(and might even be libertarian or conservative)
When I picked up my copy of Rachel Maddow's first book, Drift, I knew perfectly well I would be reading a book I'd mostly love. Everyone who currently knows me knows I am a Maddowfan of the first degree. On her eponymous television show, Maddow often reflects views I've long held, and with a delivery similar to my own attempt at humorous snark, but she's miles better at communication than I will ever be. So I knew going in that Maddow wouldn't be saying much to contradict my own opinions. She'd just be saying it better, and with more forethought and direct, intense research (Maddow has been working on the book for several years).
But as I read Drift, I also came to realize that Rachel Maddow and I (and many of the Maddowfans I've met in the past two years on Twitter and elsewhere) aren't as liberal in some respects as even I thought we were. Maddow and I share an appreciation of the military, drawn in part from having been associated with people in it, and in part from an enthusiasm for American military history. We are not pacifists, but would use war far more judiciously than the American government traditionally has done.
We also share a distaste for government waste. (*Gasp!* Liberals are against government waste!) Just like everyone else, we don't want our tax dollars going down proverbial rabbit holes. We just have different opinions from conservatives about what our tax dollars should be doing. (Here I leave out the purest of libertarians, of whom there are truly few in my experience, who sincerely want government out of everything... but I will come back to them.) Traditionally, the conservative versus liberal spending priority debate could be summed up as "save our asses from (mostly) external communists and fascists" versus "save our asses from (mostly) internal poverty, ignorance, and institutionalized inequality." But unlike some of our more radical leftist "comrades" (wink wink), Maddow and I share an appreciation for a lean, mean, fighting machine. Those first two adjectives are the key. Defense = good. Military Industrial Complex (to use Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower's expression) = not good.
In Drift, Rachel Maddow outlines the history of that Military Industrial Complex (MIC) Eisenhower warned us about, in addition to that Imperial Presidency we so often hear told, and she pulls no partisan punches. While she describes the Reagan Administration's overreach in Panama, Granada, and Nicaragua in appalled detail, she begins her tale of MIC folly with the Johnson administration's political bumbling in Vietnam. She continues her harsh criticism of Democrat executives by explaining Bill Clinton's part in it, especially questioning his methods and decision to poltically sidestep some direct military action in the Balkans. She also does not hesitate to point out how President Obama has continued many, if not most, of Bush II's imperialist policies, and she calls out Democrat and Republican Congresses alike for what she calls "chickenshittery" in their unwillingness to put a stop to unnecessary MIC expansion. Rounding out the discussion, naturally, is her analysis of the Bush presidents' and MIC complicity in encouraging the MIC, especially the prolonged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In criticizing government treatment of the military during the past decade, she is quick to point out that less than 1% of the population of our country has been fighting these wars, complete with multiple deployments for most troops, leaving a different 99% than liberals usually discuss to largely ignore the pain of war and instead fight over the meaning of yellow ribbons displayed for people many of us don't even know.
On the back cover of the book, Fox News head Roger Ailes and liberal author Naomi Klein are both quoted recommending it. I think this says something about its reach. Even if it comes to conclusions with which various partisans disagree, Drift documents the history of the most important confluence of domestic and international policy: the modern history of the American military and how the executive has brandished it, and she documents it with nonpartisan panache and occasional (wry) humor. And even if libertarians are reluctant to agree with Rachel Maddow's previously-expressed opinions on use of the government's ability to tax, spend, and regulate, they are likely to find her commentary on military and MIC government spending to be largely aligned with their views.
I'd like to see all the smart people read this book. Drift should begin a discussion that is long overdue. I'm grateful my pundit-of-choice has decided to attempt to start it.
