Another Point of View: The Internet is Neither Friend nor Foe of Participatory Democracy

Too Soon for Self Congratulations

In the heady days immediately following Obama's victory it is easy for liberals to feel not only self-congratulatory, but to be filled with an enthusiasm for the internet and its prospects for creating an informed and empowered democracy. The facts are strung together in a tenuous web of argumentation. Obama won. Obama was internet savvy. Therefore Obama's victory was a triumph for empowered citizen democracy and the internet will ensure triumph for empowered citizen democracies everywhere. Connect the dots and draw the desired inferences. Thanks to the internet we have no more Bush. No more conservative-dominated Washington politics. No more powerful, financially well-endowed special interests dominating elections. The internet gives us participatory democracy and we have a return to the Golden Age of Athens and of Pericles.

Would that things were ever that simple, even in Athens. The Golden Age lasted less than a quarter of a century. After Pericles came economic disaster, due to the plague and the Spartan invasion. Athenian democracy was hijacked by Alcibiades. Athens fell.

The Internet Did Not Elect Obama

So what really happened in the 2008 election and what do I fear might happen next? Didn't the internet enable an informed electorate to select and fund Obama?

What happened? A brilliant and charismatic candidate promised change, change we could believe in, and told us that we could, yes, we could. Frankly, after 8 years of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, after the greatest redistribution of wealth since the Normans stole England from the Saxons, and after the US was mired in the worst foreign wars since Viet Nam, almost any change seemed like a good thing. Likewise, after years of a White House that understood only half of Adam Smith's early analysis of capitalism, the self-interest part and not the rules part, the wheels finally came off the American economy. Almost any Democratic candidate could have won. Against the increasingly tired old man and the inarticulate, anti-intellectual and superficial self-styled Russian affairs expert, the Democrats won in an electoral college landslide. Combine the Republican Party's candidates, the economic environment, and their failure to harness the web either for communications or fund raising, and they simply had no chance.

The Internet is Not Inherently Liberal -- The Republicans Can Use it Too

But what happens next? Can the internet also undercut populist candidates and return control to big money donors? Can the internet actually limit informed debate?

First, on fund raising. Republicans tend to have more money. They tend to do a better job of getting political contributions, probably because they have more money. Under the guidance of Karl Rove they certainly mastered direct mail fundraising. And there is no reason to believe that they will be run over by the power of internet fundraising ever again. When the Obama campaign team refused federal funding and undercut Senator McCain's efforts to establish a precedent for a campaign run only with federal funds and without funding from special interests, it was a short-term triumph for the Democrats. After all, they appear to have mastered the net first. Over the longer term, however, this may come back to haunt Democrats and populists more broadly. In particular, it appears that McCain was the first to harness the internet for presidential campaign fundraising, back in 2000; the fact that he chose to run in 2008 using only federal funds cannot be interpreted to mean Republicans cannot effectively harness the net once again and reconstruct an environment of money and power in presidential politics.

But a broadly based truly informed small-d democratic campaign almost does not need funding, right? If we all know all the issues, and all the candidates' positions on all the issues, then TV advertising is irrelevant. If we all intend to vote, consistent with our true beliefs, then get-out-the-vote grass roots activism is irrelevant as well. We're informed, we reflect, and we vote. Why do campaigns need financing? What difference does a Republican financial edge make, really?

Unfortunately, the internet for most of us is not a place of careful introspection. If, "On the internet, nobody knows that you're a dog," then likewise no one knows that you're a crank masquerading as a journalist, or a misrepresentation masquerading as a fact. Worse yet, simple, angry, rejectionist positions are easy to state. Careful refutation is more difficult, more lengthy, and more time-consuming for the reader.

The Internet May Not Support Introspection and Informed Debate? Really?

To take a single, simple example, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin rejected abortion, for any reason, even to save the life of the mother. When asked to explain the difference between her position and that of her presidential candidate at the head of her ticket, she simply restated her position. When asked again for an explanation, she offered simply that these were her beliefs. Implicitly, in matters of faith, no explanation is required. And increasingly this simple direct statement of beliefs is resonating with the American people. It is possible to explain the origin of Sarah Palin's position, solidly rooted in medieval Catholic Church teachings, which is still reflected in the British and American legal tradition. One does not execute a condemned prisoner while he was insane but waited for him to regain sanity. You simply did not execute a man who did not understand that he was being killed. This was not, as it might appear, spiteful, but actually was intended to be quite generous. By giving the condemned a chance to confess, and to make his peace with God, you were allowing God to judge his soul and to determine his afterlife in the best possible light. This of course is the reason that Hamlet does not kill his uncle Claudius when he first has a chance to do so, as his uncle is completing his confession of his sins; killing his uncle was not enough, and for true revenge Hamlet needed also to damn his soul. Candidate Palin, of course, did not wish to damn any innocent fetus. If, by killing the fetus to save the mother, you damn the soul of fetus, not yet able to confess, then the choice is clear; you save the fetus and allow the mother to live long enough to confess.

