The Rush Dilemma

Publius' post is so good I reproduce it below, in entirety. Rush Lambaugh is a shock jock and the Republican Party is the loyal opposition and their interests aren't exactly the same, as displayed this week:

Have to admit – I’m sort of fascinated with Rush Limbaugh these days. Terribleness aside, it’s been fascinating to see his revival in the mainstream news of late. And yes, his revival is a problem for Republicans – but not for the reason you think.

The GOP’s “Rush Problem” isn’t that he’s too extreme – it’s that Rush fundamentally doesn’t give a damn about whether the GOP succeeds. In fact, he personally benefits more if it doesn’t.

There were lots of happy people on the night of November 4, 2008. I was happy. Oprah was happy. The guy Oprah was using as a chair seemed happy (perhaps he was offered a car or free book). But let me tell you who the happiest soul in America was – Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh is an entertainer. Period. Full Stop. Steele was right about that. He’s not a policy guy – he’s not a party guy. He’s a glorified – though very successful – shock jock. He wants to cause outrages. He craves press – negative press; positive press; it doesn’t matter. Basically, any attention for him – in any form – is a good thing.

For this reason, his incentives are completely different from the institutional GOP’s. To be frank, he has more professional incentives to root for the Democrats than for the Republicans. It’s much easier to shock and rabble rouse in the opposition. You don’t have to pull punches. You are free to play up the persecution complex so central to the Rush bloc of the GOP.

That said, he is of course conservative. And I’m sure he truly hates liberals with every fiber of his being. So it’s not so much that he's personally rooting for Democrats. It’s more that he really doesn’t give a s*** about whether he’s helping Republicans or not. That isn't his concern. His concern is getting press. And that’s why he secretly relishes the attention Obama and Rahm have already given him.

That’s also why it’s completely foolish for the GOP to try to distance themselves from him. Better to just completely ignore him. Frankly, it's a no-win situation. If they embrace him, that’s of course bad because he’s smelly and odious. If they distance themselves from him, however, they create headlines and open themselves to Rush's on-air attacks (which, in turn, create more headlines...).

Poor Michael Steele is a great example. He jumped in the fray, and has been forced to give a humiliating apology to a man who's secretly frolicking in all the headlines the spat has caused. I'm sure Rush was deeply deeply offended by the comments.

The Steele incident, though, shows precisely how Rush’s skewed incentives come into play. If Rush were truly invested in the GOP, he wouldn’t devote a show to attacking Steele. But that’s not his thing – that’s not his essence. He’s an attention-seeking entertainer. So he feels completely free to light into Steele and hope for more publicity. And if those attacks hurt the GOP’s cause, well, he doesn’t really care because he has no professional incentive to care.

It’s similar to a central idea in Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit.” “Bullshit,” Frankfurt explains, isn’t conscious lying, but indifference to the truth. That’s sort of how Rush operates. He isn’t consciously trying to hurt the GOP through extreme statements and high-profile fights. He’s just indifferent to their effect. If they help the GOP, fine. If they don’t, that's fine too. The key is getting attention.

It’s better, then, for the GOP to avoid Rahm’s trap and just ignore Rush altogether. The mere act of discussing him is to necessarily be losing, regardless of what you're saying.