The Power of Blogs to Shape Conventional Wisdom

If there's one piece of analysis that I hope liberal/progressive/centrist bloggers read (and internalize) between now and the next election cycle, it's Peter Daou's most recent post at the Daou Report. Daou, who had the thankless task of heading the Kerry campaign's blog outreach effort in 2004, offers an ambitious piece of political process analysis, one with remarkable explanatory power. Daou's goal is to provide an honest assessment of the political influence (both actual and potential) of political blogs, and in doing so, suggest strategies for more effectively harnessing the power of blogs to achieve progressive goals.

Daou begins his analysis by offering a rough-and-ready definition of political influence. He defines it as "the capacity to alter or create conventional wisdom." He defines conventional wisdom as "a widely held belief on which most people act." Daou argues, correctly I believe, that the key to political success is learning how to consistently shape conventional wisdom.

Daou observes that "blog power on both the right and left is a function of the relationship of the netroots [i.e. blogs] to the media and the political establishment." In other words, "without the participation of the media and the political establishment, the netroots alone cannot generate the critical mass necessary to alter or create conventional wisdom." Only when the "triangle of blogs, media, and the political establishment" are all on the same page, echoing the same sentiment, does an idea become firmly planted in the public consciousness.

As Daou points out, the power of this confluence of sentiment, this triangle, was demonstrated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The blogs, the mainstream media, and the Democratic establishment all expressed the same general sentiment, that the federal government's response to the disaster was shockingly incompetent and inadequate. The result was an unprecedented political debacle for the President and a serious dent in his poll numbers regarding "decisiveness" and "leadership ability."

The power of this iron triangle has long been understood by the Republican party. Even before the explosion of the blogosphere, Republicans learned to use talk radio and partisan books and magazines in a similar way. Talk radio hosts and conservative authors dug up stories and investigated them tirelessly, while at the same time developing and refining the talking points that would later be co-opted by Republican politicians and lazily repeated by mainstream journalists--who are all too often content to let an issue be framed for them. Once a story had gained enough "traction" (i.e. had been repeated by enough conservative talking heads), it would invariably find its way into the mainstream media, which more often than not, would report the story through whatever ready-made framework conservatives supplied. In those rare instances where the press corps resisted the conservative framing of the issue, the charge of "liberal bias" was deployed to discredit and intimidate those who were not cooperative. When the internet and the political blogosphere came along, the Republicans simply incorporated these new forms of media into their pre-existing strategy. The Drudge Report and various partisan blogs took their place alongside partisan talk radio, cable news, magazines, and books. They all served the same collective function: to shape conventional wisdom in a way that furthered the conservative cause. The advent of websites and blogs merely amplified the already powerful conservative echo chamber.

So if blogs cannot shape conventional wisdom without the assistance of the party establishment and the mainstream media, what's the big deal? Why all the fuss? Well, as Daou explains:

Bloggers can exert disproportionate pressure
on the media and on politicians. Reporters,
pundits, and politicians read blogs, and, more
importantly, they care what bloggers say about
them because they know other reporters,
pundits, and politicians are reading the same
blogs. It's a virtuous circle for the netroots and
a source of political power. The netroots can also
bring the force of sheer numbers to bear on a
non-compliant politician, reporter, or media
outlet. Nobody wants a flood of complaints from
thousands of angry activists. And further,
bloggers can raise money, fact-check, and help
break stories and/or keep them in circulation
long enough for the media and political
establishment to pick them up. Consequently,
bloggers, though unable to change conventional
wisdom on their own, are able to use these
proficiencies and resources to persuade the
media and political establishment to join them
in pushing a particular story or issue.

There are a number of important implications buried within this paragraph. First, and most importantly, liberal/progressive/centrist bloggers should continue to hammer away at the mainstream media. For years, conservatives have used the mainstream media to their advantage by 1) capitalizing on journalistic laziness by supplying pre-packaged stories and talking points and 2) intimidating journalists by impugning their integrity and impartiality, making them reluctant to question and more likely to simply repeat these same pre-packaged stories and talking points. Blogs have the power to alter this dynamic, to remind mainstream journalists of their original and proper role as the gatekeepers of fact and the referees of political discourse. By sheer contrast, bloggers can remind the journalists who read them just how spineless and subservient they've become over the last decade and a half. In their coverage of Hurricane Katrina, mainstream journalists showed signs that they had internalized, at least to some degree, the criticism that blogs have leveled against them for many years now. It was as if, for at least a moment, they had rediscovered their proper role. They refused (at least consciously) to be the conduits for misinformation, and took it upon themselves to correct the record, when necessary. This journalistic epiphany may be short lived, however, so it's important that bloggers keep pressuring our insulated and often timid press corps.

Secondly, Daou's analysis indicates that criticism of Democratic politicians by liberal bloggers is not necessarily counterproductive, as many claim, but can actually serve a constructive purpose. Besides the fact that it would be intellectually dishonest and blindly partisan to refrain from criticizing Democrats when they deserve it, this criticism is something they very much need to hear from their own side. I often hear complaints that liberals/Democrats put themselves at a disadvantage by engaging in too much internecine squabbling, a phenomenon which is far less common on the Right. Yet part of the reason there is so little squabbling on the Right is that Republican politicians are much more likely to listen to conservative writers/bloggers. They may not always agree, but there is a definite sense of collaboration and mutual influence.

On the Democratic side, the relationship is far more testy. Democratic politicians not only ignore much of the "netroots," but they have repeatedly ignored them to the detriment of the entire party. The Democratic party has always been home to a fairly vocal fringe element: activists who disrupt WTO meetings, environmentalists who chain themselves to trees, etc. These activists, while passionate and engaged, have very little political sense and, consequently, the Democratic establishment has long since learned to ignore them. When the liberal bloggers burst on to the scene, therefore, I think many Democratic politicians assumed that they were cut from the same cloth as traditional activists, and as a result, they were similarly ignored.

I must admit that, before I started reading them regularly, this is what I assumed as well. But it's just not the case. Although there are plenty of kooks to be found (as one would expect from a medium with so few barriers to entry), the liberal bloggers that have developed the largest readerships are, for the most part, much more pragmatic and politically savvy than they are given credit for. Unlike the single-issue activists and activist groups that came of age at a time when Democrats controlled the levers of power in Washington, the liberal bloggers are, for the most part, movement based. They understand that, with Republicans controlling all branches of government, myopic single-issue advocacy is often counterproductive. They understand that returning the Democratic party to power is far more important than any single-issue. To take but one example, the DailyKos, the liberal blog with the largest readership, has in recent months done a number of straw polls (of DailyKos readers) regarding potential 2008 presidential candidates. The consistent winner of these polls (by a large margin) has been General Wesley Clark, a man who until last year was not even a Democrat and whose position on many traditional liberal issues is still not clear. The obvious implication is that most DailyKos readers, like Kos himself, are practical and aware of political reality. They understand that no liberal issues can be addressed unless and until the Democratic party regains power.

While Democratic politicians are paying more attention to the "netroots" these days, you still get the sense that they are motivated more by a desire to raise money than by any genuine interest in the ideas being discussed. Howard Dean's 2004 success at raising money through the internet has certainly opened the eyes of Democratic politicians, but it has not necessarily opened their ears. Until they start listening (and ever after), bloggers should continue to criticize these politicians. There is no better way to gain someone's attention than to point out his/her every fault. Every effort must be made to attract the attention of the mainstream media and the Democratic establishment. Only then will blogs have the power to consistently shape conventional wisdom and thereby move this country in a different direction.