Some of you may have noticed that a certain recent thread has been embroiled in the endless discussion of the primary and the general, and 11-dimensional chess, and progressive A-list bloggers and so on and so forth. It would be pointless not to acknowledge at the outset that that isn't the initial motivation for writing this post. And some of my critics are ultimately correct in pointing out after a certain point, it's not productive. So let's abstract away from it for a moment.
So, it's also been suggested that I "be the change I want to see" or whatever. Well, the change I want to see is, actually, more serious discussions of what I'll call "process issues". Leaving aside the fact that I have done this before, I'm going to ask the question again: can anyone spell out the process by which you see leftist political blogging parlay itself into elected power and policy?
The most successful model so far has been the Daily Kos; and I agree wholeheartedly that it has many many flaws. And Markos Moulitsas, for all his faults, has made his model explicit in many venues. On the other hand, I haven't really seen a theory spelled out by any commenter at Corrente, which seems to strike a radically different methodological position on the surface.
Now---and I know some disagree with me---I don't believe for a moment that good ideas, merely by the act of promulgating them, have a general tendency to convert themselves into ruling paradigms on their own. It might be so if the world were run as an academic journal, perhaps, but it's not. When good ideas succeed, it is almost always the case that someone of direct influence sees for himself or herself a stake in it. This is part of the nature of representative democracy.
This implies to me that something less direct must therefore be applied. My personality makes me a much better analytic and re(tro)flective thinker than a creative and synthetic one, for what it's worth; so I am left wondering if anyone has a better idea than I do.
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There were several interesting discussions here re:
"Progressive Blogosphere 2.0." I'll leave it to others to consider whether there's a future in building on all that.
I don't expect to be able to change the world through blogging. That would be a bonus.
I'm just looking for a place where I can participate in honest discourse about things that matter to me and to indulge in a little whimsy now and then.
Yes, I remember that...
...my problem with it was that it was largely focused on complaining about the flaws of the A-list bloggers, and more importantly, it had the overall goal of avoiding getting tied to particular electoral phenomena, which I think is kind of impossible if you expect to have any influence.
As far as "complaining"...
... about the A list, your recollection is quite simply false.
But do continue complaining about 1 particular C list blog!
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Oh, *really*
It was most certainly a reaction
Are you saying that it wasn't? Unless you're quibbling about "complaining" vs. "reacting" or something.
Mine was one of the later posts in that series, IIRC
And I wanted to make sure that the record wasn't swept under the rug because shrilly holding people to account sends so many to the fainting couch.
The big boys screwed up, and you want to shame the C-listers for speaking up about it. Impressive.
And I should add...
That it was in response to what I saw as a tendency in the PB2.0 discussions to talk past the circumstances that motivated the change.
IMHO, "let's never discuss this" is a near-perfect opposite to "never again."
No shame
I never said there was any shame in it. I mentioned it originally to point out that I didn't think that that discussion was what I was referring to.
Now, I do think that calling it "2.0" vs. the implied failure of "1.0" (as I remember pointing out wayyyy back then, I wasn't convinced it had failed, ah the memories) kind of inherently casts the entire discussion into a complaint, but I mean...I never argued that complaining itself is wrong.
By this I mean...
And by this I mean, to clarify, that the old Progressive Bloggers 2.0 was about something different from the discussion I was starting in this thread, which is about blogular interactions with established power, more than anything else.
Well, yes, but
...blogging has had *some* kind of an effect and it's been a question around here as to whether it has been the *right* effect. My honest doubt is whether it really could have had a better effect than it did.
If we're all about honest dialogue and whimsy and only that, then I suspect the discussions that Corrente might have would be very different ones, in general.
Suspect whatever you wish n/t
.
What do you think?
n/t
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
In a nutshell...
...I personally think that at the moment (and I've stated this in other ways before)
1. very little of note can be accomplished by electoral politics under present conditions, so writing about major policy desiderata as though it matters to electoral politics---and the positions people take on it---is a mistake.
2. it is not a contradiction of (1) to say that it would be irresponsible to abandon electoral politics and the policy outcomes of electoral politics.
3. the conditions of accomplishing anything in terms of (2) are so adverse that due consideration of strategies to exploits flaws in the system are worth considering.
I find it very difficult to escape any of these premises based on the evidence. So between these it means that it is necessary to take a stand about major candidates, and in particular contrast them to their alternatives not in the expectation that this will be about particularly radical change.
From (3), selection of allies must be on the basis of what options are available at the time, electorally speaking; otherwise, you risk the worst fate of all, being left completely out in the cold with no leverage whatsoever (as opposed to minimal leverage).
Never have the stakes been so small, but getting them so important...
Did that answer your question?
Not really
I'm hard pressed to understand why, prospectively or retrospectively, the paragraph that begins "I find it very difficult ..." is true. In fact, I can't even figure out what it means.