If you like this argument then you accept candidate Palin. If this argument strikes you as medieval nonsense, and if Sarah Palin cannot provide a better argument, then you reject candidate Palin and her views. But notice how simple it is for a candidate to express an opinion forcefully, no matter how superficial his or her analysis. And notice how much more cumbersome it is to address it, put it in context, refute it, and force the candidate to explain or defend it.

Does anyone truly believe that the internet has improved political debate? Over a century after the great Congressional campaigns of 1858 we still teach Lincoln-Douglas Debate and continue it as a form of debate competition. Does anyone anticipate that Bush-Kerry Debate will become a long-term competitive style? Worse yet, does anyone anticipate Palin-Biden debate will emerge as a form of competitive debate, with one candidate announcing in advance that she will speak about whatever she wants and ignore the questions, and the other candidate rambling until time is called by the moderator? Debate has been reduced to trivial posturing and we accept this.

Digg, Del.icio.us, and the internet more broadly all reward simplicity and the powerfully delivered sound bite. It is easy to say "The Obama relief package is socialist, taking your money and giving it to someone else." It's harder to say, "Well, no. The stimulus package is designed to create consumer spending and thus restart the economy, leading to rehiring and reduced unemployment, which of course leads to more spending and more hiring through the well-known multiplier effect. Government jobs are of course jobs, and have a great multiplier effect ... just see what happens to a community in the US or abroad when a military base is shut down ... the multiplier effect explains why civilians lose their jobs as soon as the military leaves, and why we really, really want the multiplier effect now. We don't accomplish that by taxing you or taking your money ... we printed a whole bunch of new money. That's likely to be very inflationary and a bad thing for people to whom we owe American dollars. The real losers, unfortunately, are likely to be Chinese holders of American Treasuries. Yes, social security recipients could be hurt, but, actually, with automatic COLA adjustments protecting them, the biggest losers are going to be foreign creditors." The first is 15 words and easily understood. The second is 170 words, almost a dozen times as long, and is probably mostly incomprehensible except to someone with at least one course in macroeconomics.

So, Now What? If Not Empowered Democracies, Then What?

So, what's my take on the internet and the inevitable creation of newly empowered democracies? I love the idea of an empowered and informed electorate, a return to the government of the polis, and a return to the popular democracy of classical Greece. Who would not? And if the internet gets us there, well, as we used to say in the 60s, "Power to the People." But if the internet is just another way to raise money, then money, not people, will have power. And if the internet is just another way to promulgate the simplest and the most popular sound bites, without any prospect of responsible journalistic vetting, this does not bode well for liberal agendas. I'm not suggesting that liberals panic, but it's certainly too soon for self-congratulations or over-confidence. Obama was the right candidate at the right time with the right message and the right technology; McCain did not understand the new media, but, frankly, nothing he did could match Obama's charisma, and no one could have run chained to the Bush legacy after the economy tanked.

The internet has its uses. Lies can be quickly refuted as lies, and lies and innuendo play a crucial role in tight elections -- Congressman Richard Nixon attacked his opponent for the Senate, claiming Helen Gahagan Douglas is a communist, "pink down to her underwear"; Swift Boat Veterans for Trust attacked presidential candidate John Kerry, claiming he had not served with distinction, and nameless, faceless sources claimed that Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama was a Muslim. But the internet is still an easier place to communicate lies and half truths to the faithful, even if it can also be used to set the record straight to those willing to listen.

2012 will be an entirely new story. The internet is a new medium and its political impacts need to be understood. Claiming that it makes things easy for the people and that the success of democratic ideals is now inevitable is dangerously simplistic. The internet simply moves the war of the parties and their funding machines, not just the battle of ideas, to a new domain.

 

 

Comments

[Ranta]

You stated that "almost any Democrat could have won." You failed to mention that Obama is Afro-American. You go on to say that their is "no evidence" that internet funding will not be a big factor in the future. Where is this "no evidence"? The Republicans have the best media that money can buy. That does not include the internet.
Most of all, Republicans don't read. They watch Fox and listen to Rush.

