In any event I’m sure he’s talking about the riht way to win elections, rather than what Henry thinks he means.

One could mail and ask him, but I can’t be bothered.

In a Democratic society, defined by universal franchise, the motive force for change and the source of political legitimacy are presumed to be the voters. In a society as large as the US the voters are going to be a varied and contentious lot. National political victory will go to whomever can forge a viable coalition of varying interests, energizing their base while demoralizing that of their opponents, a strategy that the Right has had great success with.

From the perspective of institutional privilege, this strategy works best the smaller the pool of actual voters is in comparison to the mass of eligible voters. The narrower the electoral base required for taking power, the easier for partisan formations to dominate the process. Likewise, the easier for centers of institutional power and influence to dominate the parties. This breeds an aversion to popular enthusiam except where it may be safely channeled through existing political institutions, thereby posing no challenge to the status quo.

For me, the motives of individual members of netroots/wonkosphere debate, are largely irrelevant. What matters is the sources that they draw on for their political strategy and appeal. In the case of the “netroots” you have the beginnings of a structural alternative to the status quo institutions of the Democratic party. It is fueled not by the personalities or ambitions of particular bloggers but by the accumulated frustration and disgust that people have for the Democratic party establishment. In this they are simply mirroring a more wide spread resentment that the Right has effectively exploited for over two decades. Anyone seriously interested in elevating policy above the Yahooism currently prevailing can’t afford to ignore this.

The Democratic establishment has responded as one might expect to being told that they are the problem. Something in between the sky is falling and the barbarians are at the gates.

I think that this the real dividing line in the debate. On one side you have an insurgency against the institutions, on the other a squeamishness about the vulgarity inherent in mobilizing popular sentiment combined with an attachment to the institutions themselves as vehicles for policy objectives.

The Democratic Party today is faced with a choice similar to the one facing the GOP over 30 years ago: standing pat or breaking with the status quo. The GOP made its choice and we are living with the consequences. Whether we continue to live with those consequences depends on the direction the Democratic Party takes. The Democrats cannot be the party of change if they fear and oppose it in their own ranks.

Take DeLong … while he is clearly a wonk (after all he’s an econ professor—naturally he has detailed and well-informed views on economic policy issues) … I don’t see him as disagreeing necessarily on electoral process issues with dKos. He doesn’t usually adress those topics.

And schwa seems to conflate the dKos commenters with Kos himself. He has provided a gathering place for people to argue and bullshit about politics. The dynamics (extreme views, invective, etc.) in the comments has nothing to do with the politics. Read SlashDot or any old usenet group (on technical topics unrelated to politics) if you don’t believe me.

I wrote that review.

election junkies/activist enablers: daily kos, mydd, swing state, myleftwing, booman, etc

media critics/activism enablers: atrios, digby, greenwald, avarosis, crooks and liars, firedoglake.

news commenters/reporters: drum, benen, marshall, tpmuckraker, progress report, (less a distinct group than the others)

wonks: coffee house, yglesias, tapped, klein.

wingnut mockers: poor man, tbogg, lots of others.

I don’t think my categories are random or arbitrary, though they’re not based on anything but my judgement.

Would be interested in a new analysis of linkage, would there be no other patterm than hacks, wonks, and atrios as intermediary now?

Yglesias holds various unorthodox views, some rightish, some leftish, along w general TAP orthodoxy. Drum is more conventional, and less wonkish or “intellectual”. Drum is very resistant to the idea of widespread right wing bias in the media, he identifies w political journalists, despite never having that beat when he was a journalist (I think). Yglesias doesn’t do atrios style media criticism, but he doesn’t disapprove of it as far as we know.

I don’t give a rat’s about the “netroots”. I’m just sick and goddamn tired of lazy assumptions about what the public has an “appetite” for, when we all know that what they think they want is largely the result of massive propaganda campaigns from the right, “countered” for so many years now by cowering, navel-gazing, and preeemptive capitulation on the “responsible” left. (Which helped get us this lovely war, among other things.) This is a sure losing game- it’s past time to try something else.

You’ve just given a perfect demonstration of why I bailed out of dKos, and why I’m so deeply pessimistic about the supposed transformative power of the “netroots.”

If you’d stop fucking screeching at me and get down off your high horse for a minute, you would see that (1) you are putting words in my mouth, and (2) I’m merely trying to argue that there are more good guys in blogosphere and party than are dreamt of in Kos’ blogroll.

I didn’t say word one about “Clintonian triangulation.” In fact, if you’d bothered to read my previous comments, you would have noticed that I was a Dean supporter.

My comments address two separate and basically unrelated themes:

One, that I think the ‘promise of the netroots’ is so much hot air. That’s my opinion, and while it could change, spittle-flecked sanctimony isn’t the way to get it to.

Two, that whether the netroots is hot air or the greatest advance in democratic empowerment since the secret ballot, the various factions of the Democratic party have enough common goals and concerns that they ought to be able to co-operate. I said this to people who sang from Al From’s songsheet and I’ll say it to people who sing from Markos Moulitsas’s.

Honest to god, I quit dKos to get away from having to write posts like this all the fucking time.

Here’s a free clue, you don’t decide in advance what people have an “appetite” for, you get your ass out there and try to PERSUADE them, instead of conceding all the Republican talking points in advance. And you don’t give up after one year, or one election cycle. Your way got us Bush- how can we do worse?