Associated Articles 2
My Blog's Bigger Than Your Blog
PsycCRITIQUES, American Psycological Assocaition
By William D. Crano
January 2007
When this review was written, you owed
approximately $29,000 that you probably did not
know about, but it is your share of the U.S. national
debt of $8.5 trillion. Luckily, the value of the dollar
has dropped precipitously over the past few years,
so it is not as bad as it might have been. Imagine if
those dollars had held their value. The earlier
regime, the tax-and-spend liberals, had generated a
trillion dollar budget surplus. In the space of six
years, the current regime of fiscal conservatives has
stemmed the surplus tide. In fact, their stemming
efforts have been so successful that the U.S.
Congress was forced to adjust the debt ceiling to $9
trillion in March 2006. This ceiling leaves us a bit of
breathing space, but not much. As Senator Everett
Dirksen said, “A billion here, a billion there, and
pretty soon you're talking real money” (U.S. Senate,
n.d.). For those with even a passing acquaintance
with logic and recent U.S. political history, these
apparent political party role reversals might cause
consternation, confusion, or at least some complex
mental acrobatics. The surplus-deficit figures are
factual. Their causes are controversial. In this book,
the authors investigate these causal explanations,
along with a host of other questions, issues, and
Crashing the Gate: Netroots,
Grassroots, and the Rise of
People-Powered Politics
by Jerome Armstrong and Markos
Moulitsas Zúniga
White River Junction, VT: Chelsea
Green, 2006. 198 pp. 1-931-49899-7
(hardcover); 1-9333-9241-X
(paperback). $25.00, hardcover;
$12.95, paperback
answers. For example, they wonder how a political
party can prevail after it has abrogated one of its
central fiscal principles, begun a seemingly
interminable war on the basis of evidence that was
at best wishful, failed miserably to respond to one of
the country's major natural disasters (and that
failure continues in New Orleans today), slashed $15
billion from school aid (leaving yet another five
million children behind), alienated most of the
country's friends, stirred the hatred of all its
enemies… the list could go on, but the question
remains, How could such a party hope to prevail? In
Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the
Rise of People-Powered Politics, Jerome Armstrong
and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga provide answers to
these and many other questions in this fascinating,
impassioned, and zealous presentation.
The authors are not dispassionate scholars—their
book begins with “Five years ago, the Republicans
took over the government through nondemocratic
means” (p. 1). Whether one agrees or disagrees
with their statement, it is a fair guess that their
opening line will not fail to attract attention. This is
not a bad thing. Contrary to what one might expect
on the basis of this opening, the Democrats do not
get off lightly. This, too, is a good thing, as it
balances what could otherwise become a very onesided
presentation. The authors' litany of Republican
sins of commission and Democratic sins of omission
will provoke the former and depress the latter, but
the élan with which they formulate their arguments
make this an interesting, if for some, disheartening
read.
The authors are progressive bloggers, one of
whom was instrumental in Howard Dean's run-up to
the Democratic presidential nomination, a run that
imploded on the cold plains of Iowa with a hearty
“yee haw.” Today, they work on two of the most
popular progressive blogs, MyDD and DailyKos,
which they founded. The insights of these young
men enlighten and enliven our more traditional
understandings. They suggest that a major shift in
the political landscape has occurred and that the
Internet will prove to be the engine that powers our
political system in years to come. This change will
result in a more representative democracy, they
argue, and will help to reestablish a revitalized
Democratic Party's control of the legislative and
executive bodies. Some of this may be wishful
thinking—the Republicans have bloggers as well, and
some of their constituents know how to use the
Web. However, although not new (see Selnow,
1998), the contention that the Internet will
revolutionize the Republic is beyond argument, and
the authors' experiences in the blogosphere will
serve as a useful guide to anyone who wishes to
transverse this heretofore terra incognita.
What does this book have to do with psychology?
Lots. Although the authors do not appeal to the
scientific literature in fashioning their predictions and
interpretations, their observations of the political
scene are ripe for applied psychological analysis.
Consider their critique of the established Democratic
Party apparatus that seems wedded to the same
political consultants, many of whom have failed
miserably and consistently. Their view that the
Democrats still act as if they are the majority party
is well taken. Have you noticed any change in their
standard electioneering tactics? We know from years
of social influence research that the minority cannot
effectively persuade with tactics that work well for
the majority. Yet, many in the Democratic Party
appear to hew to the old ways when Congress and
(often) the White House were in safe hands.
Nostalgia is nice, but is it worth losing all three
branches of the government?
Advertently or not, the Republicans have made
better use of scientific principles that psychologists
have worked so hard to unearth. They understand
that message repetition alone is not particularly
persuasive. Multiple sources of information—Web,
radio, newspapers, television, even the pulpit, all
play a role in the persuasive arsenal of the
Republican machine. Their message is generally
consistent across the party, in contrast to the
conflicting one-issue debates that often swing the
deliberations of the Democratic Party. In the last
general election, multiple information sources,
spouting consistent messages, were not nearly as
evident in the Democratic approach—an approach
the authors found tied heavily to TV ads repeated
time and time again. This sleep-inducing approach
might have served a useful purpose for a portion of
our overworked populace, insomniacs, except that
the ads were broadcast on channels that most
people were not watching. Much of the vast
literature on targeting seems to have escaped most
Democratic media consultants' notice.
When the message was delivered, was it
effective? In large part, the nod again goes to the
Republicans. Although the Bush camp has been
accused of using the “big lie” technique—both
McCain and Kerry were cowards, according to some
of the ads that supported the current incumbent—
the Democrats were feeble and late in their
responses to these scurrilous and outrageous
charges, and almost never took the offensive.
Democratic ads did not appeal to individual selfinterest
(which motivates action; Lehman & Crano,
2002); they did not create a coherent picture of the
candidate; and they did not humanize the man who
would become king (Kerry was not, after all, the
candidate with whom most would want to have a
beer). If they were selling deodorant, we would all
stink.
We have known at least since Festinger's (1957)
time that a little bit of commitment goes a long way,
and how better to commit people to your cause than
to have them contribute hard-earned cash to it? One
might guess that the Democrats have an advantage
here, in that the fat cats typically line up on the
Republican side. That would be an incorrect
assessment, at least of the Democratic Party as it
has been in the past, dependent on few major
donors and relatively few smaller contributions.
Things are beginning to change with the netroots
faction, a wired grassroots movement that promises
to rearrange the political furniture in ways that are
not yet immediately discernable. Political operatives
may not agree with any of Armstrong and Zúniga's
progressive positions, but they ignore this book at
their peril. Their view of the future is not business as
usual, but it probably is business as it will be.
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