[RumiSouth]

"The stimulus package is a jobs bill and the biggest middle-class tax cut in history."

There, I did it in 16 words, and I wasn't even trying.

As a copywriter, the problem I see with most liberal internet sites is that the authors don't KNOW they need to hone down their thoughts into concise talking points. They haven't learned this kind of discipline. They've come from an education that rewards verbosity and nuance instead of a pundit finishing school that rewards parrots with crackers.

I agree with some of the points in this article: there's nothing to prevent the GOP from harnessing the internet. But it has been my observation that the liberal side of the web is far more interconnected, and that liberals are much, much better at social networking. That may change, but it may also indicate that conservative minds are not well-suited to these things.

[maxgen]

After 9/11, ALL the mainstream U.S. media supported the administration propaganda message of "the-sky-i­s-falling, you-better­-be-afraid­, opponents-­are-traito­rs" with a lot of flag waving. The censorship was enforced by jeopardizing the careers of such outspoken folks as Bill Maher and the Spice Girls. It is an ugly period in our history, reminiscent of the McCarthy days on a smaller scale.

But the internet (along with foreign sources and the low circulation U.S. Progressive press), was able to spread the news and keep some of us informed, even without the blogs we have today. Today, with blogs, everybody with a computer has much more access to information and many more opportunities to sort out the truth.

I suspect the main media will try to censor the blogs somehow so they can continue to control the agenda. Mainstream newspapers are now going broke and are forced to go to the internet to survive. Doing so requires a major change in financial matters (to replace newspaper ads with revenue producers on the new media) and organization. Some will probably make it, but others will fail. I don't see how the mainstreamers can continue to dominate the news, but they are clever and completely amoral.

[KJusko]

The Internet is becoming almost a religion unto itself. People get very, very, defensive over every little criticism of it. I can understand that defensiveness, and share that defensiveness, if someone hinting at it's regulation, but all Mr. Clemens is saying is it might be overated. If he's wrong, we'll know soon enough, won't we? And remember, the title of his post is "neither friend nor foe" So, he's agnostic rather than an athiest.

[Gorsegrower]

Democracy on a large scale could be implemented electronically, but the Internet has nothing to do with that. It requires a dedicated, single purpose system designed for the purpose, as I have often suggested. Still, it's nice that someone speaks up for the central notion once in a while.

As G.B. Shaw once put it, "The cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy, not less of it."

[devanate]

I've thought of this quite a bit as well. If any bill could be voted on electronically by everyone on a secured, dedicated system instead of just leaving it to elected officials we could have direct democracy. Imagine the possibilities!

[NoFactsJustTruth]

You provide justifications for criticism by painting broad stroke generalizations about a 'slower than you' electorate with a singular "tenuous web" thought process and some tremendous misconceptions disorder. Statements such as, "No more powerful, financially well-endowed special interests dominating elections", imply anyone associated primarily with politics via internet as too naive and self-centered to possibly understand forces like 'old-school' national politics, MSM and the continuing power of industrial lobbies in OUR country.

Later two likewise broad conclusions, "But if the internet is just another way to raise money, then money, not people, will have power", and, "The internet simply moves the war of the parties and their funding machines, not just the battle of ideas, to a new domain", directly associate new politics as identical to old politics, and dismisses massive small money from 'the people' - as no different than massive big money from corporations and industrial lobbyists.

Few believe the internet's some new god answering prayers of the masses. Otherwise, OUR troops would not still occupy Iraq for the profit-driven geopolitics of neoCOS. However, the only previous example of an information explosion where the message was not 'controlled' by powers-that-be, the pre-corporate Free Press of the 18th and 19th Centuries, brought cataclysmic change to political landscapes around the world.

[NoFactsJustTruth]

Apologies for the 'neoCONS' editing error.

[GrainOSand]

No sweat NFJT. Your points hit home (for me).

[GrainOSand]

The internet is a tool of society, reflective, but not a substitute, ubiquitous, but not God. I see the Huffington Post as the corner newsstand next to the public square where town criers make their cases, state their grievances, and push their agendas, all based on the news. You can go down an alley on the Huffington Post and someone may say, “Psst -- Hey buddy, over here!”, and tell you something you did not know, or they may defecate on your virtual shoes.

