Seven years ago Erick Erickson took the reins at RedState to transform the conservative blog into one of the most influential sources of news on the right. He’s led online activists to challenge Republicans and conservatives, unafraid to go to battle on a range of issues.
Today he hosts the Erick Erickson Show on WSB Radio in Atlanta and frequently appears on CNN as a political contributor. He was in Washington this week for CPAC and hosted his radio show from Heritage’s Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio. We spoke to him for Scribecast.
Erickson discussed the state of the conservative movement, how online activism helped make it more principled, and the impact of organizations like Heritage Action for America.
Listen to the interview with Erick Erickson on this week’s Scribecast
Erickson addressed the ongoing debate over President Obama’s assault on religious liberty, which stems from Obamacare’s mandate on employers to offer birth control and abortion-inducing drugs.
“God bless the president. He’s managed to do what no one else, including Jesus, was able to do. He has united, after 1,000 years, the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and united them with Muslims and Southern Baptists,” Erickson said. “That should tell the president he’s got a problem here.”
And while he frequently clashes with Obama on a range of policy issues, Erickson also isn’t afraid to criticize conservatives or Republicans when he thinks they’re wrong.
“I’ve always viewed my role, and the role of the conservative movement, is to tell Republicans what true north is as far as conservatism, and then let the politicians decide how far they have to deviate from true north to get a coalition. I think they deviate much farther than they need to.”
Photo used under Creative Commons from gageskidmore.
