With the publishing of today’s Washington Post poll, I believe the Netroots is at a crossroads. The poll shows Senator Hillary Clinton with a huge lead in the race for the Democratic nomination. Left blogs have spent an inordinate amount of time on horserace blogging, with a great deal of attention paid to national polls.
Focus on personalities, horseraces and the ins and outs of campaign finance, with many leading bloggers doing their best Charlie Cook imitations, has crowded out focus and activism on issues. Like Iraq. Like not funding the Iraq Debacle.
When the Netroots came to be, it was because of issues, not personalities and political campaigns. Howard Dean and Wes Clark were not supported because of who they were, but because of where they stood and what they said. It was because of the issues.
I have been saying for some time that the Netroots has failed in 2007 on Iraq and in general. That failure is manifest now. Concentrating on the elections of 2008, it has had zero impact on the discussion of issues outside the campaign. Even the impact it has had, like on Hillary Clinton’s position on Iraq, has been pooh poohed.
I have long said it – pols are pols, and will do what they must to get elected. The Netroots needs to realize that its goals on issues do not revolve around particular politicians, but around particular policies and issues. In the fevered coverage of the 2008 campaign, the issues and policies of 2007 have been left behind by the Netroots. And to what end? This wrongheaded thinking now reaches a crossroads. Which road will the Netroots travel from here on out? Let’s hope it is the road that focuses on issues, not personalities.
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Who gives a rat’s ass about politicians anyway?
What’s encouraging to me is that recent polls show 80% support among Democrats for getting out of Iraq now.
Who do these Beltway Bozos think they are?
Fuck them.
Listen to the people who elected you or get the boot assholes.
OK, I’m in! What do I do, on a daily basis?
Let’s see the blueprint.
I think the problem is systemic. On dkos, the rec list is dominated by people pimping for a candidate. Thus 3-4 Edwards diaries and a couple of Obama’s changed the site’s focus from issues to individuals. Same thing happened in 2004–except it was the Deaniacs.
The solution is simple–only 2 front page diaries can be tagged for a single candidate–or two front pages–one for candidates and the other for issues.
Dean’s campaign collapsed when it became more about him as savior, than him as messenger. No dem has been shown to have the power to change the course of the war–they are all failures. Our crossroad is when do we at least threaten to get off the Dem track. All politics are local–challenge all war funders in primaries–with zeal and with money. And if that fails, support noone in the general election. Short term pain will lead to long term gain.
BTW, the right wingers have none of these problems–they march with precision. How and why they can do that is a mystery to me–must be genetics or voodoo.
and i think you need to take them further because this is a big picture moment
it is about government and how we use it… the issues are only important when you can effectively deal with them… have impact on them
right now, our governmental infrastructure is in tatters. we can not effectively deal with issues because we no longer understand how to navigate within the governmental or constitutional frameworks
we will only lose more valuable time unless we focus on restoring the FUNCTIONALITY of our government
saying any one issue, even IRAQ, is what is important misses this: we can’t do anything about it without a functioning government
i have an essay called Reading the Fine Print… i’d like your reaction to it… you can find it in my essay list, if you’re interested
It’s never been so hard to start a conversation about issues than it has been lately. When I asked in 2006 if we could do issues for at least a couple of months, I was seriously voicing my concerns.
It’s become a nest of hero-worship.
Maybe were all stuck in a giant game of D & D but don’t know it.
For sure the races will always grab attention but that is not to say that issues have been forgotten.
The bad part is the attempt to squelch dissent by many blogs.
From my perspective TPM is the model for what bloggers can accomplish. You could ask Alberto Gonzales if bloggers have no effect.
MyDD is what is wrong. “My party right or wrong” is a lousy slogan.
Of course Docudharma stands high above the rest. 🙂
JMO.
Best, Terry
im beginning to understand the difference between politics and government
and understand why i never took any interest in politics
one counter argument might be that, at the very least, the dems are more united behind candidates…once we re-divide into our ‘issue groups’, no one group really has any strength.
although i think we could probably get a fair few to unite behind ending the war…
…just permanent interests
Virtual communities cannot get to the nitty-gritty of politics. The medium is the message perhaps. What is hard and, in my view, necessary is building real community. From real community (more face-to-face than virtual) new and appropriate ideas can emerge. In fact, face-to-face has a much higher bandwidth than any here and you can’t hide your personhood so easily.
