We'll Never Get Them To Join Us, So Here's How to Beat Them

Tristero has a great post slapping down yet another "progressives can win over the teabaggers if only we ...." plea for appeasement.

Berlet, like many people who make the argument that we should find ways to bring tea partiers to our cause,** never quite says how we are supposed to address issues like gay marriage, abortion, etc etc etc. when we try to tell them we are on their side.

SNIP

For a long, long time, I tried not to antagonize rightwingers and I tried to persuade them by seeking common cause. I got nowhere.

SNIP

Berlet objects, rightly, to the trivialization and dismissal of the rightwing but I honestly don't know a single progressive who trivializes or dismisses them as a political force. Their ideas and their values, that's a very different story. The fact of the matter is that if you really have problems accepting that Barack Obama, a black man, is president of the United States, and your problem is that he is black, then I have very little in common with you. But please don't mistake my contempt for your ideas, my refusal to "engage" you in "serious" debate about whether a black man deserves to be president, my mockery of your positions, or my open disgust at your moral values for trivialization or dismissal. I am quite aware of how powerful and dangerous you are. But I know that I can't reach you. I can only defeat you.

How to do that? Well, I've just demonstrated one way. Progressives must continue to refuse to grant the screwy ideas and values of the rightwing the status worthy of serious discussion. For example, the notion of invading Iraq, a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, was a batshit insane idea. I believe that the willingness by so many people, including people who were more or less progressive, to engage in serious discussions about it added further imprimatur, helped to mute mainstream criticism, and helped propel the catastrophe forward.*** Not only must progressives become more prominent in the mainstream discourse in denouncing the right's bad ideas, they must also become better at it. Much better.

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I certainly understand that the tea party organizing, which Berlet describes as being ominously already quite advanced, is very dangerous to American democracy, not just progressives. But let's never pretend that their really bad ideas deserve respect - or that they do, if they insist on asserting they are worthy of serious attention. Nor ever pretend that the casual remarks tea partiers make after a few beers with their pals which, even if I agreed with Berlet that they are relatively benign (which I don't) have any legitimate part in the wider discourse today. America is rapidly becoming/has become a country where being white and male is no longer the norm for the politically active citizenry. It's way past time for anyone who loves this country to accept that.

In fact, it's cause for celebration.

Read the whole thing.