June 11, 2006

Yearly Kos : A Revolution in the Making?

This was it. The netroots, coming together. The Kossacks, mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore. A brave new political world being born. The left-wing blogosphere, planning their real-world revolution. You could feel the energy, even as far away as LGF and Malkin.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to pop in and have a look. Knowing that this was touted as the making of a brave new political world, and considering I was in the neighborhood, I figured I might as well check it out.

I suppose I was expecting something similar to DailyKos.com, except audible, and with chicken sandwiches, perhaps accompanied with a whiff of incense...

I expected a fair amount of venting and open discussion. I expected the Kossacks to be, in real life, more or less the way they are online--namely, loud, opinionated, and openly intolerant of dissent.

What I saw was disappointing. Actually, "disappointing" is an understatement.

In person, in the real world of flesh and blood, the Kossacks are probably the quietest and most polite revolutionaries the world has ever seen. The collection of left-wing bloggers coming together at Yearly Kos resembled nothing so much as a random collection of librarians. If there was a dress code, it apparently included khaki, with nary a t-shirt in sight. Outside of the organized panel discussions, political commentary and opinions were almost non-existent. Despite best efforts, and completely contrary to the energy with which they pound their respective keyboards, it seemed to be nearly impossible to engage the Kossacks in political discussion, in person, using the spoken word.

Of course, that's not to say that there wasn't political discussion at Yearly Kos. There was a lot of it. It's just that most of it seemed to be taking place between panelists on podiums rather than between the members of their audiences. There were a lot of focused panel discussions with titles like "What Progressives and Conservatives Mean by 'Freedom' and 'Liberty'" and "The South's Importance in the American Political Arena." A lot of the emphasis seemed to be focused on questions like "who are these 'conservatives,' where did they come from, and what are we going to do about them?" Even after listening to the panel presenters, at least some audience members seemed to be having difficulty with the idea that there are literally THOUSANDS of conservative voters, and they weren't ALL insane racist religious fundamentalists and/or confused by sneaky butterfly ballots.

There was a lot of discussion on dealing with conservatives. In one discussion group, an otherwise polite young lady asked a presenter whether it would be appropriate to ask someone to beat up the office "dittohead" with a baseball bat. I think the question was asked at least partly in jest, but I couldn't tell for sure. One of the panelists politely explained that it'd probably be counterproductive to beat up the conservative co-worker with a baseball bat. He explained that reacting angrily and/or violently only plays to stereotypes about the left.

In the same panel, one of the panelists described his group, which was, I think, called "Drinking Liberally." Apparently, they get together, drink beer and talk politics. One of their core traditions was that everyone drinks from a shared pitcher, which he explained as a metaphor for the progressive communitarian spirit. True, beer served in pitchers may not have the same quality as beer served in bottles, but progressives would rather, he explained, enjoy lower-quality beer communally than higher-quality beer individually. (I've known libertarians who'd rather enjoy low-quality beer individually than high-quality beer communally.)

A fair amount of the discussion I saw related to "re-framing" issues. Apparently, the conservative positions on abortion and gay marriage enjoy support in American politics is because both issues have been "framed" by the conservatives. If these issues could be "re-framed" by progressives, the progressive side could enjoy much broader support. While the conservative frames on "gay marriage" and "abortion" equate them to "gay sex" and "killing babies," respectively, the progressives should frame the issues in terms of whether the government should be involved in private decisions. In other words, as a moral principle, government shouldn't. The panelists didn't address how progressives might contain the application this general laissez-faire principle to these specific issues while preventing it from spilling over into general applicability. That, it would seem, is the rub. General application of a laissez-faire philosophy tends to libertarianism, a philosophy far from traditional "progressive" communitarian thought.

The quietness of the Kossacks was the first surprise of Yearly Kos. The second surprise was the degree of attention paid to 'mainstream' issues like the budget deficit, the trade deficit, economic growth and domestic energy policy. The war in Iraq was definitely the most reliable way for a speaker to get the Kossacks to their feet, but Virginia Governor Mark Warner's lunchtime speech was a huge hit, despite the fact that the speech itself dealt mostly with bread and butter issues. (Then again, the warm reception might have had something to do with all the Warner-supplied liquor and sushi they'd enjoyed at the massive Kossack party the night before--but maybe I'm just being cynical.) In the wake of the speech, I heard more than one Kossack remark that if it takes a centrist to retake power, they'll support a centrist. (Especially, I suppose, if they bring along liquor and sushi.) In general, all of the establishment Democrat politicians at the conference were well-received, particularly Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who received multiple standing ovations in the course of a 24-minute speech. I might even go so far as to describe the reaction of the normally-quiet Kossacks as "rowdy."

I saw a lot of things at Yearly Kos, but after hanging out with the Kossacks for a few days, it seems to me there are a few things that political junkies of all stripes should know: 1. the Kossacks are energized (in their own way,) 2. a significant number of them are politically savvy and 3. they're starting to be taken seriously by the Democrat Party establishment.

With apologies to Winston Churchill, Yearly Kos probably didn't represent the end of traditional establishment control of the Democratic Party. It likely didn't even represent the beginning of the end. But it may represent the end of the beginning.

UPDATE: Apparently, I wasn't the only one who noticed the quiet personal demeanor of the Kossacks:

So far, and maybe it’s the character of the particular panels I’ve been to, people are pretty nice. There hasn’t been much opportunity for venting, so I haven’t heard a lot of gratuitous grouching about the Right yet. I also haven’t introduced myself as a Hotair correspondent; that might change the reaction I get…but I think this is a case of the well-documented phenomenon of people who are nice and socially adept enough in person who lose all restraint online.