What is happening right now just isn’t working. We are now almost guaranteed a continuation of the Imperial project for America, social spending and maintenance of the commons is still unlikely, corruption is not being systematically investigated and rooted out–just some headlines here and there and then nothing. The U.S. is taking no steps to halt the coming environmental crisis and has no intention to do anything about it no matter which party is in office.
The netroots helped connect people with each other–many who felt isolated found others who shared the same views and that’s all good–it has been like a dating service. But you have to actually go out on the date to get laid.
The cult of personality and celebrity force fed by the Media and entertainment industry for years now has distracted Americans from delving beyond the surface, beyond sound bites. Very few are willing to take the time and work it takes to dig into the complex mechanics of issues, of how things actually operate, or don’t operate.
I see this tendency, the focus on individuality and personality, as deeply ingrained. How can bloggers successfully change the focus and get people’s attention?
The distraction of the cult of personalities is akin to Nero fiddling while Rome burns. How can we be the fire alarm to wake people up, to change their perspective?
I have been blogging about DemocratsWork.org, where we are advocating for a politics of service.
We have seen the ongoing impact of the net on the horse races, I would be very interested in seeing what the net can do to support policy and project oriented groups.
There are a lot of us who are turned off by some of what goes on in the scramble for votes who are still very interested in making a difference in our neighborhoods.
and something that has been frustrating me for quite some time. The conservative movement and the republican party (until recently) has been built on beliefs and issues, not on “a majority for the sake of having a majority”.
While there is a place for the stated goal of a Daily Kos (to get Democrats elected), that is a goal and not a movement.
My frustration with DKos lately has been that all you read are the “Edwards kisses puppies” or “Obama smacks down Hillary” diaries on the rec. list and any issues are lost in the shuffle.
I think that the Democratic leadership, or at least many in Congress feel that they can win big in 2008 by playing it safe and not listening to the netroots – and that certainly includes Pelosi, Rahm, Reid, Clinton and Obama. And that may or may not be true, but it is dangerous to think that.
Additionally, it should make the netroots rethink what IT wants to do, become and where it should fit in. I think we should be trying to drive policy and the progressive movement on a short, mid and long term basis. I think we should be thinking infrastructure and goals that go beyond “who is the most electable Democrat”.
Yes, we need to have a Democratic majority to accomplish our goals as a movement. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that a Democratic majority WILL do that.
This will take years, but we, the netroots, need to figure out where we are, where we want to be and how we can get there.
I wouldn’t call the netroots a failure, simply because the metric you choose is too narrow. So Hillary’s leading in a poll by a sizable margin – she’s running a pretty good campaign, she’s a brand name, etc., etc.
The key to the success of the netroots in the future is going to be moving from having access to having policy influence. That transition is already well on its way. The key component of that, however, are the state-level efforts, where blogs open up new forums of discourse and, in a smaller pond, carry more weight. Here in New York, we’re already well advanced on that road.
Especially encouraging activism and energy to elect Dems and have a Dem house, senate and presidency.
But if you want issues–there are other blogs like here.
http://www.juancole….
Not putting the pressure on Kerry to live up to his promise (and fundraising) to challenge the vote because of fears of being marginalized, showed the powers that be how easy it would be to marginalize them.
I’ve lately been making the point that making an argument is easy, its making a persuasive argument that requires real work.
Just complaining that Congress isn’t doing what you want them to do won’t accomplish anything unless you can make a persuasive argument that they should follow your advice. That requires learning the levers that move them and using them.
Armando is right that the netroots has, for the most, failed to make a persuasive argument.
Ironically, I fear that Armando is making the same mistake with his own criticism of the netroots. Simply pointing out their failures won’t persuade them to behave differently. A different, more persuasive approach is needed.
What is it? Hell if I know!
blog is interesting (from Sunday NYT):
“People are doing it for the same reason another generation of people called in on talk radio,” said Shel Israel, a social media consultant and a columnist for Blogger & Podcaster magazine. “They are passionate, they live in a world where nobody listens to them, and they suddenly have a way to speak.”
Implies there are many bloggers and commenters but not many listeners.
turned into a diary, here.
is energize america. craft policy proposals, then lobby. find elected officials who can become allies, and help them spread the word.