This diary was written expressly for Daily Kos, but I thought other progressive bloggers might find it interesting.
Yesterday I was devastated. A friend told me my favorite TV show Stargate, had been cancelled. This was actually announced last week, but I’m not involved in online fandom, so I had to get the 411 the old fashioned way. My friend is entrenched in online fandom, so I guess I’m in the second tier for info propagation from Stargate fandom ground zero. This is approximately where I would put myself in the progressive politics information stream, as well. Not in the room, but an interested party with my nose stuck to the window.
The word “devastated” might strike some as grotesque hyperbole in the context of a cheesy sci fi show. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for me to be devastated over Darfur or the warehousing of the poor in the U.S.? I’ve been pondering this for the last 24 hours, and I believe I’ve come up with some insights that may be of use to Kossacks and other people involved in political campaigns.
First, why would Stargate (or any TV show) loom so large in my attention economy? The simple answer is that the TV is inside my house: while progressives tend to associate gated communities with the rich and powerful, the reality is everyone lives in virtual gated communities these days. Everyone is networking and filtering, and trying to work out the optimal amount of human contact while fending off a tsunami of demands on our attention. Bombs fall on people somewhere outside my house: TV shows that I watch on a regular basis are like surrogate family (please, no Fahrenheit 451 jokes).
I’ve been watching Stargate for around 10 years, and it serves as an anchor in my life. It’s a ritual habit of Friday nights, marking off time in the way Sunday church services did when I was very young. When you watch a TV show regularly, the actors become more familiar than your own family. I see my Mom during a short visit once every three years. I see my trusty favorite TV show every week. During the Immigration debates earlier this year, Progressives saw how people are motivated to take to the streets when their family is threatened.
When my friend told me Stargate had been cancelled, the first thing I did was look online for information. I found Stargate fans had organized several “save the show” web sites in less than 24 hours (see here, here, and here). There were online petitions: I signed. Campaign coordinators suggested that fans fax, write, email, and call: I responded with action on all of the above. I followed the trail of social media from Digg to LiveJournal to Fark to SlashDot to register my virtual vote. There’s a call for Stargate fans to send in tissue boxes to the Sci Fi channel (don’t ask): Kleenex is on my grocery list.
While, as mentioned above, I’m on the second tier of info propagation from Stargate fandom, there’s already been some mainstream media coverage: the Stargate fandom campaign may end up with dissemination venues that many political campaigns would envy.
Now that’s a lot of energy and motivation that I put into declaring my allegiance to a TV show. I do vote, volunteer, and participate in a fax campaign for political issues, but I never pursued any political cause with this burst of energy. It’s not that I’m apathetic: I have many social justice concerns, and I have something like 50 RSS feeds, news alerts, and a 400k bookmarks file that would seem to make these issues my priority. But the cancellation of my favorite TV show got my attention and provoked a pavlovian reaction to campaign and get in the streets.
That’s just wrong.
If there’s one thing that’s endemic to progressive politics, it’s handwringing over how to drive the constituency to action: Why aren’t they voting? Why aren’t they donating money? Why are they just grumbling about Bush, all the boneheaded thing the NeoCons have done to this country, and not doing anything about it?
For me, it really comes down to one thing. Progressive campaigns alienate, and outright mistreat, the people who could be voting, donating, and using their communications networks to galvanize campaigns.
Different constituents have different hot buttons, but in general terms, here are some of the biggies: lying/hypocrisy, cronyism, invasion of privacy, financial plunder, and just being treated like dirt. Progressive campaign coordinators and activists seem to realize these are matters close to the voting heart: every other blog post and campaign quote seems to be about how BushCo’s kleptocracy is infested with lying cronies who are invading our privacy. The idea seems to be to assert the moral superiority of progressives and offer the Democratic slate as an alternative.
On the other hand, progressives are also out to win. And despite all their moralizing, they seem to be convinced that the Bush way actually works. They are eternally spawning progressive cabals ostensibly to “focus” their energies, which just arouses the suspicion and resentment of the people they exclude. They court influence and cultivate the media, seemingly oblivious about all the ways this looks like crony-mongering. They extract personal information of people who participate in fax campaigns (PFAW – I’m looking at you here) to flood people’s email and disrupt their evenings with solicitation phone calls. Progressives seem manipulative: they are messaging, messaging, messaging instead of listening, listening, listening.
