Circle the Wagons
There's an interesting cover story in this week's National Journal magazine on the Internet Left. Focusing on the DailyKos and MoveOn, the piece objectively lays out the strategies and context for the progressive movement that has been so successful on the internet, and how it is shaping Democratic politics.
Core to the Internet Left's argument is that the Democrats in Washington simply have not yet come to terms with a minority party status that is reality. It is this context that has given rise to a pugnacious progressive movement trying to reshape and steer the party through internet-centered activity. This activist movement has embraced minority party status and seeks to shape it into an effective opposition.
Right now it is all show and no go. While pioneering effective tools to galvanize grassroots support independent of the Party structure, the Internet Left has reshaped the political battleground in the new media and quickly erased the progressive deficit identified by Frank Watson. But confluent with the movement's rise have been a series of stinging defeats to Democratic candidates at the polls. The root cause of those defeats is the battlefield for debate, and by taking on the establishment of the Democratic party, the Internet Left has engaged in a very high stakes battle of ideas that will ultimately require a reckoning.
There is a limited grace period for electoral defeat before the luster of the Internet Left's movement wears off and other factions of the Party employ similar tactics in the battle for ideological supremacy. Before they are further into the political wilderness in Washington, Democrats must make a sober assessment of who they really are or need to be. It took Republicans decades to truly find themselves and launch the effective and principled opposition that helped them to retake Congress in 1994.
The Internet Left seeks to coalesce the Democratic party around them, yet they have not achieved anything close to the critical mass of support that would enable that, and risk fracturing the party they are trying to direct. There can be no doubting that the movement is strong enough to truly influence debate. Will that influence be affected from inside the party structure or in a more combative struggle against that structure?
Core to the Internet Left's argument is that the Democrats in Washington simply have not yet come to terms with a minority party status that is reality. It is this context that has given rise to a pugnacious progressive movement trying to reshape and steer the party through internet-centered activity. This activist movement has embraced minority party status and seeks to shape it into an effective opposition.
Right now it is all show and no go. While pioneering effective tools to galvanize grassroots support independent of the Party structure, the Internet Left has reshaped the political battleground in the new media and quickly erased the progressive deficit identified by Frank Watson. But confluent with the movement's rise have been a series of stinging defeats to Democratic candidates at the polls. The root cause of those defeats is the battlefield for debate, and by taking on the establishment of the Democratic party, the Internet Left has engaged in a very high stakes battle of ideas that will ultimately require a reckoning.
There is a limited grace period for electoral defeat before the luster of the Internet Left's movement wears off and other factions of the Party employ similar tactics in the battle for ideological supremacy. Before they are further into the political wilderness in Washington, Democrats must make a sober assessment of who they really are or need to be. It took Republicans decades to truly find themselves and launch the effective and principled opposition that helped them to retake Congress in 1994.
The Internet Left seeks to coalesce the Democratic party around them, yet they have not achieved anything close to the critical mass of support that would enable that, and risk fracturing the party they are trying to direct. There can be no doubting that the movement is strong enough to truly influence debate. Will that influence be affected from inside the party structure or in a more combative struggle against that structure?
posted by Capitol Hill Rentals @ 5:51 PM
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