Erick Erickson

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“”The difference between people who believe in the 2nd coming of Jesus and those who believe in global warming is that Jesus will return.

—Erick Erickson, getting it wrong on both counts

Erick Erickson is the managing editor of the conservative blogging platform RedState (Where everything is slavery.).

A leader in grassroots conservatism thanks to his frank rhetoric and willingness to fundraise, he has become an important figure in the Republican Party during the Obama Presidency, rising to prominence in 2009 and 2010.

In real life

Erickson was a city councilman in Macon, Georgia, which made him more directly involved in politics than most bloggers. It also gave observers a chance to gauge his opinions in a real world setting, as in September 2009 when around 130 Macon policemen attempted to unionize. In his response, Erick son of Erick speculated about the possibility of dissolving the police department entirely in retribution, contracting with the local sheriff for law enforcement.

Unfortunately, Erickson also missed almost half of the full council meetings in 2010, as well as numerous committee meetings. In January 2011, Erickson announced his intention to resign his position before the end of his first term. So much for Puritan work ethic.

SWAT-ting

In May, 2012, someone called the Bibbs County Sheriff, claiming to be Erickson, and claiming to have shot Mrs. Erickson — the Police responded accordingly, and discovered this was a tasteless prank. This was a stupid idea, neither funny nor legal. The fool that pulled this only fed Erick Erickson's persecution complex and made his critics look very bad.

On the Internet

RedState is Erickson's main platform for disseminating his views. The site has many columnists and moderators. Despite Erickson's claimed libertarian sympathies, dissenting opinions are suppressed. Through Red State, Erickson has initiated several campaigns of note.

Operation Leper

Erickson's first project was a joint operation with Michelle Malkin. The Operation was aimed at "tracking down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against then-Governor Palin to Carl Cameron and others… It is our expressed intention to make these few people political lepers." The "Operation" promptly went nowhere and was more or less forgotten by the time his next project rolled around.

Strike Force

By 2009 Erickson had realized that real change would require him to harness the full power of his web community. With that in mind, he created set up the Red State Wolverines Strike Force. Members of the Force would periodically receive assignments from Erickson himself. The first "mission" was a simple request to vote for Red State as "Best Conservative Blog" in the 2008 Weblog Awards, a mission carried out with great skill by the members.

Most subsequent missions involved the Force members buying and sending random tchotchkes to politicians, including Silly Putty eggs, rubber balls and bags of rock salt. Erickson failed to mention that all the purchase links go through his Amazon page, meaning he profited from his "missions".

Tragic: The Gathering

Seeing the success of large scale meet-ups like YearlyKos/Netroots Nation, Erickson attempted to organize his own meeting, dubbed the Red State Army Gathering The event was moderately successful… in that it attracted about 1/6th as many attendees as the first YearlyKos.

On CNN

That's right. Erickson spent almost three years as a commentator on CNN, eventually departing to join more like-minded individuals at Fox News. He admitted that "before I went to CNN I was oblivious to the fact that there are ways to say things, without sacrificing or compromising my view or principle, that come off as more respectable and honest without invective than how I might have otherwise said them... CNN made me mindful of that."

Someone at CNN was probably fired for this.^{[citation NOT needed]}

Influence in the 2012 presidential election

RedState (which is ultimately controlled by Erickson) maintains an editorial policy of "conservative in the primary and the Republican in the general". In practice, this means editors and readers spew lunacy about their preferred candidate and obsess over ideological purity, then fall in line once their social betters have picked the most palatable candidate.

Erick Erickson was less than thrilled with Mitt Romney's "inevitability" and until the bitter end, endorsed fellow Georgian Newt Gingrich for the 2012 Republican nomination.

On the campaign trail, Romney tried Erickson's "47 percent of Americans don't pay taxes" canard, and it only made people like Romney less. It would seem that Erick Erickson and his ideas are only clever inside his echo chamber.

In the wake of the 2012 Vice-Presidential Debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, Erickson made various whiny remarks about moderator Martha Raddatz, prompting CNN talking-head Soledad O'Brien to reply, "you have lost your mind."

Although Mitt Romney lost, some of Erickson's favored Tea Party candidates won, such as Ted Cruz, now a US Senator for Texas.

Influence in the 2014 mid-term election

Erickson has decried one Florida Congressional candidate named Jake Rush who was challenging tea party incumbent Ted Yoho. The reason? Insufficient piety, as evidenced by Rush's passion for live-action roleplaying.

