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Is the Most Powerful Conservative in America Losing His Edge? Erick Erickson built his career on stoking populist rage. But now the man who steers the Tea Party says conservative anger has grown toxic and self-defeating rick Erickson—the editor in chief of RedState.com, a right-wing pundit whom Democrats loathe and Republicans fear, a man known for his intemperate remarks, and arguably the most powerful conservative in America today—eats his chicken wings with a fork and knife. To be clear, the wings Erickson ordered when I visited him in Macon, Georgia, last May were boneless wings, which are really glorified chicken nuggets. Erickson, a fastidious man who dislikes getting his hands messy with finger food, apologized for not taking me to a more authentic local restaurant—“one of Macon’s meat-and-three places” (where you get a choice of three sides to go with a serving of meat). But he had promised his 5-year-old son, Gunnar, a serving of the smiley-face fries at the Wild Wing Cafe. So there we were, at a beer-and-wings chain in a characterless exurban mall. “Father, we ask you to bless this meal,” Erickson said, elbows propped on the table, hands clenched, head bowed as we prepared to dig in. Advertisement Over the past decade, Erickson, who is 39, has emerged as a driving force behind the Tea Party. In addition to serving as RedState’s editor, he is a paid contributor to Fox News, a syndicated newspaper columnist, and the drive-time host on Atlanta-based WSB, the nation’s fourth-largest talk-radio station. He was a CNN contributor from 2010 to 2013, and he occasionally guest-hosts Rush Limbaugh’s syndicated radio show. Limbaugh, in turn, often cites RedState. When I visited Erickson in Macon, he welcomed me into his home and showed me around his city. A chubby, neatly dressed man of medium height, he has spiky strawberry-blond hair, narrow eyes, and a grin that scrunches up his broad face. He was an easy conversationalist, jovial and unguarded, with an eagerness to put others at ease that helped explain why so many people spend hours in their cars listening to him. Above all, he was polite. Which was interesting, because Erickson is famous for saying things that are not polite. There was the time, in 2009, when he called retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter a “goat fucking child molester.” During the Occupy protests, he said his heart was gladdened by “watching a hippie protester get Tased.” He nicknamed Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator, “Abortion Barbie.” And in a blog post considering whether President Obama was “shagging hookers,” he called Michelle Obama a “marxist harpy” who “would go Lorena Bobbit [sic] on him should he even think about it.” (The press, Erickson wrote, wouldn’t care: Obama “could be a serial killing transvestite and the media would turn a blind eye.”) His attacks sting most when aimed, as they often are, at fellow Republicans he sees as too ready to compromise. In 2009, for example, he claimed that then–Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had “lost his testicles” and called on his readers to send the senator “balls.” Erickson later reported that more than 100 toy balls had been sent to the senator’s office using the Amazon link he’d provided. “Nationally, people think of me as a Tea Party person, and I am,” Erickson told me. “But in Georgia, the Tea Party can’t stand me.” The local movement, he explained, is dominated by libertarian followers of former Congressman Ron Paul, and Erickson has opposed many of its chosen candidates. Erickson’s conservatism is of a more traditional bent, deeply informed by his evangelical faith. He believes Republicans must not yield in pursuit of small government, strong national defense, and the primacy of the traditional family. Erickson sounded almost gleeful as he told me about the Tea Party hating him. He seems to delight in confounding expectations, and in almost every way, he refuses to be pigeonholed: he is a southerner who defines himself by his small-town sensibility, but he spent most of his childhood in Dubai. He speaks for the conservative grass roots, but he pals around with cable-news regulars and Beltway elites. He’s a strict no-compromises ideologue, but during his one foray into elected office, he was a model of bipartisan cooperation. Erickson dismisses criticism of his vulgar taunts as pearl-clutching by politically correct prigs with no sense of humor. (Offensive as some of his comments may be, he makes them in a tone of mockery, not spit-flying rage.) But he also has grown more reflective in the past year, at times even calling out his own readers and listeners for their excesses. In August, he wrote, “I increasingly find conflict between my faith and some conservative discourse.” He cited the right-wing furor over undocumented minors, Ebola, and the protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Shortly after I visited him in Georgia, he announced that he had been accepted to the Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta, to pursue—part-time, between radio broadcasts—a master’s degree in biblical studies. He told me about a man who had come up to him to rant about immigrants ruining schools and neighborhoods. “I’m like, ‘Why are you so angry?’ ” He thinks conservatives suffer from a persecution complex. “I hear it in radio. I see it in comments at RedState and in e-mail and on Twitter. When you as a conservative go out there and pound your fist on the table and say, ‘They’re coming to get me,’ who wants to say, ‘Yeah, I’m coming to your side’? I mean, be happy!” Don’t you get angry?, I asked. Well, sure, he said: at Republicans, for not keeping their promises; at the president, for not doing his job; at the political system. But he explained that he was pointing to something more pervasive. “What I mean is that conservatives are in a constant state of hair-on-fire, yelling anger,” he said—a toxic mind-set that prevents them from seeing straight. “That anger has spread outside the normal bounds of political issues into everything” from the food they eat to the movies they watch. This didn’t sound anything like the Erick Erickson people think of as Limbaugh Lite, and some have begun to wonder whether he has changed. Could he be mellowing as he nears middle age? Perhaps success—going from a little-known, unpaid blogger to a major power broker on the right—has taken some of the fire out of his belly. Maybe he’s even ready, as Republicans assume control of the Senate, to adopt a more conciliatory approach. Don’t let his smile fool you. Sounds like this guy has a mouth worse than Trumps....if this is the case, Trump doesn't need this type of trash around him...and a friend of Rush's....hummmm that doesn't fit with what the type of person we have believed what Rush is....

ops sorry about no paragraphs....

http://www.theatlantic.com/

Blah, blah, blah... dear Erick, while you were not looking, the rules changed.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww....................

He wodden’t nice to the girrrrrrllll...................

FOR GOD’S SAKE, GROW A PAIR, YOU JERKS!!!!

Did you forget Trump’s attack on her POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, and the PUPLIC’S RESPONSE?????

Are you all NUTS???

Stop treating her like a widdle girrrrl!!! SHE’S NOT!!

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww....................

He wodden’t nice to the girrrrrrllll...................

FOR GOD’S SAKE, GROW A PAIR, YOU JERKS!!!!

Did you forget Trump’s attack on her POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, and the PUPLIC’S RESPONSE?????

Are you all NUTS???

Stop treating her like a widdle girrrrl!!! SHE’S NOT!!

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww....................

He wodden’t nice to the girrrrrrllll...................

FOR GOD’S SAKE, GROW A PAIR, YOU JERKS!!!!

Did you forget Trump’s attack on her POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, and the PUPLIC’S RESPONSE?????

Are you all NUTS???

Stop treating her like a widdle girrrrl!!! SHE’S NOT!!