#Dontgo Congratulating Yourselves so Fast, GOP
Patrick Ruffini has this much right: John Culberson was the only elected representative using Twitter properly. And, as I wrote yesterday, the Republicans were all about using Twitter to advance their Drill Here, Drill Now agenda.
However, Patrick goes just a tad bit too far when he says this:
Could #dontgo usher in an era of Republican technological dominance in the post-blogging world? Should we cede the blogosphere to the left, and focus on leapfrogging them in the use of tools most necessary to real-time political action? The answer could be yes.
An explanation: When John Culbertson started tweeting last week about staging a protest on the House floor, a fairly large wave of two-way conversation ensued. Democrats and Republicans alike, myself included, were pushing and pushing back. Sensing that there was some sort of traction around the whole affair, a groundswell of noise began to rise, most of it nonsense. Over the past four days, there have been zillions of tweets tagged as #dontgo, a website has been spawned, and Ruffini is proclaiming it a “movement”.
A movement it is not. Beginning this afternoon, their site was answered with tweets carrying the hashtag #dontgo coming from the ‘other side’ and feeding into their twitter stream page, at least, until they shut it off and swore they would accept no spam.
What was an effective use of the swarm has become outright silly, with the new user DontGoMovement created to pick and choose which flow of conversation reaches their website. I’m guessing dissent isn’t part of their “movement”. Between the raised rhetoric, the silliness of shutting down conversation, claiming it’s a ‘privilege’ and not a ‘right’, and the fundamental dishonesty of the Drill Here Drill Now premise that spawned the whole thing, they are on the verge of becoming laughingstocks.
Listen, this should be about light, not heat. Not everything in politics has to be escalated to a nuclear meltdown. Laughing about proper tire inflation is characteristic of a campaign that’s gone off the rails. While I have a lot of respect for what Ruffini has tried to do to advance his cause, I deeply resent the corresponding ridicule and stupidity that accompanies it.
In the past two days, we’ve seen the best and the worst uses of microblogging, microcommunities, and the viral nature of the beasts. I can’t help but wonder if we are going to come to a point online and off where a reasonable debate can be had without all of the marketing efforts.
If you’re interested in more thoughts about microcommunities, politics and “movements”, grab today’s NewsGang Live. We talk about it, in depth.