During the now-infamous Pie Fight and the ensuing exodus of liberal Democrats, there were a number of well-intentioned (and some not so well-intentioned) folks who urged the offended parties to stay and fight. There were several reasons offered, the chief of which was, essentially, that dKos had become a powerful force on the left, and therefore was worth fighting for. I’d like to debunk that notion, and present the reasons I decided to move on.
The fact of the matter is that dKos, like every other blog on earth, and the majority of voluntary associations, has no value or power outside of its members. There may be the odd exception, like the Better Business Bureau, which is potent in part because of its long-established good reputation, but dKos and blogs generally have barely been on the radar of the more attentive sections of the general public for scarcely a year. Moreover, based on Markos Moulitsas’ occasional revealing comments about his hardware and — thanks to the selfsame Pie Fight — his ad traffic, it’s plain that it isn’t even that big of a site. Big, perhaps, for the nascent field of political blogs, but there was a time when the biggest, baddest (and only) search engine on the block was Lycos. It didn’t matter in the long run.
DailyKos, just for the sake of perspective, gets half to one-third the traffic of FreeRepublic.com. And dKos’ traffic is amazingly stable. Aside from some small growth in the aftermath of the presidential elections, it’s not growing. If dKos is the great white hope (irony intended), we have problems.
Now, here are the reasons I think fighting this is futile:
- Moulitsas and his close allies have backed themselves into a corner. It would take a degree of humility one may be fairly certain they do not possess for them to change course, much less apologize.
- DailyKos has very clearly — if less than honestly and openly — staked out its turf. It’s all about winning elections by chasing the center. The Kos-DLC sniping that has gone on over the past year isn’t about ideology; it’s a simple turf war. Kos plainly objects to the level of corporate influence in the DLC, but it’s hard to see any other difference between the two.
- DailyKos is, as Moulitsas is fond of saying, about partisan politics. Activists, on the other hand, are driven by ideology and issues. It’s probably safe to say that if the American political system made third parties viable, there would be massive defection from the Democratic Party. This makes sense: if you want politicians to listen to you, being a party-line voter is counterproductive. Politicians listen to the people whose votes they’re not sure of. Partisan activists need to be fed and watered, of course, but it’s the ideological factions that have to be appeased.
- There is a real danger in any blog becoming the self-appointed voice of the party. Recent refugees from dKos know why this is, but politicians need to take care as well. By closely associating with dKos or any blog, as some congresscritters have, they run the risk of being tied to the inflammatory comments posted by J. Random Troll and the site’s owner. Elizabeth Dole has already made much of the association of Democratic politicians with Markos Moulitsas and his intemperate remarks referring to the contractors who were massacred, mutilated, and hanged in Iraq as “mercenaries”. By learning to communicate, possibly via a mechanism as simple as RSS, with as many liberal blogs as possible, our elected officials will increase their reach while reducing their vulnerability to loose cannons.
- Finally, and most importantly for me personally, the thing I value most about America is the egalitarian ideal for which it has striven since its inception. Everything else is secondary to that ideal, because, IMHO, everything else flows from it. For Moulitsas and his crew, that is evidently a fungible issue. For me, it is not. Without devotion to equality before the law, no country and no party — and certainly no website — is itself worthy of devotion.
Practical liberal activists need to be focused on three things. Firstly, they need to craft a persuasive message and get it out. Secondly, they need to be able to form coalitions with each other. And thirdly, they need to engage in meaningful two-way communications with our elected officials. Political blogs may well turn out to be an important tool in all three areas, but they can never be more than tools and remain effective. Once the blog branding and the personality of its webmaster become the foremost issues, that blog is well along on the road to irrelevance.
