The Gun Toting Liberal asks in a post: “Why must the ‘Mighty Middle’ detest each other in the political blogosphere?”
It’s an interesting question because it touches on whether centrists can become organized and actually serve as a political force — rather than be perceived by many people in both parties as political leftovers. GTL writes:
We’re the “libertarians�… the “moderates�… the “independents�… the “centrists�… the “swing voters� of the blogosphere, yet we avoid each other like the plague while our more dedicated left and right brothers and sisters support, quote, and link to each other in digital support groups. So what makes we independent bloggers different? Wouldn’t it make sense for we independent thinkers to stick together and promote each other like our left and right brethren do so well? I have a theory; and feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Read the rest of the post to learn more about that…but on the point he raised above, here are a few thoughts:
There are excellent blogs on the left and right who have formed informal communities, and they link frequently to each other. We link to almost everyone who is thoughtful, which is a bit unusual. But we’ve often noted that centrist and moderate blogs don’t link much to each other — although they talk about wanting to do that and wanting other weblogs to link to them.
The result? Since many centrist and moderate blogs don’t link to each other and they’re too far right or left for some progressive and conservative blogs, they find it hard to get additional readers. And since there is a tepid or at least noncohesive centrist internet community, many centrist weblogs wither on the cyberspace vine or simply can’t grow.
Over the past year some centrists have flown to an American city to discuss how to make centrist influence better felt in elections. And centrists were felt in the elections…but not due to any mid-boggling organization — mostly because the Bush administration and the GOP in Congress strayed too far from what John Avlon documents in Independent Nation (click on icon on the bottom left hand side of this site to read about and/or buy this vital book) as the country’s anchor of basic centrism.
Similarly, if weblogs are to become increasingly important as virtual rallying points for political ideas and activists, centrist and moderate blogs remain shockingly segmented. There seems little real effort to link among each other and the lack of solid community will have an adverse impact.
On the other hand, centrists and moderates are NOT a monolithic group; there are no opinion polls showing 100 percent agreement among moderates and centrists. And within the umbrella-category words “moderate” and “centrist” little spokes of differing viewpoints support the umbrellas’ whole cloth. For instance, read GTL’s whole post and you’ll see he’s fascinated that he’s being considered a centrist.
He also writes:
If we can band together at the ballot boxes to topple “business as usual� in Washington in the recent mid-term elections, then we can most certainly band together in the blogosphere I would think.
We would think. And we have thought. And we do think. But we personally remain skeptical. Yes, we’ve been wrong before…and right also. Now isn’t THAT a “wussie moderate” assertion? But it’s true.
The one certainty is: centrists have a way to go before they resemble the lively and cohesive progressive and conservative communities on the Internet.
Read GTL’s entire post.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.