I’m in Boston, at the Beckman conference on the Internet and Politics.
We’re about halfway through it; we’ve just finished lunch on the 1st day, and I’ll comment on the form of the conference, which is extremely traditional before I’ll comment too much on the content. Little of the content will be news to folks who read the political blogs; Internet tools are both effective in making existing campaign structures more efficient (think the Bush campaign) and in making new political structures possible.
The nature of those new structures is as yet undefined, but Joe Trippi is questioning the future of political parties, and suggests that the Democratic Party may well be about the first to go…Trent, you there?
What’s the most interesting is that – just like any other convention – all the other people who are here who are interested in the topic are far and away the most interesting part of the event. I’m getting to meet a bunch of smart folks and working on building the network that will at some point help build the coalition of the sensible.
I’m taking notes, and will blog a bit about it on the flight home…
“I’m getting to meet a bunch of smart folks and working on building the network that will at some point help build the coalition of the sensible.”
I’m sensing a rather ambitious unspoken goal here. Care to elaborate?
“The nature of those new structures is as yet undefined, but Joe Trippi is questioning the future of political parties, and suggests that the Democratic Party may well be about the first to go…Trent, you there?”
I don’t think that political parties are going to die. Rather, I think that a long over-due re-alignment is in order.
coalition of the sensible
Gee, that’s what CBS, ABC, etc. say they are.
“the Beckman conference on the Internet and Politics.”
I’m a Beckman and I wasn’t invited to this conference. In fact I wasn’t consulted at all.
I’m very insulted. But nothing that a cold beer can’t solve…
Very curious to read future posts about this.
I’m hanging out at Berkman as well. I agree with Marc “Reasonably Liberal” (ask him about it) that the format is lacking. For the substantial fraction 1/3? 1/2? of the audience who follow these issues in the blogosphere, much of the discussion is overs on topics that have already been hashed and rehashed. It would be better to send the attendees a list of posts they should have read before each session, and take up the discussion from there.
Nonetheless, Hoder, Oh Yeon-Ho (OhMyNews), and Esther Dyson were all right on point with thoughtful analysis. Jet lag has caught up, so like Marc I’ll probably be writing on the plane back.
“I don’t think that political parties are going to die. Rather, I think that a long over-due re-alignment is in order.”
The Dems have been reduced to their base(geographic and demographic)but could lose the upper mid-west if Janeane Garofalo & Co. keep spitting on the blue-collar “Archie Bunkers”.
I’ll go with th CV and put money on a Republican split btween paleos and neos/libertarians.
All depends on on the economy and the WoT,of course.One good attack because of our open borders and the neo-cons(and libertarians) are toast.
A.L,
You might want to go back and read this:
“Going Off the Cliff — Democrats in 2004”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/003808.php
by Trent Telenko at July 22, 2003 11:53 PM
The Democratic Party is committing suicide because its most powerful faction does not believe that the world outside the USA is real.
This is from “George Will’s latest column”:http://www.indystar.com/articles/0/201497-7350-021.html/ :
bq. _When Moore sat in Jimmy Carter’s box at the 2004 Democratic convention, voters drew conclusions about the party’s sobriety. Liberalism’s problem with the Moore/MoveOn faction is similar to conservatism’s 1960s embarrassment from the claimed kinship of the John Birch Society, whose leader called President Eisenhower a Kremlin agent._
bq. _The reason Moore is hostile to U.S. power is that he despises the American people from which the power arises. Moore’s assertion that America “is known for bringing sadness and misery to places around the globe” is a corollary of Kuttnerism, the doctrine that “middle America” is viciously ignorant._
bq. _Beinart is bravely trying to do for liberalism what another magazine editor — National Review’s William Buckley — did for conservatism by excommunicating the Birchers from the conservative movement. But Buckley’s task was easier than Beinart’s will be because the Birchers were never remotely as central to the Republican base as the Moore/MoveOn faction is to the Democratic base._
Or to use “Andrew Sullivan’s words”:http://andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2003_07_20_dish_archive.html#105893464231917639 on the same score before he fell to the “Anybody But Bush” craziness:
bq. “THE PRE-9/11 MIND: _The more I read emails or talk to anti-war types, I get a sense that 9/11 never really happened. Or if it happened, it meant nothing more than a discrete crime with discrete criminals who alone deserved justice. The notion that it meant that we were and are actually at war with a series of terrorist entities and the tyrannies that support them never truly took hold on the far left (or right). As the months have passed, their complacency and denial have undoubtedly metastasized among others as 9/11 recedes from our collective consciousness and its emotional wound begins to heal. *These people, it’s worth remembering, believe that the exercise of American military power is almost always more morally problematic than any foreign tyranny or even a serious security threat to the homeland.* They can only justify American military power if it is wielded under imminent, grave danger that can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. That’s why they are so exercised about tiny pieces of evidence today. They still believe we were wrong to remove Saddam from power without incontrovertible proof of WMDs of a type unobtainable in police states; they still believe America had no moral sanction for such an action; and they are even more determined to prove the superiority of their case now that the war was such a military success. So they have to turn the fallible evidence before the war into “lies”; and they have to turn the difficult but worthy post-war reconstruction into a “quagmire.” *They know the only chance they have is to turn American public opinion against the war so as to prevent any such exercise of military power again. In that sense, they really cannot simply be mocked. They must be challenged at every turn. For they are engaged in a process that will not only stymie efforts at reforming the Middle East but will make Americans and others more vulnerable to the designs of the Islamofascists and their terrorist allies.* The war abroad cannot therefore be extricated from the debate at home. We will not win the former without winning the latter._
_- 12:30:51 AM”_
The tragedy of the 2004 election was that Liberal Hawks proved they lacked the courage of their convictions. They as a group were first, last, and always Partisan Democrats before they were hawks or anything else, including being patriotic.
