Back in the days of Tammany Hall, your ward captain, union leader, or other local boss told you whom to vote for, and you did it. That was machine politics at its well-oiled finest: you follow your leader.
Along came television, and suddenly voters had a closer, much more direct connection with the candidate. It was not unlike the relationship between the printing press and the Protestant Reformation. The telegenic personalities of JFK and Reagan enabled them to connect directly to voters — in Reagan’s case, peeling many core Democrats out of the ranks of their unions.
I’m vastly oversimplifying here — and courting unintended offense to adherents of various Christian faiths (really, none intended!) — but the analogy is interesting to consider when examining the current media landscape, which the New York Times’s Adam Nagourney describes as “fractured” due to the rise of niche cable channels and the blogosphere:
With the addition of so many other sources of information, the old formula, while not quite dead, is no longer so dominant in communicating information and shaping opinion.
In other words: we have lost “Truth.” So it might be instructive to look at how Christianity is dealing with postmodernism, namely, through the Emerging (or Emergent) Church. Instead of enforcing dogma, the Emerging Church emphasizes conversation; instead of establishing institutions, it motivates movements.
If the Web (and cable TV) fractured broadcast, it’s a mistake to try to rely exclusively on cutting through the “fog.” Instead of fighting the technological zeitgeist, political campaigns can instead push power down to their supporters, letting the grassroots engage their friends, colleagues, neighbors, and strangers in conversation — if not about Truth, then perhaps about truths. Maybe we’ve returned to the era of interpersonal, rather than charismatic, politics. But unlike old-fashioned political machines, these new relationships are collegial, not hierarchical; provisional, not essential; heterogeneous, not focus-grouped; authentic, not sound-bite. They will be difficult to create and maybe even harder to control.
If any of this comes to pass, the face of American politics may no longer be the telegenic politician but rather the guy down down the street. But ain’t that democracy?