Influence in the 2016 election

In 2016, Erickson -- deeply concerned about how Trump's "imorrality" and "deviancy" was contrasting with his conservative Christian values -- became one of the more prominent pundits of the "Never Trump" conservative movement... even banning Trump from a Red State Gathering after Trump made tasteless remarks concerning Megyn Kelly's menstrual cycle.

Influence in the 2020 election

In 2019, Erickson -- deeply concerned about liberal boogeymen or something -- endorsed Donald Trump.

Religion

Jesus only wanted us to care for poor Christians. How does Erickson know? Cutting aid programs that help all poor people is quite acceptable to Erickson.

Radio Show on WSB

As if Atlanta traffic isn't bad enough and doesn't make you want to end your life for being stuck in it, someone at WSB Radio apparently think we haven't suffered enough and gave Erickson an afternoon radio show called "Atlanta's Evening News With Erick Erickson." Erickson delivers a disorganized mess of a show where he doesn't have anything written down nor notes and you can only conclude he got this gig because he plays golf with the owner of WSB or something. He proceeds to regurgitate his tired conservatism and blasts Democrats for the entirety of the show and calls that 'news.' There should be a study on abandoned cars on the side of the road and listeners to the radio show and see if the two correlate.

Oh, and if you were waiting for the quotes

When dealing with an intellect of the caliber of Mr. Erickson, it's often best to let his own words speak for themselves. The following is a greatest hits collection of Erickson's wit and wisdom. (For more, just read the titles of his blog posts.)

• "If the right were to blame for the tragedy at the Holocaust Museum, Markos Moulitsas, Keith Olbermann, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama must be positively scrubbing the blood off their hands after the tragic murder of Pvt. Long in Arkansas last week and wounding of Pvt. Quentin Ezeagwula. I’m surprised leftwing bloggers can type with all the blood on their hands."

• "In fact, exit polling by and large shows that John Edwards, by staying in the race, is taking votes that would otherwise typically go to Barack Obama. Is this a racist ploy? Is John Edwards in league with the Clintons to make sure white voters, who don't want to vote for Clinton, have a white alternative to go to, lest Barack Obama get more traction?"

• "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news. There is no way Barack Obama earned it in the nominations period."

• "Van Jones was just a black guy. With a black President, resources did not need to be brought to bear to defend him. Kevin Jennings, however, is not just a gay man, but a man who believes in the full gay rights agenda, where men and boys can have sexual relationships free of prudish moral people frowning."

• "Sarah Palin is disdained because she had a Down Syndrome child and all the forty something first time moms dropping their kids off (assuming it’s not the nanny doing it) at Birch Wathen Lenox, Trinity, and Dwight before going to work at their six-figure jobs know that smart women abort Down Syndrome babies — there’s a great clinic in SoHo where you can shop fashionably before the 'procedure'."

• "As the Clintons and their supporters continue their destruction of the Democratic Party, we see the latest salvo fired from the thighs of ugly nags. From the nether regions that see no men, New York's National Association of Gals is out bashing Teddy Kennedy for endorsing Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton."

• (In reference to new laundry detergent regulations) "At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?"

• "What gives the Commerce Department the right to ask me how often I flush my toilet? Or about going to work? I'm not filling out this form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail. I dare them to. Pull out my wife's shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door. They're not going on my property."

• "The nation loses the only goat fucking child molester to ever serve on the Supreme Court in David Souter's retirement."

• Erick Eriskon commenting on a Pew pol that found that female breadwinners make up 40% of American households with children: “I’m so used to liberals telling conservatives that they’re anti-science. But liberals who defend this and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology — when you look at the natural world — the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it’s not antithesis, or it’s not competing, it’s a complimentary [sic] role.” His comments display profound ignorance on the natural world and many complexities of gender roles (humans alone also have hugely varied gender expectations throughout cultures). When faced with criticism he responded with this: "Many feminist and emo lefties have their panties in a wad over my statements in the past 24 hours about families."

• "The left has decided anyone who wears a Make America Great Again cap is de facto racist. They don’t judge people based on the color of their skin, but on the color of their caps trading one bigotry for another." Never mind that the public behavior of those wearing MAGA hats shows it to be practically the modern equivalent of wearing Klan robes.

See also

• Proll
• Red state
• Wingnut welfare

External links

• Red State
• A very uncomfortable interview with Howard Kurtz - Highly recommended