Commentary - Marc Danziger: Netroots and the business of American politics

But it’s useful to recall (ouch, a sensitive word in this context) that many of the elected officials who serve us at the state and federal levels (it’s hard to make a living in local politics) do so in no small part because it’s a living.

A very good one, if you track the aggregate growth in net worth as elected officials extend their terms in office. And don’t forget those who make a living thanks to elected officials, including campaign, media and issue consultants, official paid staff and lobbyists.

Recognizing this iron rice bowl is important to understanding much of modern politics. Because much of what goes on in politics is about seeking and maintaining access to it and to the benefits it contains.

This isn’t a novel statement, but it’s an issue that’s of particular relevance right now as we see an array of alternate futures for the impact of the Internet on modern politics and campaigning.

The Internet dis-intermediates, making it possible for people to find each other and things they want without the old filters that apportioned shelf space in stores, concerts for booking, TV shows to be shown and politicians to be supported.

I like the idea of shaking up the structures that have dominated our politics for the last two or three generations, because I’m increasingly doubtful that they can deliver the people we need to lead us and the consensus it will take to solve the very serious problems we’re skirting the edge of these days.

So, logically, I should support the “Netroots” movement, even though we may disagree on one or two important issues (Iraq), because we agree on a host of others — changing the political landscape, gay marriage, the need for an energy policy that doesn’t leave us in hock to people who fund terrorists, maintaining and extending the environmental protections we’ve managed to put in place over the last 20 years, building a robust public health care system, and so on and so forth.

And I want to, I really do. But one thing holds me back. Well, one thing, mainly.

I’m unconvinced about whether the Netroots wants to break the iron rice bowl or just get a place at it, as when Chris Bowers of My DD makes the statement that progressives should, “Stop thinking that the best way for progressive activists to help the progressive movement is for those activists to live in poverty. You can’t do your best work when you struggle to pay your bills.

“When it comes to blogging, you can’t do your best work on a dial-up modem in a studio apartment, [with] a 10-year-old computer chair and a five-year-old cell phone. If you want to keep the best and most effective progressive activists in the field of activism rather than the private sector, don’t tell them they need to live like monks.”

He’s dancing with the devil, because at some point he’s going to balance between preserving the flow of revenue that keeps him away from that studio apartment or the causes that he believes in and wants to promote.

He’s not alone in that struggle — this isn’t some character flaw in him alone (or in Kos, who has said many of the same things, or any other Netroots blogger) it is, in fact endemic and has existed as long as there have been human societies bigger than tribes. It’s one reason why our political system with it’s turmoil and checks and balances works so well.

The real question is the nature of the Internet’s transformation of our politics. Television changed it, and new political consultants who “got” television replaced the old ones who only worked in print. Direct mail, the same thing.

Will the rise of the Internet simply bring us a new clique of political consultants, or transform politics by opening it to the wider citizenry?

I’d love to see an Internet-based politics that really opened the doors — and as a nation, we’d be better off if it came to be. Do Bowers and Kos represent that politics? How will we know?

Marc Danziger is a member of The Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors and blogs at windsofchange.net.