Doing It With Twitter
Incumbent RNC Chairman Mike Duncan tries to hold onto his job and explain the future of conservatism:
“We have to do it in the Facebook, with the Twittering, the different technology that young people are using today,” Duncan ventured.
“Let me just say that I have 4,000 friends on Facebook,” contributed Blackwell, putting his hand on Dawson’s and Anuzis’s knees. “That’s probably more than these two guys put together, but who’s counting, you know?” Acknowledged Saltsman: “I’m not sure all of us combined Twitter as much as Saul.”
Not only is this, as Steve Benen says, weirdly inadequate to the size of the conservative predicament, it just doesn’t make any sense. I love Twitter. I have two Twitter feeds. I manage one with Twitterific and another with Twitterfox. And of course there’s my iPhone interfaces, too. Twitter’s neat, it’s fun, I enjoy it. But you can’t do political persuasion on Twitter and anyone who’s at all familiar with either Twitter or political persuasion could tell you that. It’s important for political movements to embrace new technologies, but part of embracing new technologies is understanding them and actually respecting what they’re for and Twitter is never going to be anything other than an incidental sideshow to political activism.
48 Responses to “Doing It With Twitter”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
January 6th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Or, as Bradly, No put it (via John Cole):
January 6th, 2009 at 11:10 am
“We have to do it in the Facebook”
- Awesome.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Is there a way to Tivo someone’s twitter feeds that I don’t want to read write away?
January 6th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Realistically, when conservatives actually do create some kind of Twitter Initiative or whatever, they’re going to appoint some 21 year old Young Republican interns. So I wouldn’t automatically assume that it will be done incompetently.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:43 am
you might rely on twitter if your political message is adequately captured with buzzwords and short messages. The Corner is almost pithy and content free to work as a Twitter feed, don’t you think?
January 6th, 2009 at 11:52 am
I respectfully disagree. Yes, of course, you can’t do the hard work of persuasion in short sentences, but you can make people feel like they are participating, like they are friendly with the leaders of a movement and consequently with each other. You can also feed them facts, keep them up-to-date, alert them to events.
In fact, almost anything you can do in a long essay, you can do in bits and pieces through a series of one-liners. As a blogger, you should know that, since the same argument applies to blogging: How can someone persuade in a couple paragraphs? Well, the answer is that it is a couple paragraphs a day over a long period of time, which like a drop of water on a mountainside, can be more effective than delivering all at once, especially with people who are frightened off by long essays.
Lastly, are the conservatives even really interested in persuasion? Did they build their now seemingly ruined base by persuading people, or merely by inciting them? And what better way to incite people than by a continuous stinging of their pride and resentment, by taunting or “twitting” them?
January 6th, 2009 at 11:52 am
i just had a brilliant idea! they should call it republicanism 2.0
also too, communicating sucky ideas more efficiently doesn’t make them any less sucky.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Maybe they think the Talking Points fax machine needs updating and twitter is the new deal. “Getting the points out to Sean and Rush in a timely worked before dagnabit. I can get it to work again!”
They must think the problem isn’t ideas. “The medium is the message! Who needs good ideas, workable solutions and competency and accountability when I now have an iPhone?”"
Apparently they haven’t been reading liberal websites.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Realistically, when conservatives actually do create some kind of Twitter Initiative or whatever, they’re going to appoint some 21 year old Young Republican interns. So I wouldn’t automatically assume that it will be done incompetently.
I think the average 21-year-old Young Republican intern is probably too busy getting wasted and date-raping underclassmen to do a good job on anything requiring serious organizational skills.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Phase 1: Do Internetty stuff.
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Profit!
January 6th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Delightfully phrased. Understated yet incisive, and hilarious to boot. You have a knack for rhetoric, Matt, in case you weren’t aware.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I checked search.twitter.com earlier this morning and one of the trending topics - I swear - was “tcot.” It blows my mind that conservatives took twitter - a website my friends and I pretty much treat like an aol buddy chat - and turned it into an insular popularity contest.
It’s just so… for lack of a better word, WEIRD.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Stupidity at the speed of light!
January 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
The Facebook?
The Twitter?
The internets?
The Google?
The tubes?
What in the hell is up with the Republicans?
January 6th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
You will be surprised at how much a simple image makeover would do for the Republicans. Put their guys in better suits, tell them to slim down, wear better ties, adopt the European cutaway collar, just in general look fashionable and in sync. Basically, get them to look like David Cameron and George Osborne.
And on the substance front get their candidates to shut up about morality in more liberal parts of the country and keep the morality stuff under the radar, in local media and rallies and flyers and stuff in red states. Frankly, the red-state votes who vote for Republicans probably don’t watch much of national media, so if the Republicans steer the morality talk to local media in solid states and keep it off national TV and newspapers it will hardly matter.
Spruce up the image and get them to talk the new Tory talk, slick public-school style. Chance, innovation, individual initiative, creativity, freedom to choose, etc; all that good-sounding stuff, and get people in sharp suits and nice ties and slim girths to do it. And while they are at it, get a couple guys to bike around in SF and DC.
