Trashing The Gates

An unfortunate and recurring propensity of intellectuals, academics and those who spend too much time on the Internet is to confuse theory with reality. We then get so passionately identified with our theories that we battle like young boys in an online World of Warcraft. Those who may get hurt in the real world due to our misperceptions and misjudgments are too often those who don't have the leisure time to spend piddling around on their computers. The looming consequence of one such passionately contested theory may be long term damage to the Democratic Party.

It's kind of sad to hear the voices of elders like George McGovern as they plaintively urge candidates in this nomination battle to find a way to come together for the good of the Party. These old folks just don't get it. Those who were raised on flame wars and chat rooms, where you can master the art of the faceless attack and don't even have to give your name know that in the virtual world, this is battle without end, accept with the total silencing of one's opponent. The sort of politic where one respects an opponent or tries to reach a mutual accommodation just doesn't wash. This is the revenge of the nerds.

To test their theory about how the Internet can win an election the 'netroots' have managed to return politics to the bad old days when George Wallace held sway over the segregationist South. This was before a hard won coalition was successfully forged, largely through the efforts of Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson, between blacks and working class whites, that led to a major realignment of both political parties. This is the coalition that was eventually shaped by the Clintons into a vehicle for winning the presidency.

Yet, the self-designated 'progressive' wing of the party has apparently decided that replacing blue collar white voters with those who prospered and grew wealthy mostly during the Clinton years will lead us to the same results. They've managed to open themselves to the inevitable accusation, perhaps justified, that the Democratic Party is led by effete liberals who are out of touch with mainstream Americans.

But no, we are told by the Daily KOS and the Huffington Post that the 'netroots' equals the 'grassroots'. One could argue that the result of recent primaries and the evidence of general election polls provide this argument with some basis for dispute. The whole theory appears kind of 'iffy' to me. Maybe the Republicans are so demoralized and so out of it that they won't pick up on the likely result that should the Obama wing of Democrats take the nomination a whole constituency of pissed off Democrats will be left outside to be courted. I wouldn't count on their missing that opportunity. After all, we've been through this playbook before, as long ago as Nixon with his 'Silent Majority', who swept over Democrats as they warred between themselves.

Maybe Barack Obama will live up to or even exceed the promise he has extended to the Party, and manage to heal all of the bleeding rifts that have been opened. Maybe he will speak the magic words from his podium, following up on his brilliant (I thought) speech in Philadelphia, more specifically addressing the close relationship between racism and issues of class and poverty. This may be difficult in an atmosphere where the media reduces racism to something called the 'bubba' factor and where Obama supporters react to every slight and critique of their candidate with strident cries of racist!! By reducing the concerns of white working class voters to those of racism they are certainly made no more likely to accept with grace an Obama nomination. The choice of the 'netroots' to demonize the Clintons and their supporters, accusing them of everything from child murder to the Oklahoma City bombing won't help to heal the wounds in the party either. (I'm not kidding about these accusations - see the most recent spew by Camille Paglia on Salon.com.)

I certainly hope that in the event of Obama capturing the nomination he can fulfill the hopes of his followers and be the healer he claims to be. Indeed, it's the very people who are now being so steadily slandered that likely carry the keys to his victory with their eventual good will. This will be the first test of anyone who claims to be the peacemaker, to reconcile with these whom they now treat as enemy. If they can't overcome the breach the Obama coalition is likely to find itself on its own, and victory in the fall a good deal less than certain.