Born to Lose

My wife is a political news show junkie, and on Sundays in our house we have two or three hours of nonstop pundit programming on whilst I putter around. Once in a while something sinks in, like the following.

The observation was that the worst thing that could actually happen to the extreme right advocacy groups would be to win all their issues. This flies in the face of left-leaning conventional wisdom, but is worth thinking about. The issues keep the money rolling in, not victory, and at bottom the lobbies are in a business, not on a crusade.

The context of the remark was the emerging realisation that whatever the Supreme Court does to Roe v. Wade will fall far short of criminalising abortion. We can go on from there to infer that the lobbies and what Mark Shields calls the "Republican punditocracy" are setting Roberts and Alito (or whoever) up to fail. They may curb. They may restrict. They will certainly hedge and waffle, but they won't make abortion illegal. Whatever their spiritual religion, the political religion of strict construction makes the idea of demolishing precedent to that extent anathema. It would be hardly less horrifying to claim such power for the national government. A Roe response with brake pads will genuinely enrage the true believers, and will bring a warm smile to the faces of the lobbyists who stand by with their ever larger collection baskets.

This is one more reason why engagement with the more extreme people of faith is not the only option for progressives, and may not even be the right option. That Sunday pundit view, probably correct, screams "wedge." I would jump all over it. I would pin the label of hypocritical opportunism on all the right-wing lobbies and pundits, make the conclusion inescapable for the fanatical masses and donors: you are being used by people who, from your pastor on up, do not want you to win any issue, ever. They only want you to keep bankrolling an endless struggle and its 90 percent overhead rate.

Engagement has never defused religious fanaticism. What defuses it are the forces of emotional exhaustion and disillusionment. Those are the cards for progressives to play.