Blogs For Victory

Jonah Goldberg over at NRO wonders:

…For nearly a century now, the rules have said that tough economic times make big government more popular. For more than 40 years it has been a rule that environmental disasters — and scares over alleged ones — help environmentalists push tighter regulations. According to the rules, Americans never want to let go of an entitlement once they have it. According to the rules, populism is a force for getting the government to do more, not less. According to the rules, Americans don’t care about the deficit during a recession…

Mr. Goldberg should know better than that – this is easy. No, the rules haven’t changed. They are just as they were, oh, 100 years ago. The only thing has changed is the ability of a tiny elite to steam roller their agenda through. What has changed is how information is disseminated in public.

Did you know that there were demonstrations in favor of victory in Vietnam? No, seriously, there were. Some quite large, and they were organized at the grass roots level. Sort of like the TEA Party, ya know? Most people have never heard of this – because back during the war, when it was a choice of which demonstration to cover, the MSM covered the anti-war demonstrators (even, from what I understanding, coaching the demonstrators on how to make the best effect on television). The pro-war people weren’t covered and there was no way for them to get their message out – conservative media outlets were restricted to a few low-circulation magazines such as National Review, and just a handful of mid-sized newspapers which had conservative editors.

Until the rise of the New Media – and Rush was the start of this, back in 1988 – there was simply no way for large numbers of conservative/centrist people to find out that they weren’t an isolated minority. The election of Ronald Reagan was actually out of place, in a certain sense – and it really only happened because both the Democrats and the MSM were so convinced that they were correct that they figured the best way to beat Reagan was to get him on the air…to debate him openly. Once the people found out about him – and were coached in how to believe via the MSM – it was a sure thing Reagan would lose.

That didn’t work out – and once Reagan was in, the MSM tried to repair the error. Most people don’t realize where the response to the State of the Union Comes from. After all, the State of the Union is a Constitutionally recognized requirement of the Presidency…but the response is no where mentioned. But there it is. Why? Because the MSM wanted to give the Democrats a chance to steal Reagan’s thunder whenever he got up on the bully pulpit and spoke directly to the American people (it was also amusing in those days to watch the MSM and see them try to immediately spin what the President said – trying, as it were, to tell us all what we were supposed to think about the speech).

Reagan wasn’t going to come again, as far as the establishment was concerned. They would carefully control the debate and immediately pre-demonize anyone who showed up with an inclination to oppose the status quo. Robert Bork was a victim of this – but, also, one of the last. That was in 1986; two years later, Rush was on the air, and things started to change.

But it wasn’t until the internet really took hold that the power of the elite to script the debate was ended. Blogs, especially, spelled the doom of the old ways. When anyone could post any opinion they liked without let or hindrance and anyone could read that opinion for free, the fat was in the fire. When some of these bloggers turned themselves in to investigative reports, the elite’s goose was cooked.

So, no, the rules have not changed – it is just that the rule-breakers no longer can control the debate. The rise of the TEA Party and the revolutionary ferment among the citizenry is the result of the broad majority not only knowing that things are bad, but knowing that they are, indeed, the broad majority. It makes all the difference in the world – just getting the truth out there. And that is what has changed, not the rules.