Of late, there's been a great deal of talk about the political blogosphere. The Howard Dean phenomenon in 2003. The Draft Wesley Clark movement that same year. The Kerry campaign's fundraising power on the web during 2004. Paul Hackett's "netroots"-fueled near-victory over Jean Schmidt in August 2005. Ned Lamont and Jim Webb this year. The "Yearly Kos" convention, attended by top names in Democratic politics. Etc., etc. You get the picture.
The point is, there's a lot of buzz about blogs and the "netroots" these days. Some people think it's WAY overblown, and that blogs themselves are no more than shrill echo chambers filled with geeky misfits inhabiting the ideological fringes of their respective parties. Others believe that, if anything, the power of the "netroots" is UNDERSTATED and that online activists still don't get the respect they deserve. Personally, I see some truth in both arguments.
Today, there's an interesting article by The Guardian newspaper, reprinted in Common Dreams, that describes the situation as "a test of strength between the old way of doing politics built around a hierarchical party machine and the new campaigns fought by the so-called 'netroots'..." According to the Guardian:
For the time being, this conflict between old and new is being fought out principally inside the Democratic party. That is mostly because the Republicans went through a similar shake-up two decades ago, driven by more basic technology. Social conservatives used talk radio to put their stamp on the party, making abortion a litmus test for candidates, for instance. Rightwing bloggers are ploughing the same furrow and consequently having less of an impact. Meanwhile, the Republican establishment has quietly incorporated the other elements of the revolution, such as internet fundraising, into its arsenal.
I believe there's a lot of truth to this analysis. If nothing else, it helps to explain why the political blogosphere is so disproportionately Democratic. Apparently, conservatives like to get their news via TV and radio talk shows. Lots of screaming, lots of black and white, right or wrong, "my way or the highway." Very passive and emotional. Liberals, in contrast, prefer reading their news and interacting in a more hands-on, critical, intellectual fashion (with plenty of screaming matches thrown in just to keep things lively). The "reptilian brain" party vs. the "mammalian brain" party. Republicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Venus.
"Reptilians" can be very powerful, of course. The dinosaurs DID rule the earth for over 160 million years, after all. In comparison, homo sapiens has only been around for perhaps 200,000 years, a mere fraction of the dinosaurs. Still, we humans have far surpassed the power of the dinosaurs in the short time we've been around. Will the same happen with the internet?
To date, there's no doubt that talk radio and TV have played major roles in fueling the conservative movement in this country. Those media, I would argue, are uniquely tailored to the fear-mongering, oversimplication and distortion that conservatism thrives upon. Say it with me now: "ditto!" Rush and Fox uber alles.
So, the Republicans have TV and talk radio, pretty much. The newspapers are pretty much corporatized, buying into much of the Republican globalization philosophy but not their social conservative and theocratic agenda.
The Democrats, meanwhile, largely rule the internet. But what does that mean exactly? Specifically, the question that hasn't been answered as of yet is what impact the "netroots" will have on the Democratic Party. According to the Guardian article, "If the only lesson politicians draw from the Dean experience is that the web is a good place to raise money...they will fail to break through the apathy and cynicism of the electorate." Unfortunately, as of this moment, that appears to be the case to a large extent:
Arguably the most revolutionary part of the Dean experiment has not been embraced so enthusiastically by the politicians. It involved devolving real decision-making power to the activists, allowing them to have a say in setting the campaign agenda. For many Dean veterans, that devolution of power was what really energised the insurgency. They point out that Iowa, where the anti-war presidential bid collapsed, was one of the few states where they relied on a traditional campaign.
Where does this all leave us? I would argue that it's highly uncertain at the moment. As the Guardian writes, "[i]t is far from clear at this stage who has coopted whom - the blogosphere or the political establishment." What I'm asking myself is this: will the blogosphere lead to a true "new politics" in America - flatter, more democratic, more diffuse and distributed, more "open source," more "spherical?" Or, will the "same old, same old," party establishment coopt the netroots for its own purposes - fundraising mainly - while keeping ultimate control in the traditional, top-down, "pyramidal," closed way it always has?
