The Least Mysterious Question in the Universe

It's this one, asked by Dean Barnett.

Why is there no conservative Kos?

This is a surreal debate, a particularly sad extension of the general Republican malaise. Three years ago you couldn't click your mouse three times without hitting some mockery of the silly liberal "Netroots" and their inability to win elections. And now the right is panicking and wondering why they don't have a mighty network of winning blogs. But the answer is obvious. Here's the current description of how Daily Kos works.

Daily Kos is run by a staff of two -- Moulitsas and a programmer. In 2007, parent company Kos Media, LLC began a fellowship program to help fund a new generation of progressive activists. About a dozen contributing editors contribute content for the site, with 3-4 new editors being chosen from the Daily Kos community every year.

Two people to run the biggest blog on the planet. And neither of those people actually "ran" Yearly Kos, which was planned by volunteers. Now, here's the organizational structure of the newer, smaller, ambitious Victory Caucus.

Board of Governors

Dean Barnett

Austin Bay

Matthew Currier Burden

Frank Gaffney

Hugh Hewitt

Ed Morrissey

An established radio host (who was an early adopter of blogs)/former Reaganite and Nixonite, another former Reaganite, a military author-cum-blogger, and three established bloggers, one of whom is wondering why the right has no Kos. Well, there's your reason. The "netroots" grew because a bunch of people with day jobs built sites with extremely democratic bulletin boards (not that much different from what Plastic.com did half a decade earlier) and left-liberals found them to be fun places to hang out. The "rightroots" are, so far, a bunch of top-down blogs with moderators and old-fashioned, FreeRepublic-style "threads."

Is it really so hard to grok why one of these models is popular and one isn't? How big would YouTube have become if Chad Hurley and Steve Chen decided that they needed to bring in a bunch of established web stars to "run the place" and strict guidelines for posting videos? OK… so, why would the world of political blogging work any differently? The web rewards randomness and openness, not big names and five year plans.

UPDATE: Cesar asks if RedState is like Daily Kos. It is, although it was founded by a board of established conservo-blogger/activists in response to dKos. And it's got that sort of Plastic.com-style discussion system. But its owners have acted like, well, owners and haven't allowed the site to mutate out of their control like Kos did. 

Comments

[Bergamot]

This is just the flipside of the 20-year-old "why is there no successful liberal talk radio?" question.

[Cesar]

Isn't Red State sort of like Daily Kos?

[Dave Weigel]

This is just the flipside of the 20-year-old "why is there no successful liberal talk radio?" question.

Yeah, except even more obvious. With talk radio you can at least daydream about some liberal toiling away in a small station who has as much wit and talent as Rush Limbaugh. He'll save us! With blogs there are clearly right-wingers as talented as the left-wingers who dominate the scene.

[Bergamot]

Dave: Sure, but in both cases the audience is the primary limiting factor.

AM radio listener demographics tend to skew older and more conservative, and internet demographics tend to go the other way.

[Lamar]

Conservative blogging doesn't work because they don't like dissent or uncertainty...they like order, they like to have their views clarified for them. They favor similar institutions such as the Army and hierarchical corporations where everybody has their role defined for them. They don't want to participate in the discussion, they want the issues discussed by noble leaders and the conclusions handed down to them. There is a class structure where the masses don't dabble in decision making. Decision making is for the decision-making class.

[Lamar]

Liberal radio doesn't work for the same reasons. Everybody with a B.A. in marketing thinks they know how major corporations work, the origins of life and where society is ultimately headed. When you get one guy who talks about his view of the world, you get an audience that thinks, bullshit, I know more than that guy.

[David]

and haven't allowed the site to mutate out of their control like Kos did.

Mr. Weigel, what are you--some kind of anarchist or somethin'? 😉

[GWB]

"There is a class structure where the masses don't dabble in decision making. Decision making is for the decision-making class."

Heh heh heh, that's why they elected me, I'm The Decider.

