan, Obama… What these people all have in common is that they were elected President because they won a popularity contest/beauty pageant. They didn’t win because anyone evaluated the quality of their ideas. The difference, of course, is that they actually had ideas.
But that’s just an argument that the contemporary Democratic Party looks like every other political party in American history, while the Republicans just look completely unmoored from reality. Which we already knew.