Why Daily Kos represents the ugly triumph of market forces

In All the President's Spin, we argued that liberals are rapidly following conservatives into the rhetorical sewer. Here's more evidence that we were right -- Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the editor of Daily Kos, making a series of feeble-minded comparisons between American conservatives and the Taliban:

Funny how the wingers try to claim American liberals are in league with crazy fundamentalist Muslims.

Reality is, we hate everything Islamic fundamentalism stands for. On the other hand, the Dobson's of the Republican Party -- you know, the people running the show -- have far more in common with the enemy than they'd ever like to admit.

Religion in government

Al Qaida/Taliban: One and the same
American Taliban: One and the same
Liberals: Separation of church and state

Schools

Al Qaida/Taliban: Religious indoctrination. Run by clergy.
American Taliban: School prayer. Religious indoctrination (creationism and "intelligent design"). Private religious school system.
Liberals: Leave religious teachings to parents and sunday school.

Women

Al Qaida/Taliban: No school, must cover entire body, no rights
American Taliban: Government control over reproductive freedoms, hostility to Title IX, hostility to working women
Liberals: Equality of the sexes

Religious freedom

Al Qaida/Taliban: 'Think like us, or we'll whip you and/or chop off your head'
American Taliban: 'Think like us, or we'll condemn you to hell'
Liberals: To each her own

Homosexuality

Al Qaida/Taliban: Eradicate them from society
American Taliban: Eradicate them from society
Liberals: Equality under the law

You guys can take it from here.

Update (from the comments):

Torture

Al Qaida/Taliban: Torture them or chop off their heads
American Taliban: Torture them or homosexually rape them.
Liberals: No torture

Medicine and Science

Al Qaida/Taliban: Faith-based world view
American Taliban: Faith-based world view
Liberals: Reality-based community

Sadly, this is just the latest in a long string of comparisons between domestic political figures and the Taliban since 9/11.

There's an important analogy here to the way that the Internet has broken down barriers protecting groups like travel agents from competition. Before the Internet, latent demand for demagogic liberal punditry that wasn't being met because most of the so-called "liberals" in the press were Washington types who play by the rules of the mainstream media. The Internet has broken down these barriers to competition, enabling Kos and Atrios (among others) to meet the demand for partisan rants like these, and as a result they have become exceptionally popular and influential in left-liberal politics. (Conservative ranters like Powerline, Little Green Footballs, etc. have also come to the fore, but there were already mainstream conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh who were meeting that demand.)

In general, The American Prospect, The New Republic, and other more establishment publications have not gone down the same road as Kos et al, and as a result have lost a lot of influence. Look at this Alexa.com comparison of the traffic of Daily Kos vs. The American Prospect Online -- it's not even close. Same with Kos vs. TNR.

And as Jay Hamilton points out in his excellent book All the News That's Fit to Sell, the same type of process has occurred in the news media. Barriers to entry and subsidies from parent corporations allowed journalists to produce highbrow network newscasts in the 1950s and 1960s, but increasing competition from other outlets has pushed them heavily in the infotainment direction. Coverage of politics in newspapers has shifted toward an infotainment model as well.

Unfortunately, when consumers speak in the media business, democracy rarely wins.

PS: This reminds me of something I wanted to point out from a couple of weeks ago. Garance Franke-Ruta, a senior editor for The American Prospect (who I met once in Washington and seems like a nice person), recently issued a similarly nasty charge on Tapped, suggesting that President Bush has intentionally failed to capture Osama Bin Laden:

Instead of attacking the patriotism of liberal victims of 9-11, Rove and the president should focus on catching bin Laden. The United States defeated Adolf Hitler's army and the Italian fascists in three and a half years, but nearly four years after we got hit by Al-Qaeda, bin Laden is still at large and there appears to be no concerted effort to find him, even though CIA chief Porter Goss recently said we have "an excellent idea" where he is.

Why is that? Has America become less capable of military victory since World War II? Or was it that Franklin Delano Roosevelt unified the nation behind a determined course of action to defeat our common enemy, while Bush has preferred to divide the nation, undermine the strength of our armed forces, and let our enemy roam free?

Hopefully this isn't a sign that the Prospect is going in the same direction as Kos...

Comments

[Foo Bar]

I think you're wrong to imply the success of DailyKos is simply due to Markos's rhetoric. The key to that site is the collaborative aspect of it. Anyone can post not just comments but longer essays (diaries), and there's a collaborative filtering system in place which allows everyone to vote on which diaries are best. The best ones get highlighted in the "Recommended Diaries" section and end up getting read by a lot of people (the ones in the Recommended section typically get at least 100 comments or so from other readers). Imagine the kick you'd get out of it if you got 100 comments on one of your blog posts (no offense to you personally- anyone other than the top handfull of bloggers would get a big kick out of it). Landing a diary in the Recommended section is a big thrill and a big motivator for people to write interesting stuff. So there is always lots and lots of new content on the site (there's a new diary by someone every few minutes), and while of course a lot of it is neither interesting nor well-written, some of it is, and the system for choosing the Recommended diaries does a decent job of highlighting that stuff. I don't dispute that some of the stuff on that site does not represent the best of the left wing, of course.

[rone]

While it's difficult to be privy to the government's plans, the Bush Administration's efforts in Iraq seem to leave very little resources left for any other serious endeavors. While he might not have intentionally "let our enemy roam free", his allocation of effort is effectively a shirking of duty.

[matt]

You must be unfamiliar with the Christian Reconstructionist movement (RJ Rushdoony, Gary North, et al) who wish to do away with the Constitution and institute their idea of "Biblical Law." A review of these peoples' beliefs makes the comparison with the Taliban not so strained as you believe.

[zac]

matt,
if you read the Daily Kos post that Brendan refers to in his excellent article, you'll see that Kos is referring specifically to the main people in charge of the Republican party. The Christian Reconstructionist movement that you refer to, in all likelihood, is a fringe group. Indeed, does this particular "movement" control the Republican party referred to by Kos? No. To say that the Christian Reconstructionist movement represents the whole of conservative thinking or the current Republican leadership would be like saying the Communist party in America represents the thoughts of liberals and the Democrats in this country.

Anyway, Brendan's analysis is correct. Kos' comparison of the Republican leadership to the Taliban is outrageous. Under the Taliban, priceless centuries-old statues were demolished, people were executed in some instances by having walls dropped on them, civil liberties were severely curtailed), and women were treated deplorably (for example, you remove any of your veil and you could be whipped). Kos comparing these actions those of Republicans is insulting and continues the gradual degradation of political discourse in America.

Finally, if one looks closely at the comparisons made by Kos between the Taliban and the Republican leadership, his analysis falls apart. For example, his statement that the "American Taliban" (aka the Republican leadership)is hostile to working women is utterly ridiculous. Has Kos heard of "Condaleeza Rice"? And while Kos is making gross overgeneralization about conservatives, one could easily do the same for liberals. For instance, Kos says that for "schools", liberals advocate leaving religion to parents while the "American Taliban" advocate religious indoctrination. However, one could easily (and foolhardedly) state that liberals do a little indoctrinating of their own in our schools and universities, namely brainwashing students with political correctness and liberal ideals.

[jami]

nyhan, you have a great blog, but there's nothing wrong with pointing out that people with undue influence in the republican party want women subservient in a manner reminiscent of the taliban. there's something wrong with not pointing it out in the name of "decency."