In any case, you're still allocating other people's time for them. All the "musts" and "it is necessary"s apply to others. Nothing that I can see prevents you from taking any of these actions yourself, generating your own readership, and testing out your ideas.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
It's really rich
I didn't want to revive the previous argument in this thread but clearly you do.
It's really rich for someone who spends quite a bit of time telling other people what to do, or more specifically, what they should have done, to be criticizing me for "allocating other people's time for them"---a synonym for offering political analysis and critique, which is anything anyone ever does on political blogs, by definition. Unless it's different when your personal oxen have been gored.
I'm am attempting to ask the question: what makes the difference between an effective political blog and a less effective one? You turned the question around, so I gave you an answer of what I currently think. I do one better than practicing it: attempting to understand how it works.
Being truthful and germane are their own rewards
If not, in the long run we are all dead anyway.
Nobody is stopping you from posting...
... in support of a political candidate, or taking whatever tack you think is going to work. Knock yourself out.
Sure, I "tell people what to do" -- policy makers, or politicians. They work for me, so that's expected. And I call bullshit on bullshit -- which is, as VastLeft points out, its own reward. But when you say that I, for example, or the blog "must" do something -- well, we don't work for you. Do your own work. Or continue to keep asking questions about having ideas to have ideas that other people can then execute. Whatever, dude.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I never said you "must" do something
You tell more than just professional politicians what to do...which is fine. It's also fair for me to criticize those suggestions. Isn't it?
I don't see any other way to read the language
So far as I can penetrate the agent-less and circumlocutory language, it's descriptive, in your view, of much of the past posting at Corrente (critique dealt with elsewhere, see under "opportunity cost") and prescriptive for future posts. Since you have shown no inclination to do this work yourself, I can only assume that your idea is that others will do it. It isn't the critique, as such, that I object to, but its vacuity, persistence, and time-sucking nature. The meta armchair is comfortable; the bass are in the lilies.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"Must" and context
First of all, I have repeatedly done so on Corrente, so the charge is false. For example in terms of blog posts, here.
And if criticizing a position is asking someone to do work, and this is not legitimate, then all Internet commentary loses value. I used the agentless language to avoid reviving the other thread because I thought it would be worthwhile to see what other people thought about political strategy starting afresh. So here's my position stated again:
It makes zero sense to act as though you expect a mainstream American politician to follow a full-throated progressive agenda, and to ignore the hypothetical blackmail that you could have had something worse. It reduces the value of the influence you could otherwise have, because you instantly become labelled as someone whose support cannot be "bought" at any price the politician is willing to pay. Now, that's actually a fine position to take intentionally because it places you in the position of a revolutionary. It makes you look a little ridiculous (and hence even less effective), however, when you continue to act as though you believe that a mainstream American politician would act any differently.
What is the price at which you would be bought, and what successful American politician would be able to pay it? Not even HRC, I'm willing to bet.
An extreme version of this phenomenon are places like The Confluence.
As for me, I don't pretend that significant influence can be bought to satisfy my minimum requirements, which have a great deal in common with those of the rest of Corrente. Which is why most my critiques here are methodological ones.
don't know which thread you are referring to
and can't make out what you are saying. For some of us Corrente became a refuge from the Orange Frat house and other places. Corrente became the place where you could say the unsayable and not get shouted down.
Mandos, you like the Orange Frat House? You think it is the model? Good. Excellent. Join them.
The internet is a big place, and every blog has its niche to fill.
Model
I said it was *a* model. By observation of its effects, the most effective one, not that that necessarily says much.
That doesn't mean that I care for the environment myself.
Now come on!
"the most effective one".
What the fuck.
As I said earlier, you don't know that now, no one could know that then, and no one will know it in the future. That is a premise based on conjecture that is unprovable.
That makes it a belief system. So believe what you want.
(At least) two separate events happened last year:
1) Obama ran as a bi-partisan (post-partisan) Republicrat in a Democratic wave year when Republican policies had been repudiated by the general public and Bush was at historically low approval ratings due to his complete collapse as a political leader.
2) The lefty A-list blogosphere went completely in the tank for Obama, often adopting the worst tactics of the righty blogosphere, including lies, truthiness, misogyny, bigotry and false claims of racism to defeat not so much their enemies on the right but their "enemies" on the left and inside the Democratic party.
Then, separately
3) Obama won the primaries narrowly and the general election in a landslide.
You make the logically falacious argument to presume first that 1 caused 3 and then laughably that 2 caused either 1 or 3. Those are both preposterous and unsupportable assumptions by any but the most self-serving look at history (on the part of Team Obama, and the A-listers part).
Is it in Kos's (or Huff Posts, or TPM's, or...) interest to make you THINK they had that effect? Of course it is! "Success" has a thousand fathers. Sorry, I don't believe the hype even if you do.
Maybe you should ask yourself who's interest it is that a blog would sacrifice their credibility to go into the tank for a politician? Is it in the blog's interest, or the politician's? Forget a "blog", insert "individual" above instead.
