Jen Kuznicki: RedState’s Erickson Dogs Palin Supporters (Updated)

The double standard which reduces otherwise thoughtful people to rank hypocrites.
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Jen Kuznicki has published a must-read post about how Erick Erickson, RedState.com's choir director, has joined his fellow right-of-center establishmentarians Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham in their pile-on attempting to smother Sarah Palin and the insurgent campaign she may soon decide to run for the presidency. Jen left RS for the same reason I did: uneven treatment of member comments by the moderators there:

At any rate, Erickson is complaining now about the ferocity of Palin supporters. He doesn’t like their attitude, and is turned off from campaigning for Palin (if she runs) because he doesn’t want to be part of that crowd.

Loud and clear, Erick. Your spot in the conservative sphere is now well defined.

The people supporting Palin with such passion are people new to the whole scene. We don’t watch what we say, we don’t care about your feelings. We are concerned about the destruction of our nation, and a lot of us have just figured out how to work computers, to be honest. We are truck drivers, waitresses, cooks, grandmas, veterans, union workers, mechanics, seamstresses, electrical workers, plumbers, carpenters, small businessmen and businesswomen, and lots and lots and lots of us are women. Homeschoolers, ranchers, farmers, miners, all of us could be categorized by the beltway political class as “rednecks.”

What rednecks do best is talk straight. What redneck women do best is point out where you’ve gone wrong, and sometimes that just seems over the top, but they don’t give a rip. We get made fun of by the political class, and that just firms our resolve.

So in my experience, the Palin supporters Erickson says, “have not evangelized on behalf of Sarah Palin trying to lead people to Sarah Palin, they have freaked a lot of us out,” is unfair, but in politics, to the people who follow politics on a daily basis, that is really a put off, and since Erickson, Ingraham and Coulter have a venue to talk about it, it is all that is discussed.

And a lot of it is also the “how could you?” suggestion that a lot of Palin supporters feel. The entire beltway, and most of the beltway bloggers have decided that Palin won’t be the next President.

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Jen correctly points out that Coulter and Ingraham are just wrong, and each has her own agenda. As does Erick. While in the past he has tolerated some variance in opinion by his contributors, that band of tolerance has not been without its exceptions. At RS there comes a point where the internal debate is considered ended and the wagons circle around a particular candidate, whoever the candidate happens to be at the time. They come and go like the flavors of the month at Baskin Robbins.

What is most troubling about Erick's attitude, however, is the sheer hypocrisy. RedState has its double standards. Case in point: Your editor got into a discussion with Joshua Trevino, a RS co-founder and still a big friend of that site's Powers That Be. Trevino is a Perry supporter fan. That's right, just as RedState paints all Palin supporters with the double-wide "fan" brush, I'll return the "favor." My discussion with Trevino was conducted via Twitter, which admittedly is not the ideal vehicle for political debate, but what happened was quite revealing. After Trevino criticized Sarah Palin, and I returned fire with a remark equally critical of Rick Perry, I asked Trevino if he would simply admit that all candidates should be vetted. His response was to call me a "cultist," pronouce me "boring" and refuse to engage in any further discussion.

And there you have the double standard which reduces otherwise thoughtful people to rank hypocrites. My definition of a cultist, politically speaking, is a devoted follower of a candidate who will not tolerate any discussion of that candidate's merits. Criticize Sarah Palin, and most of her supporters will argue with you, usually citing her record chapter and verse. Criticize Rick Perry, and his followers will cut off the discussion, call you names, pick up their marbles and stomp off in a snit. Now I ask you, who are the real cultists?

Dan Riehl's terse commentary:

Pretty ironic for Erickson to hold Palin responsible for her fans, when he repeatedly claims to not even be responsible for what's posted on a blog he edits. But then, I don't expect consistency there.

And John Nolte's observation via Twitter:

NEVER seen prominent Palin supporter lash out in such undermining way against fellow GOP'r. #FlamingHypocrisy.

Update: Professor William Jacobson weighs in:

So yes, I do take it personally when conservatives lash out at Palin not because of her policy positions or what she’s done or not done in her career, but with personal invective.

It’s not religion, its a cold hard understanding of what is to come, and how those who call Palin a diva or a tease or any of the other names coming from media conservatives do damage to us all. Palin is simply the test case for how the Republican nominee, whoever that person may be, will be treated, and we pile on her at our own peril.

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Simply by waiting to announce, Palin has driven media conservatives mad. It all seems so familiar.

The nonsense coming from Coulter and Erickson and others is why I am not overly optimistic about 2012, regardless of what the polls now show. We are our own worst enemies.

- JP