Old world concepts are subject to upgrade. Battles of the ages shift in terrain, tactics, and theatres of engagement and confrontation. There is nothing new under the sun. I love it when a fifteen year old tells me I do not understand what they are going through as if I was never fifteen. What I allow for is that the times bear different expressions of timeless concepts, and the results of generations of trial and error or learning that modifies a society and its interfaces of interaction.

Obama won because he was the best candidate. Via the tool that is the internet, this was reflected all over the virtual environment that is the internet, via blogs, donations, emails, and modern-day shootouts at the “GOP is not Ok” corral. The internet is action as well as entity to be acted upon or to utilize in action. Nothing new here, keep on moving on.

$Note: The technological achievement that is the internet is not to be dismissed.

[argyle]

Your working assumption is that the Democrat and Republican are alike except for ideology. I would dispute this, but I've been dying to quote my man for a while, so I'll let him:

"God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please, -- you can never have both. Between these, as a pendulum, man oscillates. He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets, -- most likely his father's. He gets rest, commodity, and reputation; but he shuts the door of truth. He in whom the love of truth predominates will keep himself aloof from all moorings, and afloat. He will abstain from dogmatism, and recognize all the opposite negations, between which, as walls, his being is swung. He submits to the inconvenience of suspense and imperfect opinion, but he is a candidate for truth, as the other is not, and respects the highest law of his being." R.W. Emerson, Intellect

That's why Republicans, of this generation, will always be technologically underprivileged.

[island-in-alabama]

Spectacular quote!

Excellent insight.

[laotzunietzsche]

In other words, you can't fix stupid--even with an internet and a host of bloggers.
Also, computers don't print money. The rich, still, stay rich. And the poor, still, stay poor.
And, as always, in the USA, it is wealth that determines power, not access to megabytes.

[AngieMom57]

Want to stop terrorism?

Put a computer or cell phone in everyone's hand.

Simple, sustainable.

Now, just watch out for more colliding satellites ;-)

[argyle]

Sounds like a good idea, but I'm thinking with start with clean water, food, and shelter, and move through electricity and indoor plumbing before we get to the cell phones and computers.

[reason808]

Concise summaries of complex issues will always be appreciated over lengthy explanations.
No technology will ever change that.

Clemons take on the internet is a distraction from the real problem: most of the world is not populated by fair-minded intellectuals who want to discuss politics. How many policy battles have Liberals lost while thinking "If only people read the footnotes . . . "

When Bush was shredding the constitution, liberals could've easily said something nice and simple: "The Government must always prove its accusation­s." Instead, we had all sorts of lengthy op-eds about due process and habeas corpus - abstract terms most people don't understand.

Effective shorthand is not the same as cheap, manipulative and misleading sound bites. Progressives need to focus on getting the message out, not the shangri-la of participatory democracy.

[Gripen]

Democracy is strenghten thanks to internet, why. It is so simple you get access to more diffrent veiws of an argument.

Corperate media doesnt have the monopoly any more and the propoganda they try to spread has serious competion with other media sources, alot is really bad but alot is still really good.

Internet helps also to check facts so you know what you vote on, easier access then a libary.

But this tool needs media awarness so ppl dont fall for pure propoganda, but so do the tv and newspapers.

Media awareness is serious lacking in USA from what i hear and it needs to teached in public schools and not be collage course any more.

[skantea]

It's all about alternative media outlets. When a point is made publicly it should be dissected and studied, and if it lacks substance, then a counterpoint should be made. That's what's happening more now. However facts mean nothing in the face of cognitive dissonance. Ultimately the self centered self righteous will only seek what serves their agenda.
That's why a see a very real rift appearing in America's and the Worlds cultural landscape. One day, I believe, it may not be about the have's v.s. the have-not's, but the Knower's v.s. the Know-not's.

And the know-not's will eventually (2 generations from now perhaps) lose all power...

[AkiraBergman]

You are overlooking the fact that the proponents of the centralization of power need secrecy to collect and project power. The transparency of the internet makes this very difficult. When you add to this the human curiosity and hunger for information, you get a net directed and concentrated force. This will gather pace as we move more into the media revolution. Welcome to the century of information and disinformation. Secrecy, that the right wingers need so much, is giving way to disinformation. Therefore the fight is between information and disinformation. The paradigm has shifted. The game is not the same.

[onlinesavant]

The internet, for all the hype, can only be one component of a burgeoning techno-democracy. Public financing of campaigns, instant runoff voting, and the candidates use of the public airwaves to have a limited time to share their views unfiltered are what will really develop democracy for the 21st century.