Furthermore, when people pop up on the fringes of the progressive movement who might have useful technical skills, a whole new realm of contacts to offer, and new venues to feed progressive information into, they are rebuffed for not being on the wonk track – networking and tips are only for the pros. (What a way for progressives to sabotage their diversity message, too). As Crashing the Gate predicted, narrow wonkish agendas, pet issues, and local politics have been clashing over eyeballs, leading to what I’ve dubbed as the Tragedy of the Kossack Commons: just three weeks ago some jostling activist handed me a paper sign up list to form a Rec gang to get a particular candidate into the Daily Kos rec box. Good f’ing grief. What about the good causes without those sorts of organizational resources who are being relentlessly crowded out?
And, worst of all, these days when a normal constituent (as opposed to a Very Influentual Constituent) needs help from their political representatives to deal with erroneous actions of the State or intransigient government agencies and the crappy court system, most of the time the ostensible representatives don’t bother to respond.
When progressive actions don’t match their words, they come across as hypocrites and liars…and for people outside the hyper-connected world of the progressive blogosphere, it can be hard to tell the difference. Instead of Good Democrats and Bad Republicans, people just see Self-Serving Politicians.
What do activists and campaign staff honestly think will happen when they mistreat a constituent and then ask for their money, their vote, their volunteer energies?
Jacksquat will happen. That’s what.
When I’ve tried to express this problem to people involved in political campaigns, they usually assume I’m trying to repair some personal issue (and thus I’m selfish or have some character problem), or I don’t understand how their candidates will support legislation and programs that will somehow help me. What they don’t get is I no longer trust the candidate.
Why should I make a leap of faith in the direction of someone who just spit on me? How do I even know their voting record in the past will hold up under the political expediencies and money games of the future? I actually have more faith that a decent person on the other side of the party divide could change than a mean-spirited, crony-mongering person is promoting the “general good” (the argument being that my specific experience is the exception, and good luck finding the information to prove the rule).
Now let’s compare this with the online fandom experience, and all the energy that’s being funneled there. Fandom communities are all about welcoming new people, expanding the conversation, and sharing the fruits of creative endeavors. Sure there’s some newbie hazing and “cronyism” issues around Big Name Fans, but by and large there’s not many cabals formed to limit/enhance access to real world resources.
Fandom campaigns don’t seem to be using me, shaking me down financially, or spitting on me personally. Yet, like a political campaign, a fandom campaign asks for money, votes, and volunteer energies. In the end, I think the difference is that I feel good about doing my bit to pitch in for Stargate: I associate the Stargate fandom with good things and I know what a successful result will look like (some form of continuation of my favorite TV show). When I do anything for progressives, I have mixed feelings: am I alleviating poverty or being manipulated by a bunch of weenies who only care about exchanging business cards at the next Sac insider bash?
What can the typical, non-VIP constituent do? Pointing out the flaws in the system doesn’t work. If you try to explain this to campaigners, you just get booted out of their presence because you’re not “on board” with their strategy (which usually includes an implied “no badmouthing the campaign” clause). Saying the candidate has lost your vote doesn’t do anything, because politicians and their campaign staff have made it clear that they don’t care about isolated individuals. In fact, campaigners seem to perceive people who aren’t aligned with their strategy as a disruptive cost rather than necessary constituents. Withdrawing your vote in some loud and dramatic way doesn’t work: on top of making you look like a drama-seeking nut, this threat can only be made once: campaigners will shrug and move on to a prospect that seems more amenable to candidate/issue messaging. Basically, it’s impossible to get the people who need to understand how their campaigns and tenures in office are being perceived to hear the people that are being repelled. The voter reaction should be just to vote against the politically obtuse. However, in a two party system, it’s easy to get to a place where all options look just as bad. If you don’t want to vote for the person who’s a jerk that treats you badly, and you don’t want to vote for the person who is gung ho for war in Iraq, then the only option left is not to vote.
I hope Kossacks will read this diary carefully and not just go into “don’t want to hear it” mode. I’m not trying to tick people off. I’m giving people with an interest in progressive campaigning my authentic, true view on the matter: this is real info on how the relatively disconnected voter thinks. This is useful info to have, and it may help campaigners think about ways to come across in a less abrasive and manipulative way. Take this info or leave it, but please don’t pile on me for trying to get you to look at the view from outside the progressive blogosphere box. I do feel guilty that a TV show pushed my activism button more than, say, universal health care. I was crying as I wrote this.