The Internet Giveth And The Internet Taketh Away

Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

I trust the boys and girls over at Daily Kos and the other "Netroots" sites are paying some attention to today's NY Times. According to the Times, an explosion of resentment about that part of the grand immigration deal that opponents call "amnesty" for the undocumented already in the country was fired up by the internet and talk radio. The result was a deluge of calls, emails and letters to Senators that scared the be'jesus out of many Republicans.

The truth is that the medium is irrelevant to a large extent. Yes, it is now very easy to email a long list of people at one keystroke, but their rate of response is still determined by the oldest political motivator in the book, anger.

The Kosacks have mistaken their recent successes (we won't bring up the Lamont failure) to some quality of truth in their views. In fact, they failed to note the widespread atmosphere of fury throughout the society directed at Bush. They have just been picking the low hanging fruit of that fury.

The immigration deal provided some fuel that fired up the right. They may appear older and less hip, but they can still get just as angry. Maybe more so. Doesn't the word crotchety sort of belong to those of a certain age?

Netroots Taken To Task For Blind Support For Edward's House Bloggers

Dan Gerstein in Politico neatly highlights the problem with Kos and company. They are not interested in presenting or arguing political thought, they are purely interested in attacking their opposition by any means necessary. This is so even, as Gerstein points out, at the cost of winning converts to their view of things. While this is often also true of true believer bloggers on the right, Gerstein has chosen to take his own side of the political aisle to task.

What these liberal bloggers fail to appreciate is that this petty, polarizing approach is not how you ultimately win in politics – especially in an era when most average voters outside the ideological extremes are fed up with the shrill, reflexive partisanship that dominates Washington, and when the fastest growing party in America is no party.

The blogger bomb-throwing may be good for inflaming the activist base, and, as they demonstrated in the 2006 Lieberman-Lamont Senate primary race in Connecticut, for occasionally blowing up the opposition. It’s not bad for bullying your friends, either, as the liberal blogosphere did last week in pressuring Edwards to not fire the two bloggers who penned the offensive anti-religious posts.

But the typical blog mix of insults and incitements is just not an effective strategy for persuading people outside of your circle of belief – be they moderate Democrats, moderate Republicans, or the swelling number of independents – to join your cause. In fact, it’s far more likely to alienate than propagate them.

Something else most liberal bloggers fail to appreciate – we as Democrats can’t afford to repel those middle of the road, largely non-partisan voters.

In case you are in any doubt as to the truth of what Gerstein says, read the comments reacting to his piece. Precious little argument as to fact or philosophy, just pure name calling. They repeatedly refer to him as "Dangerstein", "Neocon" and that most dreaded of appellations, "Republican". (For the record, Gerstein is a Democrat who worked for Leiberman, a fact taken by the lefties as sure proof of his evilness.)