The Democrats Get an Internet Election

Was thinking about the fact that former Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick just the Democratic race.

There's a really interesting article in Rolling Stone about what this means, but it seems like the Dems are doing what the GOP did in 2016.

It's their "Internet Election."

But what I mean by that is that the fragmentation of information creation and consumption (anyone can create content and people can read whatever they want) that begin in the late 90s is rolling over the political establishment.

The idea that a candidate can join the race right before Thanksgiving when the Iowa caucuses are in early January would have been insanity a few years ago.

You needed a "ground game" and all of that.  While the "ground game" is still important, I am sure, the "air game" that the Internet/social media enables is akin to the invention of the forward pass in football, a literal game-changer.

That ability to spin up a campaign (in theory, we'll see how it works for him) and solicit donations cost-effectively nationwide is something that was only made possible this decade.

Howard Dead started it. Obama really made it work, Trump exploited it, and now a centralized institution (the political parties) are breaking at the seams because of it.

This isn't just a US phenomenon. Yesterday's WSJ had an interview with the former Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar.

Mr. Aznar also sees a “trend of political fragmentation” in countries of the democratic West, with Spain as a prime example. “The results of Spain’s election has meant the presence in Parliament of 16 parties,” he says. “You cannot guarantee reasonable government in these circumstances.”

I suspect that the political fragmentation is going to get worse in the near future. 

We can certainly lament it. It's frightening.

But we have to accept it.

Then, we have to figure out what to do about it.

But the Internet's wave of disruption which has hit retail, manufacturing, taxis, and everything, continues to have impact and will for a long time. We're just seeing it at the highest levels.