The Web's social-network applications will be the key to governing for president-elect Barack Obama. At least that's the contention of Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism and sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in Communications at Columbia University, and way back, a president of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
Gitlin's argument, such as it is, appears on a cringe-inducing commentary in "The Atlantic." It's cringe-inducing because it is so abjectly fawning that one suspects Gitlin is angling for a post in the Obama administration. In case we're in any doubt about the world-historical moment, and figure, before us, Gitlin writes that "Obama himself sounded more that a little like FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] when he told Steve Croft on "60 Minutes": "My interest is in finding something that works."
Who knew that so much lay concealed in such a conventional platitude?
He finds Obama's account of his organizing years in his book "Dreams of my Father," to be "extraordinarily vivid and devoid of self-puffery." In the presidential campaign, the "inspirational rhetorician met the brass-tacks organizer - a unique combination."
Wading through the treacly prose, you eventually arrive at Gitlin's point, which is that 1) Roosevelt was a pragmatic but non-random experimenter (a "practical tinkerer") who 2) betrayed the "more conservative elements of his coalition" when they couldn't hurt him politically, and 3) won the fervent allegiance of a social movement -- the labor unions and their supporters -- by backing the legislation they wanted, giving him room to, you know, tinker.
Obama's social movement is, as Gitlin says, "strangely his own - organized around him, his mystique, his aura, his promise....It's Obama the charismatic amalgam himself who stands for Change, or, if you like, Transformation."
I love this part: "This is no small thing...even if his cult of personality strikes some observers as, in the words of Newsweek editor Evan Thomas, 'slightly creepy.'"
For the record, it doesn't strike me that way. It strikes me as VERY creepy.
Obama, the skilled community organizing, practical tinkering, charismatic amalgam who stands for Change, has applied all these gifts and skills to a social movement that is defined by virtual community. As a campaigner, Gitlin says, Obama was "still an organizer, building on Howard Dean's networks and his precedent-making Web campaign."
"Now, thanks to his deft use of the social-network applications on the Web, Obama retains the means for netroots operations, high-octane fund-raising, smear-fighting, and get-out-the-vote operations."
Gitlin becomes almost giddy with the prospects of how a cult of personality, fluent in Web dynamics, can exploit "his more than 3 million names - disproportionately young and energetic." They "remain a political force as long as he satisfies them that, once in office, he can deliver."
But Obama doesn't have to "deliver" in conventional political terms in order to "satisfy" his netroots. In a "political landscape where passions outweigh ideological clarity," as Gitlin himself puts it, Obama's self-centered movement need only satisfy those passions. And Gitlin makes it clear that the Web technologies are ideally suite to do just that.
Obama can "deploy his supporters to muscle reforms through." One gets the distinct impression that for Gitlin it's the muscling even more than the reform that's so satisfying. As president, Obama can get them to "bombard Congress with phone calls to break filibusters and [my favorite catch-all] otherwise stir them to action...."
Almost any action will suffice, the more passionate the better "He can pit them against the right-wing media who will surely pounce on his every mistake." We've already seen this kind of anti-democratic ploy in play curing the campaign: Web-inspired and -fueled campaigns to smother opposition.
The facility with which this can be done is growing, as the campaign can stay connected via wireless networks and mobile devices anywhere, anytime.
"He needs to keep them pumped up to resist the default privatism of American life, the cynical inertia, passivity, even paralysis, of the public will." Gitlin's view of the "public will" in this context is atavistic and more than a "little creepy" itself, as his enthusiasm for facility with which the Web can be used to manipulate it.
Gitlin cites an article by E.J. Dionne on the current debate within the Obama campaign on the future of this social-networked network of pumped-up passionistas. One option is to fold it into the political equivalent of "Old Media" -- the Democratic Party apparatus. That's about as likely as Google being folded into "The Atlantic."
The other option is for the Perpetual Online Campaign to remain the private preserve of President Obama.
Dionne reports that the campaign launched on online survey in October asking network members to rank four objectives: "helping the new administration "pass legislation through grass-roots efforts"; helping elect state and local candidates "who share the same vision for our country"; training others in the organizing techniques perfected by the campaign; and "working on local issues that impact our communities.""
As Dionne notes, "Notably absent from that list was the word "Democrat.""
Dionne, like Gitlin, is upbeat about the prospects. "Democrats believe (and many Republicans fear) that Obama allowed [!?] his party and its allies to take an enormous leap forward in both technological sophistication and grass-roots activism. Preserving those gains and building on them is a priority for a man who sees organizing not only as instrumental but also as a way of transforming democracy itself."
Ah. The "T" word again. Surely the question is: into what is democracy being transformed?
Greetings, welcome, and thanks for reading.
Related blog entries:
Getting fruity: Obama clings to his BlackBerry http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/35728
Obama and the dark side of social networking http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/33281
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Cox is a senior editor at Network World.
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