[Rhywun]

I've never been to "the biggest blog on the planet". What's the difference between Kos comments and Freeper threads (I've never been there either)?

[Bhh]

Attention comrades. Now is time when we make internet comments favorable to the Leader's glorious plan. If comments are not favorable, I fear for your health.

[Jesse Walker]

This is just the flipside of the 20-year-old "why is there no successful liberal talk radio?" question.

Oh, it's more than that.

It's the flipside of the five-year-old question, "Why is the blogosphere so conservative?"

Remember that one? Better yet, remember the self-congratulatory answers some of the right-wing bloggers gave?

[Hugh Akston]

Acute analysis, Lamar.

That course in phrenology really paid off.

[Mark]

It's harder to start a grass roots movement in favour of the status quo than it is to start one in opposition. Hard to get motivated when the end goal is to keep things the way they are. Check the 90's when the conservative web presence was larger. People out of power are just angrier and more motivated to work for change.

[Lamar]

"That course in phrenology really paid off."

Hold on while I look up phrenology....

[Lamar]

Hey! That was an insult....

[joe]

The answer to the five-year-old question Jesse mentions is the same as the answer to the contemporary question (and also the answer to the question of why the Right pwns at talk radio: because the top-down, heirarchical structure of the conservative message message machine. Sure, they were able to create a presence sooner, just a big-government urban renewal scheme can change a neighborhood sooner than the thousands of individual decisions of landowners, investors, and residents. That doesn't mean it's going to do as good a job as producing the type of open, dynamic, bustling, self-sustaining place that good neighborhoods and good political blogs provide.

The Republican Noise Machine was a purposefully created phenomenon, directed from Washington, and based on how Old, Cool Media operates. Right-wing political blogs attempt to bring that same structure to the web, and do a good job at being the mouthpieces they set out to be.

[Lurker Kurt]

The Republican Noise Machine was a purposefully created phenomenon

Wasn't Air America purposefully created as well?

[lunchstealer]

Not to quibble, but wasn't Plastic just a less computer-oriented more pop-culture-oriented version of slashdot? It certainly was running slashcode, or some fairly close clone thereof?

Admittedly I got driven off from plastic by a combination of too many distractions from /. threads and an increasing number of shrill proto-blue-staters, and thus never really groked its inner workings (grokked?, so I could have missed an important organizational difference in terms of how thread-starting-privileges were granted.

[joe]

Lurker Kurt,

Air American was one particular enterprise in the vast array of liberal media outlets, which followed its own business plan.

The Republican Noise Machine is a system of media outlets, "think tanks," pundits, and columnists, all following the same script.

Sure, Air America was purposely created, and on the top-down model similar to that of the Republican Noise Machine. And it failed, on its own. There continues to be a significant number of leftish media voices, especially on the internet, that are thriving, because they didn't all follow that same model.

That's the difference - on the right, all are fractions of the whole, like factories that all take direction from Moscow. On the left, each outlet is its own individual player, following its own direction, for good or ill.

A conservative should understand why an individual failure in a dynamic system is just part of that system succeeding, while failure of a model in a centrally-planned system is evidence of that system's shortcomings.

[Matthew Stinson]

Regarding the Kossness (or lack thereof) of Redstate, while I was only privy to the Josh Trevino side of the original Redstate triangle, one of his goals was to build upon the dynamism of the center-right Tacitus website with a new site featuring a grassroots conservative perspective, a kind of right-wing Daily Kos without the chock full o nuts fringe.

Redstate has gone through roughly three iterations, with the first being the most Kos-like (and most fun!) and the latter two becoming more and more "corporate" in orientation. Whereas Kossacks see themselves as fighting for the soul of the Democrats, with oft-Quixotic tendencies -- see Sheehan, Cindy -- I have to agree with Weigel that the current version of Redstate is more or less a highly focused GOP booster site (with occasional grassroots attacks on GOP excess).

