Stake Through the Heart

Tom DeLay is in trouble with ethics. John Coryn is under fire for supporting violence against judges. I'm happy at their discomfiture but worried that we are missing an opportunity. Why? Because our purpose is not to bring down these two men. Men are not important. The real challenge is to use these scandals to paint a larger picture about the Republican party.

Let me tell you a story. When I was in D.C. in 1995, all the Democrats were talking about how to "get" Newt Gingrich. I argued that they were wasting their time, because if Gingrich was gone someone just as bad would replace him. Attacking a person is fruitless if you do nothing to challenge the political forces that support him (or her). Those political forces will always be able to find another champion.

Instead of harping on the peccadillos of a few individuals, what liberals need to do is make them and their actions iconic, to use them to make people identify Republicans with the radical actions of their worst representatives. So we shouldn't say, "DeLay is a crook." We should say that "DeLay is a symbol of the corruption and hypocrisy of the Republican majority in Congress." We shouldn't say "Coryn is encouraging violence." Instead how about "Here is yet another example of right wing radicalism and disrespect for law."

If Democrats can hang these men and their actions around the Republican party as a whole, they will do something a lot better than driving a few wingnuts from office: they will discredit the entire conservative movement. Which is what we are really after.