-----------------------------
I'm not such a bad guy once you get to know me.
Conjecture
All interesting discussion of political phenomena contains at least implied conjectures and counterfactuals: "How would it be now if X had/hadn't happened?" How else do you discuss the prospects of doing something differently?
But aside from that, if you don't believe that some blogs had greater effect on the outcome than others (do you?), then what is the purpose of blogging about elections? Do you believe that there is any purpose to it at all?
Oh, mostly the politician's. It's an effect of large-scale representative democracy. I already explained this here. It's pretty much the case that the tradeoff for a small amount of influence is a large amount of selling out.
I thought/think that blogs had/have the potential to change the effect:sellout ratio, but probably not by much.
But from a primary-relitigation perspective, the most interesting charge is this one:
Indeed, they explicitly said and believed that the obstacle to electoral effectiveness was first a segment of the Democratic Party that was at minimum unwilling to adapt to present conditions.
New word for the day
Bogometer.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
The Obstacle Wing of the Democratic Party
How's that "electoral effectiveness" working out for anybody who cares about single payer? Closing Gitmo? Saving working class jobs and unionization? Not enabling banksters to bust out our entire economy and flee to the Caymans? Restoring accountability in government?
If by "adapting to present conditions" means lying, misogyny, bigotry, obfuscation, truthiness, tea-bagging, etc. in the furtherance of a bi-partisan Republicrat agenda that dicks me in the ass, then I am a proud member of "The Obstacle Wing of the Democratic Party" and glad to be an obstacle to it.
So by saying "indeed..." you admit that it isn't only a "most interesting charge" but the most correct. What is the purpose? The damn purpose is to provide the information, education and advocacy that is missing in other venues. Personally, I have no illusions of grandeur about having an impact on a politician, except when I bring $$$ to the table. When I bring those $$$ I have impact, to exactly the extent (and no more) than the $$$ I bring or am able to bring in from others.
Although I do have an interesting personal anecdote, I recently was in a public forum in my local library. Due to budget cuts they want to close this library. The mayor was at this forum and when I asked why he didn't consider raising property taxes to cover the minor savings closing the historic library would gain, he turned bright red and retorted "Well if you read the blogs, nobody would ever accuse me of being afraid to raise taxes!". So I take that to mean that blogs have an effect on politicians through their advocacy, rather than their tea-bagging, in this case, a politician feels hemmed in from raising taxes due to blog pressure from the right.
What if we could do that from the left? Do ya think?
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I'm not such a bad guy once you get to know me.
None
I don't think that any of those things can seriously be resolved by electoral processes. I do, however, believe that they can be made worse. Consequently, electoral effectiveness cannot be ignored, if only to increase the likelihood of the Least Worst Option.
I don't. I mean, I wasn't there, but I'd guess that the mayor in question never wanted to raise taxes in the first place---it wouldn't be the first time that excuse has been used. The right-wing blogs were an alibi. That's the function they serve. The left-wing blogs cannot function as an alibi, because they are left-wing.
non-linear, non-parallel processes and short time frames
i think it's possible that your analysis of the effect of blogging on political power redistribution is akin to figuring out who's going to win the 1.25-mile kentucky derby after seeing only first furlong or two.
IMNSHO
It makes sense to do what has worked, and that means controlling the discourse. (It may mean other things, like our own currency, and our own markets, but we can experiment with stuff like that.) I dug out a comment I posted over at TL, which bears on the lack of "influence" caused by saying Fuck
-- which is much akin to the idea that calling bullshit may, my goodness, make it hard to "influence" bullshitters:
I think the level of effort is 3 years daily hammering -- just like 2003 - 2006. The Democrats need to run from the left in 2012. So, "make him do it." Which, IMNSHO, means opening a space to his left that's absolutely as large as possible -- including, and perhaps especially including, the spaces that insiders and wannabe insiders regard as uninteresting and painful. If they want to harness the energy, then so be it -- as long as it accords with our values and interests. (I grant you that "our" can only be determined by negatives now; see Stirling's post on the 3 lefts).
But I really don't have time for the meta. Especially when it's as vacuous and time-sucking as the meta on display here.
NOTE * Can't prove it, but what I believed -- based on hours a day of watching the discourse slowly, slowly move in the direction we pushed it.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
no need
Lambert, I don't think you need to explain yourself. If this place has taught me little else it's that you're not always going to get what you want; you may even not get what you need. I can't pinpoint exactly what Mandos wants (though, I have a good idea), but you have no obligation to give it to him, so he'd be better of keeping his sanity by ending his perpetual fishing expeditions. In my eyes, it's little more than a more sophisticated form of trollery. I'm done with him trying to get us to chase our tails all day long with these disingenous questions.
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...
Curious
I am curious as to your guess about what I apparently want. Because, from my perspective, I don't quite know what I want either, except an understanding of how certain blogging styles and positions might have an effect on electoral outcomes. My starting assumption: almost none.