[BugsBunny]

I keep waiting for an anvil to fall on joe's head, considering how cartoonishly simple his worldview is.

His schtick reminds me of Borat heaving money at the Jew-roaches he was so convinced were out to get him.

Wait-- a GOP message is coming through on my decoder ring... Attention: Saddam was responsible for 9/11. That is all.

[BakedPenguin]

Hold on while I look up phrenology.... Hey! That was an insult....

Sure he'd say that, Lamar. He has the brain pan of a stage coach tilter.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Suddenly Pajamas Media, Lileks, Ann Coulter, and the dreaded Michelle Malkin (who has as many or more hits as Reason.com) are chopped liver and the conservative's ain't got nobody?

Somebody's been smoking something illicit.

Or maybe it's just that Vodka Pundit took a powder.

And Joe, I doubt if Lileks consults with Limbaugh before he sits down to throw rocks at your favorite things. God knows Moxy don't.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

I love Bugs Bunny.

[BugsBunny]

TWC, you should see me in drag. Fools 'em every time.

[Jesse Walker]

Suddenly Pajamas Media, Lileks, Ann Coulter, and the dreaded Michelle Malkin (who has as many or more hits as Reason.com) are chopped liver and the conservative's ain't got nobody?

Lileks, Coulter, and Malkin are individuals with big followings, not Kos-style communities. (If Moulitsas died tomorrow, Kos could still survive. If Malkin died tomorrow, her commenters would find someplace else to chat.) As for Pajamas Media -- it's pretty much the ultimate top-down site, isn't it?

(That's an honest question. It's possible PJM has changed drastically since I last paid much attention to it. Only time I've visited in recent memory was to read what was supposed to be a red-hot expos? of the Scott Thomas Beauchamp affair. It turned out to mostly be an interview with Beauchamp's jilted former fiancee, who -- surprise! -- said unpleasant things about him. Since then I've gone back to not paying much attention to Pajamas Media.)

[rho]

Since then I've gone back to not paying much attention to Pajamas Media

You and everybody else. PJM is all worked up over Ron Paul supporters "spamming" their voting booth. Last week they got something like 1700 votes for Republican candidates from all "precincts". Seems to me PJM is a lot of noise and no readers.

(Or maybe their pain in the ass polling application just turns people off.)

[Terrorific]

not that much different from what Plastic.com did half a decade earlier

Wow, half a decade?! That's nearly five years!

[Lurker Kurt]

Sure, Air America was purposely created, and on the top-down model similar to that of the Republican Noise Machine. And it failed, on its own.
A conservative should understand why an individual failure in a dynamic system is just part of that system succeeding, while failure of a model in a centrally-planned system is evidence of that system's shortcomings.

Thanks for the clarification, Joe. I wasn't commenting on its failure (isn't it still on?), just the fact that it was purposefully created.

[joe]

I have no idea if it's still on. I don't think I ever listened to it.

Yammer yammer talking head telling me what to believe in a one-way "conversation" just isn't something I'm interested in. At least cable nooz has competiting talking heads, and sports talk radio features dissenting callers.

[joe]

TWC,

Ever see any figures for the most popular political blogs by hits or visits?

It's striking how much the left blogsphere dominates. Not quite as much as the right dominates talk radio, but still pretty huge.

[Snark]

Maybe lefty blogs have more government workers reading them so they have plenty of time to visit and post.

[joe]

You'd have to ask a government worker.

[Kevin]

Come on, Joe. You can do better than your assertion that the Republican Noise Machine started in Washington and everybody's reading off the same script. It might sound that way because of all the Rush clones, but that doesn't make it true.

Rush Limbaugh started at the local level and succeeded nationally because he brought a fun Top-40 sensibility to talk radio (a vibe that's sadly missing from his show these days). His success spawned tons of imitators. It's no more complicated than that.