Put the most emphasis on conservative policy that social/coastal liberals could vote for; i.e., school vouchers, ’streamlining’ (not ’starving’) government (it’s the same bloody thing, different lingo), “efficiency”, “flexible healthcare”, “a more streamlined and simplified tax regime”, etc.
Already sounds good, doesn’t it?
After all, that’s most of what the British Tories did; they didn’t change their policies by much; but the policy focus, 180-degree turn. Now even young, college-age Britons are pro-Tory now; a recent survey had Tory support in Oxbridge about 15% ahead of Labour.
Look, young people today are disinclined to be social democrats; most of the strongest Obama supports I know on campus are actually classical liberals more than anything; if the Republican can tone down the moralism dial and turn up the economic liberalism dial, and look “cool” in the process, they will be victorious. Right now, everyone in Britain thinks Tories are “cooler” than Labour, which are seen as a bunch of stodgy, out-of-touch union organisers from time yonder. A recent magazine article actually talked effusively of “Tory hair” and “Tory ties”.
January 6th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
It’s pretty astounding how awful the Republican messaging machine is actually. Their smartest Congressman, Eric Cantor, looks like a Baptist preacher. He is slim, fit, rather good-looking; as soon as he stops the moralism stop and talk in the new Tory lingo and wear wide collars and Hermes ties he will start getting a classical liberal following.
January 6th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
This is the new Tory image:
David Cameron on holiday
January 6th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Chance, innovation, individual initiative, creativity, freedom to choose, etc;
Not only would Republicans be duplicating the Democrats’ message, ensuring it would have no power (lack of differentiation), but they talk of “chance, innovation, individual initiative, creativity, freedom to choose” would alienate the Republican base. People have voted Republican for 30 years because they want order. peace. conformity. It’s all about telling the people who want creativity and freedom to choose to suck it. The Tory message only seems vaguely attractive now because Labour has been in power for almost 12 years and the Conservatives have been stunningly unpopular for more than 15 years. When the Democrats come across as stodgey, then the Republicans have an opening. But you can’t be the “party of innovation and creativity” when your biggest backers are the defense industry and the oil and gas corporations. Plus, you have to cycle out a generation of young people (including current high schoolers) who are going to have their entire political identities formed by experience of Obama as “their
president.”
Myles, your fixation on simple, glib solutions to difficult problems completely detached from context and reality is quite stunning. Things are the way they are for a reason. There’s a reason that Republicans aren’t fashionable and there’s a reason they’re not the party of “innovation, creativity, freedom to choose.” In part it’s because they never would have been elected in the first place if they had been.
January 6th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
No, Tyro.
“innovation, creativity, freedom to choose.” = school vouchers, simplified tax regime. I don’t think either social or economic liberals will fail to endorse school choice. Works, by the way, stunningly well for the Tories.
Of course, given the different political climate in the US (a notably more social conservative one), the Republicans don’t have to do it to the same extent.
But you are missing my point; my point to was to stream different electorates. Little old ladies in Surrey still get their regular dose of Empire-longing, reactionary conservatism from the Daily Telegraph; meanwhile, the Tories message nice-sounding stuff to other people on other media, like BBC or whatever.
Heck, put the “new” message on NYTimes and guaranteed no red-state conservatives will see it on their breakfast table anyhow. Meanwhile, keep the old conservative messaging pumping in regional, red-state papers.
But yeah, the whole generation of Obama kids, that will be a lingering problem.
January 6th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
“I don’t think either social or economic liberals will fail to endorse school choice.”
Haven’t we always failed to endorse it? What’s going to change? Those new suits you suggested must be pretty powerful.
Plus, do you really think that vouchers is anywhere in most people’s top 50 causes right now?
January 6th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Do you really think any of these guys knows the difference between Twitter and text messaging?
January 6th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
The Corner is almost pithy and content free to work as a Twitter feed, don’t you think?
The Ole Perfesser, fer sure. “Heh. Indeed. UPDATE: Lileks has more.” doesn’t come close to the character limit.
January 6th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
You may not be able to do much political persuasion with Twitter.
On the other hand it seems to be a pretty good way to pass along talking points and give marching orders to the already persauded, which is after all SOP for the Republican Party, they mostly have relied on building a mass, obedient audience and then issuing instructions. With Twitter you don’t even have to tune into talk radio to know what to think or what to say.
January 6th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Twitter’s useful for certain kinds of political message-sending; I followed #griots avidly while the Greek riots were going on, to see what people in Greece were reporting about the various demonstrations. But I see its political usefulness as more Ushahidi-like - good for getting out information about what’s actually happening on the ground to people in other countries (as long as all concerned have Twitter access), rather than argument and persuasion of the already somewhat informed.
January 6th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Plus, do you really think that vouchers is anywhere in most people’s top 50 causes right now?
Not if you are a relatively well-off, white parent with good suburban public schools.
But if you are a poor black parent living in the inner city, with failing schools, an emphatic YES. In fact, it is not a stretch at all that it is within their top 5 priorities.
