Jim Derych is a fellow Memphis resident and former dittohead. He has written a book on his change from loyal dittohead to progressive that has now been published by IG Publishing and he is now blogging for The Huffington Post. Several weeks ago, he graciously agreed to do an interview. Unfortunately, illness and family commitments kept me from posting it, until now.

1) What was the purpose behind the book? Do you see this as a kind of satire or do you see this as a description of a useful means of reaching across political divides.
Actually it was a lot simpler than that. I was really just writting for my dad. Dad’s still a dittohead, and he kinda got blindsided by my ‘conversion.’ I never really talked to him all the little things that had changed my political opinions over the years. I write in my book about the day I was going to tell him. I was at the Denver airport, and I felt really strongly about telling him right then and there. But before I could get it out he told me he was going to have heart surgery in a few weeks. That trumped my news, and I decided maybe now wasn’t the time to talk about it. Months later when he finally finds out, it really comes at him from out of nowhere. He was fine with it, it was just a shock. So I started blogging over at Daily Kos just to get my thoughts together thinking “maybe I can print all these out and give them to my dad so he can see where I’m coming from.” That was the genesis of what eventually became ‘the book.’
Of course, now that it’s a book my intentions have evolved somewhat. I don’t really see my book as being an effective roadmap for converting all dittoheads. What worked for me isn’t going to work for a lot of other people. What I hope it will accomplish is to give folks a view into the dittohead mind. While the book is definitely sartorial, I think it can be useful in as a “How to talk to a dittohead: and you must” kind of resource.

2) Since you are a former dittohead, what triggered your conversion? Are you now as far left as you once were far right, or has it been a more subtle a shift? Was there anything leftist candidates could have done to trigger your conversion earlier or helped speed the process along?
I’m going to answer the second part of your question when I answer question 4. They’re the same answer, and sadly it’s ‘no’, but I’ll explain more later. The actual literal moment of my conversion was on February 25, 2004. That was when Bush announced his support for the Federal Marriage Ammendment. By that point I considered myself fiscally conservative but socially I was pretty liberal. I had alwasy thought that the social issues were off the table as far as Bush was concerned. Like he was just giving the Religious Right lip service. He threw them some cash with his ‘Faith Based Initiative’ program, but I thought surely he wasn’t going to muck around with abortion and gay marriage. Sadly I was wrong. That was the day I left the party.
But to say that the FMA was the Alpha and Omega of my conversion is like saying all of WWI was fought to avenge the death of Archduke Ferdinand. It was an important event to be sure, but if it had happened 10 years before it wouldn’t have triggered anything. Ten years ago my political leanings were ‘anti-gay’ to say the least. Ten years later I see that homosexuals really aren’t the boogeymen Rush portrayed them as. That ‘trigger’ was just the right thing at the right time in my life as a conservative, and it was the moment when I realized I had to get off the bus.
3) Can you describe your writing process?
Yeah, it’s moody, tempermental, and a real pain in the ass. It’s like my ability to write is this totally seperate living creature that I don’t really have any control over. Some days I can write for hours, some days I can’t write a complete sentence. I don’t know when it’s going to strike, or why, or how to get it to stop or start. I am a slave to it’s whims.
4) Do you believe that the Democratic party can reach dittoheads without substantially changing its positions?
This is a good question, but it’s also kind of the wrong question. If the question is ‘can Democrats reach dittoheads’, then the answer is no because of Rush’s ability to control what his audience thinks of the other side. Rush defines for his listeners what it means to be a Democrat. Needless to say he does not paint a pretty picture. Dittoheads think of Democrats as being simple-minded do-gooders with no grasp of reality.
Truth be told I was probably politically a Democrat for a year or two before I could come to terms with it. I kept telling myself, “well, I don’t agree with this Republican platform or that Republican platform, but that doesn’t make me a Democrat…does it?…No! I can’t be one of THEM!” It’s sort of like the Emperor’s New Clothes. “Only stupid people are Democrats. You’re not a stupid person, are you!?”
5) What would you describe as general characteristics of a dittohead? Do you see any of those characteristics in people who listen to leftist talk radio?
While dittoheads are not homogenous, there are a couple of things that they all have in common. First and foremost they believe in a liberal bias in the mainstream media. There isn’t one, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the Santa Claus of the modern day dittohead. Secondly, they believe that tax cuts increase federal revenue. This one’s also false, and Bush has proven it to be false, but I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard dittoheads say “You know, Bush cut taxes in 2001, and federal revenues went up just like they always do!” And third, they all seem to believe that the free market is the most moral institution in the universe. Free markets aren’t moral or immoral, they’re amoral. It’s like a wheel in the mud. Sometimes it’s lifting you up into the light, and other times it’s crushing you into the mud. And as an individual you don’t have much of an ability to control the wheel.
Folks who listen to leftist radio don’t seem to have this level of unit cohesion. We’re more like a herd of cats. Some folks think corporations are evil, some are worried sick over the environment, and for others social issues are the most important driver of their vote. About the only thing we can all agree on is that we’re clearly going the wrong way right now. This makes us seem like a party lacking ‘core values’, but what it actually means is that we’re the party of honest debate. When something doesn’t work, we’ll work together to find something else that does.
6) Do you see dittoheadedness as a function of Limbaugh, or will it continue past his retirement?
Oh, this thing’s got a life of its own now. It will definitely continue past his retirement, but I think we’ve already seen the peak of its influence. When Rush started he joked all the time about what he called the ridiculous and hysterical exaggerated characterizations that liberals had of conservatives. “They think we want to poison children, and make the poor slaves to the rich, and destroy the earth! It’s absurd!” Fifteen years later what’s Rush saying? “Democrats want Al Qaeda to destroy America! They want American troops to die in Iraq just to prove Bush wrong! Every time a baby isn’t aborted they cringe at a missed opportunity!” He’s basically become everything that he despised back in ’92, and I think you’ll start to see his audience and his influence wane.
7) How do the popularity of Bush and Limbaugh interact? Is Limbaugh popular because he expresses the base’s support for Bush, or is Bush popular because Limbaugh gives him his stamp of approval?
This may sound like I’m conceding Rush too much power, but I think Rush really legitimizes the President to his audience. Without Rush, W is definitely a one-termer, and possibly even a no-termer. I’d go a step further and say that Rush is the reason Bush 41 lost his reelection bid. He was constantly running 41 down, saying that he blew the Gulf War by not overthrowing Saddam (how’s THAT going?), and of course he betrayed the sacred trust of all conservatives by raising taxes. Rush had all kinds of doom and gloom predictions for what would happen to the economy after “the biggest tax increase in the history of mankind.” None of it came true, but he harped on it so much that I think he sent dittohead voters to Perot in droves.
8) The GOP coalition has tensions between libertarians, social conservatives, and corporate conservatives. How are those tensions reflected in Limbaugh’s audience and how does Limbaugh reconcile those tensions in his show?
Rush doesn’t reconcile anything on his show. It’s very much a “this is what I believe, and it’s what you SHOULD believe if you’re not dumber than a bag of rocks” kind of presentation. Corporate conservatives and social conservatives have very little tension between them, because their goals aren’t mutually exclusive. But the libertarian thing I don’t get so much. They’ve had to shrug off a pretty big assault on civil liberties and an unprecedented growth in the size and intrusiveness of government. About the only thing propping them up is the idea “well, this sucks, but it’s still better than anything the DEMOCRATS have to offer!” Again, that’s on Rush because he makes the other side seem so absurd.