Wrap-Up and Final Thoughts

In this post, I plan to offer a summary of the arguments in favor of the Type for America thesis. The goal is not to raise any new points but to highlight the major points of dispute (along with our biased opinion on them, of course). The Type for America thesis can be broken into three basic arguments:

1.) The Dean campaign changed campaigning.
2.) The change is significant, not just a novelty that can be ignored.
3.) The change will be substantive, in the sense that it is not merely new technology used by the same people in the service of the same old politics.

On Point #1, it seems that both sides agree that the Internet is more important to campaigning--specifically to fundraising, information sharing, and organization of rallies and get-out-the-vote events--now than it was before the Dean campaign. I think the main dispute is causation. Hype for America argues "it was not Howard Dean doing the changing, but simply Dean who rode the wave of technology most successfully." As we've conceded below, Dean did not invent online campaigning; John McCain and Roh Moo-Hyun of South Korea got there first. But Dean used the Internet for fundraising, conveying information, and communicating with his supporters on a scale that was unprecedented, at least in American politics. Dean proved that the Internet could propel a little-known candidate into frontrunner status, against the will (initially) of much of the party establishment. Dean's campaign certainly was not the only cause of the changes we're describing, but we believe that it was more important than any other single factor except the development of Internet technology itself.

On Point #2, Hype disputes the significance of the Internet, writing "Even if the internet did lower the barriers to participate in politics, real world factors will always be crucial. Real world resources (i.e., cash, connections, etc.) buy influence and power in the real world." At Type, we don't argue that the Internet will entirely eliminate real world factors, but we reject any notion that the Internet is merely some kind of novelty add-on to the usual business of campaigning. In 1996 and even 2000, the Internet was a novelty add-on, and candidates could afford to have a weak online presence. Thanks in large part to the example of the Dean campaign in 2004, this is no longer true. The Dean campaign has demonstrated that the Internet can be the source of millions of dollars, millions of votes, and millions of eyes to see your message, and no candidate will be able to afford to ignore it during the coming election cycles. As more people become regular Internet users, the Internet will become the "real world" in a sense.

On Point #3, Hype contends that even though the technology has changed, the nature of campaigning--particularly the participants and the outcomes--remains basically the same. As Hype puts it, "My argument is that Internet Democracy is faster, cheaper, and easier--that is to say, procedurally superior. But substantively, Internet Democracy is precisely equivalent to Pre-Internet Democracy." They add that the Internet will be dominated by an elite class (as suggested by the claim that a small number of bloggers already wield extraordinary influence in the blogosphere) and that this elite will consist of the same forces that are elite in the real world.

We have basically two responses to this: one empirical and one theoretical. The empirical response is that the Internet-empowered grassroots have had a measurable influence on politics since the 2004 campaign, at least in the Democratic Party. Dean is now chairman of the Democratic National Committee, thanks partly to blogosphere support (not to mention blogosphere willingness to dig up dirt on his opponents), and many powerful Democratic politicians make direct appeals for support from the hordes of anonymous readers of Daily Kos. Of course, these are just hints of the importance of the Internet. Hype says that the real test is "whether someone will one day be able to rise from the blogosphere and rally enough support to win a national election." This could have happened with Dean in 2004; we'll have to wait until future elections to see if anyone passes this test. The theoretical response is that the Internet, by its very nature as a decentralized and low-cost medium, will necessarily loosen the grip of the traditional elites on politics. As Yochai Benkler argues, the economic structure of the Internet is fundamentally different from that of traditional mass media. It's much less costly than before for a no-name candidate to get attention. It's now possible for a group of anonymous people to find each other and work on a common political project, whether that be electing a candidate or (to use Benkler's examples) neutralizing the actions of major corporations like Sinclair and Diebold. It's possible that the traditional elites will take over in the end, of course, with the complicity of people who hear only what they want to hear. But the theoretical potential for substantive change is greatly expanded. We will see in the next few years whether this continues to become reality.