Yes, I'm aware you're referring to more than radio and yes, I'm aware of pay-for-praise tools such as Armstrong Williams, but your theoretical top-down model comes off as silly and paranoid.

[Lurker Kurt]

Let's see, Joe asserts that there is no liberal bias in major news outlets, but there is a monolithic Republican Noise machine issuing orders.

If there was a such a Republican Noise machine, why did Rush and others raise so much hell about the President's proposed immigration reform.

[Lurker Kurt]

Dammit, there should be a question mark after that last sentence.

[joe]

Kevin,

The subject of the deliberate creation of a counter-intelligensia by the right, a project begun in the late 60s, has been widely covered. The people who set out to do so, such as Paul Weyreich (sp?), have been quite open about their intent. The story is sufficiently well-known that many on the left have called for the creation of a counter-counter intelligencia, one that is as openly partisan as its Republican counterpart; this was the idea behind the Center for American Progress, for example.

[Brandybuck]

Conservative blogging doesn't work because they don't like dissent

I take it then that you don't frequent DK or DU? The intolerance of the large lefty blogs is one of their defining charactistics. That and the use of f-bombs as punctuation marks. Order is not emerging spontaneously from this anarchic structure, and the roving hordes of nihilists continue to trample all you do not join them.

[joe]

Brandybuck,

Do you see a difference between other commenters responding to your posts with vehement language, and the site administrator blocking your posts entirely?

[BugsBunny]

I hereby set out to create a counter-counter intelligencia.

Now... do I control all left-wing media? But I SET OUT to! What gives?

[joe]

Um...what?

[joshua corning]

But its owners have acted like, well, owners and haven't allowed the site to mutate out of their control like Kos did.

Hmm what other blog can I think of that allows almost zero reader control....

Hit and Run maybe?

The question is not why the conservatives have not risen to Kos level on the internet...it is why hasn't libertarians dominated it?

Perhaps Weigel can tell us something smart like there are not many libertarians on the internet.

[Naysayer]

How many Americans have actually heard of Daily Kos? How many have been to the site? I'd guess less than 2%, if that. At the risk of causing many of you great distress, political blogs are still very much an inside joke, a circle jerk if you will.

[capelza]

Brandybuck...nice slide there, conflating DK with DU. DU and Free Republic are in a bad marriage, they can't live without each other, but pretty much no one in the rest of the left blogosphere reads, much less uses DU as a resource.

Red State was pretty cool when it first started then it went all "Ban Hammer" and "The Pile". Now it's just fun to read for the mental acrobatics.

Oddly, I came across a Kos diary looking for something else and spent a bit reading it. It was a GBCW from a former prominent poster there and the comments, hundreds of them, were fascinating. Kos was being slammed by the OP, but yet the diary and it's author's comments were not deleted. An entertaining read.

Now if that had happened on Free Republic the "Viking Kitties" would have come and delted and banned just like that.

Why don't libertarians dominate the web? Why don't they dominate politics? Because the left side doesn't like their economics and the right side hates their social stance. I just hate Ayn Rand personally. 🙂

[mw]

One man's observation -

My blog is in the service of promoting the concept of voting for divided government (as well as giving me a pontification platform, so as not to unduly annoy my golfing buddies). Maintaining divided government as a voting heuristic means changing major party affiliation as frequently as changing underwear. I supported voting Dem in the mid-terms and support voting Republican for president in '08. To promote the idea, I cross-posted at DailyKos(left), Freedom Democrat(libertarian), Donklephant (moderate), and RedState (right). Of these, I have been banned for content at exactly one.

Guess which? (I am DWSUWF in the comment thread)

[Episiarch]

Why don't libertarians dominate the web?

Because we're wasting our fucking time hanging out at H&R?

Just kidding, I'm only wasting my work time, not my fucking time.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Naysayer, there be some huge truth to that. Blogs and blogging are still a tiny niche.

