Facere quam dicere: to do rather than to say. A knock-off of the —and an attempt to use my Classical Languages degree for something—but instructive for the GOP nonetheless.
For example, my (albeit limited) role in the conservative blogosphere means that I spend 92% of my time talking about problems and 8% of my time doing something about them. I argue with liberals in class; sometimes, I convince them. I volunteered for the Republican in my district House race (sadly, he lost). I have the numbers for my elected officials in DC in my cell phone and I harass them–especially my representative, –on a regular basis. I encourage my friends to do the same.
But I think there’s a way to do more.
Political action is fostered by personal interaction (see: traditional efforts). The internet multiplies the ability of one person to reach others—by tens, hundreds, or thousands. So there is some equation out there that allows one person to leverage the internet to reach, and inspire, action taken by a great number of people. Like Barack Obama’s social networking site, My.BarackObama.com did—ad nauseam, if you will.
Where is that effort happening online on the right?
- popped up madly during the financial bailout. is a true micro-site; that is, its focus is encouraging citizens to contact their representatives. began similarly but has recently evolved, and re-launched, into a general grassroots right-leaning organization: the “#dontgo Revolution.” It will be interesting to see the shape that it takes.
- Patrick Ruffini spearheaded after the election. It features a roadmap for GOP policy post-2008. It is directed to the RNC Chairman; it encourages individuals to sign a petition that urges his adoption of the plan’s principles. I think it may become more.
- And on Friday, David All–for whom I worked last summer if you care– to counter Barack Obama’s transitional website, change.gov. The effort as he envisioned it would include offense (e.g. highlighting the fact Obama quickly took down and changed his “agenda”) and defense (e.g. a series of YouTube videos to counter Obama’s). Smart, but not in action yet.
So what does online Republican activism look like online?
- We’ve got our “think tanks” in order. The conservative blogosphere is full of ideas, opinion, and analysis. That’s a good thing.
- We’ve successfully pushed action online on targeted issues, e.g. the bailout. The #dontgo movement in particular was fantastic to get people to call Congress and to get the mainstream media to pay attention. That’s also a good thing.
But we’re still figuring out how to combine the wealth of information and the success on targeted online “pushes” into broad efforts–into general activism for candidates, causes, and issues that aren’t quite hot-button enough to move people out of anger. We’re also missing the connection to local and state Republican politics, and I think that will be key to the 435-district/50-state strategy of which everyone is so enamored. If you have any ideas, do let me know.
Last 5 posts by Abby Alger
- Helping the Right Online, One PDF at a Time - March 29th, 2009
- Kids These Days - March 17th, 2009
- In which I browse HR 1105, so you don't have to. - February 24th, 2009
- Re: Attacking Obama - February 5th, 2009
- What does youth voter outreach look like? - January 11th, 2009
What does Republican activism look like online? It looks exactly like Republican activism anywhere. The motto pretty much sums it up. Back up the rhetoric with action. Show the citizens that you care about all of them, that you care about this republic, that you’re serious about causing positive change in the United States of America. Get back to the basics of what this nation was founded on. Study the lives of the Founding Fathers. Visit wallbuilders.com and discover some amazing facts about the very foundation of this republic, the United States of America. Learn who we are at our very foundation, then use those roots to grow. Be the GOP as it was in the beginning, when whigs, abolitionists and emancipationists joined together while enduring the unsure and difficult times just before the Civil War, to form the Republican Party in order to bring this nation back to its Godly roots and heritage. Learn from the wisdom of the Founding Fathers. Learn from the wisdom and passion of Abraham Lincoln. If we cannot learn from our history, we cannot move forward. I am excited about the NextGen GOP. Let’s move forward with more than just figuring and thinking. Let’s move forward with wisdom and action! Bring Team Sarah along with you! That is a community of Republican positive thinkers who love people. love the U.S.A., and love freedom. () There are many great PACs in our republic that will grow with us, too! Let’s do this thing! Don’t just speak… ACT!
The largest problem with the Republican Party online is the lack of a centralized movement. We need one or two major websites that serve as access / gateway points for the other websites connected to the conservative online movement. Just as Obama has the change.gov site, we need a similar apparatus.
We’re still talking about logistics. Logistics is worthless if your principles are compromised weekly, which most Repubs in Congress are happy to do. The party needs leaders. Leaders who can stand on principle, not waiver, and help create a path. And these leaders must be able to specifically support their principles, and provide factual evidence as to why their principles are sound. The current Republican regime is null and void of principled leaders, and therefore Republican citizens have no where to look within the Party. No wonder people are enthused about the GOP, no one is stepping up to the plate with principled ideas based on conservative fundamentals, except for maybe one person, although he’s considered a fringe character and a kook.
We want a strong and lasting movement. We should not look to the next election cycle, but to the next twenty to thirty years. We need a long term change in American culture to arrest our decay.
Not only do we need to clearly define our principles, we need good arguments to back them up. We cannot simply say that our rights come from God and take that as a self-evident principle. We must look to the source of our rights in the same place our founding fathers did, the nature of man. We need to go back to the natural rights theorists of the 17th and 18th century, and even further back to the Roman jurists, Stoics, and Aristoteleans from whom the conception of natural law derives. We need to prove our principles rigorously and inject them into the colleges and public at large.
We must labor, whenever we are able, to argue in defense of them and to spread them to whoever will listen.
The moment we recede from right, we can depend on nothing.
-Hugo Grotius (On the Rights of War and Peace)