In other words, with regard to the netroots and the Democratic Party, is it going to be "meet the new boss, same as the old boss?" Or, will this evolve into a powerful new synthesis taking the best of both worlds? Personally, I strongly prefer the latter option. But for now, who knows?
We still have a long way to go from the rigid top-down old power structure that is still prevalent in the Democratic party and particularly in DC.
The internet has revolutionized communications as much as the telephone or the television did when they were new on the scene.
Who can imagine today having to communicate with friends via letters only. Yet there was a time when that was true. Letters were highly valued in those days because people actually sat down and thought about life and what they were doing and what they wanted to say.
In a sense the internet has brought back use of the written word for communication. People who write have to think about how to construct their thoughts and how to express themselves.
I strongly believe that the internet will revolutionize politics. Already the newpapers are starting to independent websites for information, not just about politics, but with news in general.
I think the progressive organizations outside of the Democratic Party are re-energizing the party whether the party regulars want to admit it or not. I think before the internet the party was in its "last throes"
After all, who would go out on a cold night in January, in Iowa, to spend half the night going from room to room in a drafty school building to organize themselves into a caucus for a candidate?
If primaries draw few voters except for activists, how many fewer real voters do caucuses draw?
The politics in Iowa, like that in New Hampshire, is retail. Presidential candidates have to get out, pound the pavement, shake hands, go to the coffee shops and malls, and meet people face to face. But in Iowa, the people they concentrate on are the activists who will be most likely to attend the caucus.
But in the end, in a caucus situation, it comes down to the activists who are already plugged into a party organization, a machine, not the netroots.
I think in a real election, Iowa is an anomaly. But unfortunately, due to its position as the first caucus, and second political contest in the nation, right after New Hampshire, it skews the outcome before anybody has a chance to see how well a candidate will run in a larger, more diverse state that may be more representative of the U.S. population.
Others have noticed that that fact may be contributing to the Democrats' trouble finding electable presidential candidates. And it may not be a system or a situation that is easily influenced by the netroots.
I'm not that familiar with the Iowa caucus system. I realize I'm making a lot of assumptions here. But I think it may be more old style political boss friendly.
I'd be interested in learning if what I suspect is actually true.
Dem blogs and established Dem party structures competing for power and control is just stupid. But that's where the open source analogy does have some validity. Those in the Cathedral are not comfortable with the Bazaar. Sometimes democracy is not very tidy.
Webb refers to Cash's _Mind of the South_ in _Born Fighting_. One of Cash's theses was that the South tended to be static and resistant to change while the North embraced change. Instead of North/ South, the players in a much more tepid conflict could be blogs/ political establishment. This seems to vary from community to community, e.g., Kentucky and Anne Arundel
For all the chaos what functions do the blogs perfom beyond advocacy? Here are a few:
-- demanding accountability (across the board)
-- exposing lies and corruption (Kentucky)
-- advocacy (below)
-- community for the geographically isolated activist (e.g., me)
-- cooperation among special interest groups for a common goal - e.g., a deeply committed and active environmentalist may have the time or inclination to become involved in job security or human rights issues
-- aggregate information and criticize research and policy, something like a think tank
From Harry Reid's salon interview:
Are the blogs just another constituency for you, sort of an online AFL-CIO or something?I wish that were the case, but it's simply not the truth.
I've come to learn one thing: They're not controllable. If you do something they like, they pat you on the back. If you do something they don't like, they kick you in the rear end.
Has that changed how you work or you think?
I think it's allowed me to be myself, to try to take on the giants, you know, because I feel like I have a little bit of help. When I started this thing with the privatization of Social Security, I felt like David going against Goliath. Bush and the media out there, it was a 9-foot giant, and here I was a teenage kid. But after we fired that rock and hit 'em in the middle of the forehead and beat them, they're no longer 9 feet high. They're about my size. We have a better shot at 'em. Still not as good as it would have been had we not had everything consolidated, and the Fairness Doctrine [had not gone] out the window, and all the things that were so "fair." We don't have that, but we've made progress.
And how did the blogs help in the Social Security fight?
They wouldn't let Bush off the ground. They were able to help us get crowds at places. They were able to drive the regular media crazy by having people write stories that they didn't want to write. They helped us slay the giant.