Joe, I have looked at some numbers. I'm not taking a position on which slice of the spectrum dominates, I am suggesting that there is plenty of conservative blather on the Internet and in the Blogosphere. I don't see those guys missing the train.

Jesse, thanks for your clarification, I see your point. Perhaps Kos isn't the personality behind the cyber slot but I suspect that if he were appropriately dispatched that his admirers might find somewhere else to make nasty about the political world as well.

I could be wrong, of course, but I try to imagine say, The Rush Limbaugh Show, without The Maharushie himself and then extrapolate to Kos. I don't see either in the mold of the Tonight Show where Leno can replace Carson and keep on truckin'. The Internet is way too dynamic and dispersed for that.

Again, I could be wrong (I'm not making book on my opinion). And, if so, well, that's okay as well.

Josh Corning has a much better question:

The question is not why the conservatives have not risen to Kos level on the internet...it is why hasn't libertarians dominated it?

[RedState, red star]

re: RedState, everything you need to know about them is at my name's link.

I was kicckked off there after posting ~75 diary entries - not comments, but posts. And, last I looked they still display my content despite me asking them to delete it and despite me being unable to find any legal right they have to display it.

A partial list of other sites that have deleted my comments is at the end of this post. Regarding the desire for control, it's not limited to the right wing.

[RedState, red star]

At the risk of causing many of you great distress, political blogs are still very much an inside joke, a circle jerk if you will.

Not really. The reason they're important is due to their relationship to the MSM. They feed the MSM, and the MSM gains or loses popularity due to them. If FireBrainHeadDogLakeFireBrain says the sky is green, and that's roundly discredited, it makes it more difficult for the MSM to say the same thing.

[mw]

"Why don't libertarians dominate the web?"

Actually, libertarians are wildly overrepresented in the blogosphere, compared to - you know - that other world out there. Thats why I like it in here.

[ChrisO]

I have a feeling that nothing much has changed since Howard Dean's vaunted Internet support turned out to be a mile wide and an inch deep. Do Kos & Co. have any impact? Possibly, but I believe it's overstated.

[prolefeed]

The question is not why the conservatives have not risen to Kos level on the internet...it is why hasn't libertarians dominated it?

Perhaps Weigel can tell us something smart like there are not many libertarians on the internet.

Fixed it.

[Lamar]

prolefeed: Libertarians are the third party in a two-party system? At least it's an answer.

[nebby]

"Do you see a difference between other commenters responding to your posts with vehement language, and the site administrator blocking your posts entirely?"

Hit and Run administrators block posts. Nobody here seems to mind.

[sammler]

I think there is a gradually emerging technical solution -- through ubiquitous trackbacks -- which will help the atomised blogs create increasingly coherent conversations, like Daily Kos threads, but with the advantage of reputational accountability.

[dagny]

Conservatives have no lack of success on the web. I think the real reason why there is no "conservative Kos" is that someone as far to the right as Kos is to the left is going to be rejected by a large number of self-proclaimed conservatives. Liberals are far more comfortable with their own extremists.

[Lamar]

"Liberals are far more comfortable with their own extremists."

Conservatives, by contrast, become their own extremists. As far as I can tell, Rush Limbaugh isn't regularly condemned by any GOPers because they like his support.

[S.A. Miller]

Three years ago you couldn't click your mouse three times without hitting some mockery of the silly liberal "Netroots" and their inability to win elections.

And which elections has DailyKos and the "netroots" won? Don't even think of giving them the credit for the 2006 Congressional elections. Last I checked a bunch of fairly conservative Blue Dog Democrats got elected, people who have very little in common with the Kossaks. (Last I checked the Iraq war had not been stopped and Bush has not been impeached.)

And now the right is panicking and wondering why they don't have a mighty network of winning blogs.

Who exactly is panicking about the lack of a right-wing DailyKos?

The Right has plenty of presence on the web. Need I remind you that, way before DailyKos even existed, Free Republic has been online since 1997?