Guess who were the most enthusiastic adopters of school vouchers? Inner-city black parents. And in fact, let me add, Inner-city black Democratic parents. “Salon.com: School vouchers were supposed to be a straight liberal vs. conservative issue. Why, then, are black urban Democrats jumping on the same bandwagon as the Christian Coalition?”
As you can see, it is a liberal publication which is reporting this, so you can disclaim any bias in favour of conservatives.
I hope you get a grip of reality from your cushy suburbs; vouchers aren’t accessory items for the well-off suburbanites; it is a matter of life-and-death when it comes to the education of the poor.
January 6th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
as soon as he stops the moralism stop and talk in the new Tory lingo and wear wide collars and Hermes ties he will start getting a classical liberal following.
Uh huh. It’s not as if it took the Tories a decade to get past the blue rinse brigade and go with Bullingdon Club 2.0. Oh.
January 6th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Let me quote from Salon:
“For instance, while 86.5 percent of blacks between the ages of 26 and 35 supported vouchers, only 19 percent of those older than 65 did so.”
86.5%, man, eight-six point five per cent. That is a lot of voices, and to me a lot more convincing than the protestations of teachers’ unions.
This is the sort of thing the Republicans should be championing; not anti-homosexuality, not Bible-thumping, but something like this, which unites whites and blacks and Hispanics and Asians alike. What could be more fundamental to a parent than to get decent education for their children? And I trust that once Republicans get around to drafting something that is serious and effective, poor people will get on board; voucher education helps no one as much as the poor who are stuck with b*ttf*ck public schools.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
LOL. Check your work, old chap. That article is from 1997. You know what? If Republicans want to compete in blue states, they should be more like that unbeatable Senator D’Amato.
But wait, there’s more fail!
In fact, it is not a stretch at all that it is within their top 5 priorities.
“USA Today/Gallup Poll. Sept. 5-7, 2008. N=1,022 adults nationwide. MoE � 3.
“If you had to choose, which of the following issues will be most important to your vote for president: the economy, terrorism, the situation in Iraq, health care, energy, including gas prices, or some other issue?”
%
The economy
42
The situation in Iraq
13
Energy, including gas prices
13
Health care
13
Terrorism
12
Illegal immigration (vol.)
1
Abortion (vol.)
1
Education (vol.)
1
Other
4
Unsure
1
Once again, Stephen Myles=EPIC FAIL.
January 6th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Their smartest Congressman, Eric Cantor,
I think this shows a much bigger problem for the Republicans than their failure to master Twitter.
January 6th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Cantor is human Huckleberry Hound. Therefore I assume everything Myles has written is satire. Well done.
January 6th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Chris, get a grip. Try to imagine yourself being poor in an inner-city neighbourhood, being forced to send your kids to a failing public school that, as far as you can discern, will continue to fail for the near future (which is, after all, the span of your children’s education), being condemned to not qualify for college even if they are capable.
Now imagine if there is a way out for your kids in the way of essentially state-assisted placed in good schools, where they will qualify for good colleges and learn the right skills.
Looks like to me a situation where poor, black inner-city parents would place a lot of emphasis on education. And by the way, you big fat, dumb, dogmatic, Stalinistic liberal bigot, the support for education reform has only increased since 1997.
My blood boils everytime I hear liberal indifference and bigotry like this.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:15 am
My blood boils everytime I hear liberal indifference and bigotry like this.
No it doesn’t, you stupid fucking bandy-legged performance artist.
January 7th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Nice! So because I don’t think that vouchers are a silver bullet for fixing the Republican Party’s electoral woes, I’m an uncaring champagne socialist! And I’m fat!
Your argument is based on two false premises.
1. The only options in education policy are vouchers and the status quo.
2. Vouchers alone are sufficient to win over minority voters.
The second point is particularly daft. “Sure, the Republicans wrecked the economy, launched a pointless war, and let New Orleans drown, but they’re pushing vouchers! Where do I sign up?” Have you ever even talked to an actual black person?
January 7th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I am citing vouchers as an example of the sort of policy Republicans should pursue; i.e. conservative policies that appeal to the poor and minorities.
Charters and vouchers can, of course, complement each other; the problem is, a lot of fucking stupid Democrats blindly oppose both, and do so unequivocally.
Take Hammond-Darling for example. Complete fucking idiot.
January 8th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
There is no evidence that there is any kind of broad-based support for vouchers. Any time the issue is placed under serious scrutiny. In 2007, for example, a voucher referendum was defeated overwhelmingly in Utah, of all places.
The core problem for Republicans is that modern American conservatism has been thoroughly discredited as a governing ideology. Attributing their problems solely to image is ludicrous. An unreconstucted Thatcherite couldn’t become PM in Britain no matter how nice his suits were. By the same token, adopting the European cutaway collar isn’t going to make people forget about Iraq and Katrina and the economic meltdown.
March 11th, 2009 at 4:45 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
March 12th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:17 am
tramadol
I bookmarked this site. Thank you for good job!
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:23 am
I want to say - thank you for this!
buy cheap viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 6:22 am
It is the coolest site,keep so! viagra