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09 May 2008 05:10 pm

Non-Paul Republicans And The Web

The current GOP has a problem:

As Ron Paul himself has pointed out many times, his campaign didn't do anything to organize support on the Internet.  That's not how it works. 

What happens is that millions of people independently come to the same conclusion that there is something wrong with the System and that it needs to change.  Then they start organizing on their own, and rally behind candidates who best represent their views.  The organizing is bottom-up, not top-down. 

Non-Paul Republicans can't tap into that because their entire political model is authoritarian:  "We report, we decide."  That model appeals only to passive-minded people, and passive-minded people aren't inclined to self-organize. 

I wonder if Obama's and Paul's amazing web success is a harbinger of a more libertarian and self-empowered political culture - because the web does not reward obedience, submission, or authoritarianism. It saddens me a great deal to see conservatism in America increasingly lean toward top-down, authoritarian, fear-based politics. In its best incarnation, conservatism is about self-government, individual freedom and hope-based politics. It's about trusting people, not corralling them. In  this, the web is the right's natural ally, and it's a very telling sign of American conservatism's decadence that it doesn't get the Internet as effectively as others.

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