Legal Commentary

The Emergence Of The Dem Blogosphere

By Big Tent Democrat

In August 2005, I posted Fighting Dems at Daily Kos:

Ed [Kilgore] is a sharp thinker and writer, but Ed lacks confidence in our Democratic ideals:

"We are more of a coalition party than they are," says Ed Kilgore, the policy director for the DLC. "If we put a gun to everybody's head in the country and make them pick sides, we're not likely to win."

Last week, writing about the critique I and others have offered regarding progressive political bargaining, Kilgore wrote:

I've never much liked the strain of progressive analysis that endlessly promotes "fighting" and "spine" and "cojones" as the answers to every Democratic political problem.

Well, I at least never said it is the answer to every problem, but it certainly is an effective bargaining tool. What strikes me about this though is that Ed Kilgore, of the once detested DLC, now is clearly more in tune with the progressive blogosphere than I am. How did this come about? I think it is pretty easy to answer - the progressive blogosphere has adopted the Democratic Party Establishment as its home team. The issues have been pushed to the background. The Party is everything.

Back in 2007, I wrote this piece at the Guardian warning of just such a development:

Today the netroots faces a new challenge of avoiding being seen as a top-down driven movement.

I think the answer is now clear. The progressive blogosphere no longer exists. There is a purely Democratic blogosphere now. I think that is a shame.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 26, 2010 (boomark / email).