Notes From The Blogosphere

"I hate a man that talks rude," he said, "I won't tolerate it." - Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

I've been reading Please Don't Remain Calm: Provocations and Commentaries, the recent book of essays published by Michael Kinsley, mostly in the online journal, Slate, from 1995 until 2007. Upon reviewing those less than fond memories of the controversies over the vote count in Florida during the Bush - Gore election contest I'm struck by certain similarities in both tone and content with the present Internet free-for-all over the Democratic nomination.

Remember those gangs of Republican hired hooligans that stormed the recount offices terrifying the volunteers and coordinators with their incessant chanting and threatening catcalls? This is pretty much the same level of political discourse taking place on various political hangouts all over the blogosphere. Here, for example. is one of yesterday's posts on the Washington Post blog, a pretty fair example of a voice from the so-called 'Netroots.':

"listen up, Hillary's supporters"

LISTEN UP POOR, WHITE RACIST LOSERS:

WHY DON'T YOU GET OFF YOUR LAZY ASSES AND GET JOBS. SURE, YOU'RE OBVIOUSLY IDIOTS BUT WAL-MART HIRES IDIOTS FOR NEXT TO NOTHING. BETTER THAN BEING SO OBVIOUSLY THREATENED BY OBAMA'S SUCCESS THAT YOU'RE TINY PIN HEADS WILL EVENTUALLY EXPLODE WITH HATRED AND JEALOUSY.

Can't you just see that gang of thugs pounding at the glass doors of the Palm Beach precinct headquarters demanding that the counting be stopped!!! Or maybe it sounds a bit like a bunch of adolescents talking trash at each other in an unsupervised high school cafeteria. Since the Internet is disproportionately populated by adolescent males looking for a place to let off steam this brand of invective is probably not surprising.

Still, the quality of expression I've heard from more responsible and mature citizenry, and even friends of mine, has not been much different in content, if more cultivated in tone.

While George W. Bush proved once and for all the disastrous dumbing down effect of incessant television watching, it turns out that few could have predicted the new lows that would be reached in the blogosphere, where anonymity breeds immoderation and any fool with a keyboard can find a platform for their angst.

Remember not so long ago when the Democratic field of candidates was brimming with promise and optimistic possibilities? All of that has been replaced long since by the equivalent of roaming gangs of bloggers pumping their loads of vitriol from the safety of their monitors with the tacit support of candidates and their various war machines.(At least I haven't seen much effort on the part of candidates to distance themselves from this corrosive garbage.) Of course all of the disgusting word play makes any real attempt at dialogue or a meeting of minds utterly useless.  

Some of us once thought that the Internet would lead to a renaissance of shared ideas and global understanding. Instead it has bred a proliferating miasma of occasionally colliding echo chambers where people talk only to those who mirror themselves unless they are hurling abuse at others in an aggressive attempt to gain attention.

A presidential election conducted in the milieu of YouTube takes on the characteristics of American Idol.  Image replaces ideas, style replaces substance, the vague and vacuous is superior to the specific, or in McLuhan terms, 'cool' beats 'hot'.

The election of Bush over Gore showed that in an age of media super-saturation less is more. Too much information leaves too little for the public's imagination. Barack Obama further proves the rule, being a master at suggestion, giving people only enough cues that they may fill in the gaps with whatever they wish to see. This is the magic world of the 'new politics'.

Candidates no longer need to persuade voters as much as they need to convert them. Once converted people can be trusted to spread the message like a virus by repeating whatever memes or catch phrases or talking points they've been exposed to. Very little actual thinking is involved. It's more of an emotional thing.

The trick is to find the right meme for a given time and then to embody it with some set of visual cues; Bush with his chainsaw, Hillary with her pants suits, Obama with his unflappable calm. An election is about "experience" or it's about "change" or maybe "security". The race is finding the magic word and determining what exactly it should look like.

Politics, like the news and sports and cinema and rock and roll is an extension of one enormous digital entertainment complex, as removed from teh mechanics of governance as the movies are removed from real life. We elect candidates that make us feel good about ourselves and whose image reflects our own self-image. We want someone who will fulfill our dream about America, and then we hope they won't damage the furniture too badly. Most often we are disappointed when that dream meets up with reality.