Tim Cavanaugh hit the nail on the head in his REASON article: “Desertion In the Field: Twilight of the liberal hawks”:http://www.reason.com/cavanaugh/110104.shtml
bq. _But the liberal hawks, by and large, did not emphasize (and in some cases did not even believe) the weapons of mass destruction argument. They supported the forward strategy of freedom, which had at its base the notion that postwar Iraq would be capable of self-sufficiency. If you took seriously the idea that the United States was liberating the people of Iraq, then the Rumsfeld doctrine of minimal force was the only one that made sense. If keeping Iraq on life support meant committing a vast occupying force indefinitely, then clearly Iraq wasn’t a very good test case for the democratic experiment._
bq. _*To support the forward strategy of freedom and condemn Rumsfeld’s minimal use of force is to ignore that the two are related.* More “boots on the ground” is not a recipe for success; it’s an admission of failure, an acknowledgement that the Iraqis can’t run their own country. It doesn’t surprise me that the neocons’ opponents believe (wrongly, in my view) that they want to establish a puppet government in Iraq. It does surprise me that so many of their supporters seem to believe the same thing._
bq. _In the event, of course, Rumsfeld’s “inadequate” force was sufficient to conquer Iraq in three weeks, even as Saddam Hussein’s military put up an uncharacteristically stiff fight. *For the liberal hawks, this victory shrinks to insignificance compared to the postwar mismanagement.* I am inclined to agree that the occupation period has been grim, but I didn’t think invading Iraq was a good idea in the first place. *People who supported the invasion, but believed they could bring along a kit bag full of caveats, codicils, and lawyerese about how the war should be conducted, have no such deniability.*_
And
bq. _So if the liberal hawks honestly thought the war could be conducted without brutality, they were merely naïve. *If, however, they are not so much disappointed in the war as tired of Bush, they are something worse.* I’m not going to prescribe how anybody should vote, but are there any issues of greater moment than the invasion of Iraq? What is the case for turning out a president who delivered something of such importance to people who say they wanted it? That Bush supported the Federal Marriage Amendment? That No Child Left Behind is underfunded? That Michael Powell has been too rough on Howard Stern? *Are these the same people who spent the last three years reminding me that there’s a war on?*_
bq. _I realize that supporters of the Iraq war could use the very same arguments I’m making here. They’re welcome to them. *The old-fashioned conservative hawks may not be a very attractive bunch, but at least they have the courage of their convictions.* If it eventually turns out the invasion of Iraq leads to an outbreak of peace and freedom in the Dar al-Islam (and I hope to be proven wrong on this matter), the liberal hawks will undoubtedly swoop back in to show they were on the right side of history. If that day ever comes, just remember one thing: When the going got tough, they were the ones who looked to Secretary of State Biden to bail them out._
As for Trippi’s take on both political parties disappearing…?
Nope.
This is my take on what will happen after the Democrats are gone from a comment of mine in the same Winds article:
bq. _#5 from Trent Telenko on July 23, 2003 02:35 AM
Michael,_
bq. _What makes you think the Republican Coalition as it is now will survive the death of the Democratic Party and victory in the War on Terrorism?_
bq. _In the aftermath of the end of the Cold War the Republicans drove out arch cold warrior Pat Buchanon over immigration. That was only over a minor issue._
bq. _Politics like nature abhores a vacuum. The current Republican coalition of amoral big business Fat Cats, small ‘l’ Libertarians, Small Businessmen and the Religious Right will not willingly cooperate or cohabitate without the threat of Democrats in power to hold them together._
bq. _One or more of these groups will split off and form a new national party with the exiled centrist Democrats to replace the over run by leftie nut rump-Democrats._
America will win this war without the Liberal Hawks and with the complete opposition of the Democratic Party. The Moore faction of the Party will see to it that Democratic candidates will have negative credibility in facing the responsibilities of the war in 2006, 2008 and beyond.
This will reduce the Democrats to the same status as the Federalists were after the Hartford convention during the War of 1812 — a Sectional party damned with the taint of treason.
How the various Republican factions explode out to fill the vacuum of the Democrats implosion will the American political science story of the 21st Century.