Technie Nerds and Left-Wing Politics (UPDATED)

I received an e-mail from Robert Cox of The National Debate, who was also at the American Compass conservative book panel which I described below. He wants to clarify a question he asked the panel which Hugh Hewitt gave short shrift to and which I also dismissed in my write-up, saying "Robert Cox then asked a question which basically consisted of his making a somewhat bizarre-sounding point that leftists are dominating blogs and the internet, because the people who own all the technology companies are lefties. None of the panelists really bought it."

Here's his elucidation of his point via e-mail:

18 months ago conservative blogs dominated the A-List and the Blogosphere was seen as a conservative medium. Since then you had the Dean campaign use of their blog/site to raise tens of millions of dollars, the adoption of blogging by all the other democratic campaigns, two bloggercon events sponsored by the Berkman Center at Harvard, the acqusition of Blogger by Google, VC money going into Technorati, Feedster, etc. the DNC accrediting Bloggers, the list goes on. I know the guys who are working on this, I have sat with them as they strategize, I went to Bloggercon and sat in on the disscussion groups. Trust me, they are not PASSIVE. In a nutshell their view is that they missed out on talk radio and they are damn sure not going to lose out on the Blogosphere. Their goal is to own the space - they want it to be THEIR talk radio.

Now...look at the A-List today:

1) Daily Kos 263,426 LEFT

2) Instapundit.com 238,664 RIGHT

3) Eschaton 134,401 LEFT

4) Gizmodo 92,958 TECH / LEFT

5) www.AndrewSullivan.com 63,096 MIXED / MOVING LEFT (now supporting Kerry)

6) The Washington Monthly 53,998 LEFT

7) Wonkette 48,838 LEFT

8) HughHewitt.com 44,743 RIGHT

9) The Smirking Chimp 39,804 LEFT

10) Blog for America 33,746 LEFT

Pretty damn powerful, and irrefutable. For the record, I understood what he was trying to say, and I agree with him, I just thought he expressed himself poorly at that moment, which I think accounted for Hewitt's reaction. Here's part of what I wrote him in response:

I too have noticed this undeniable shift in energy and big traffic numbers to the left, and the numbers you provide are startling. The more difficult piece, however, and the one which you had the most trouble expressing in your question, is tying this to the politics of the owners of the tech companies involved in blogging. I know that owners of google, feedster, technorati, Six Apart, etc. are all big lefties, and I'm sure this has something to do with this big shift, but the relationship isn't that simple or easy to demonstrate. For instance, it's not as if blogger refuses to support right-of-center blogs (though sometimes, in darker moments, I wonder if something like this might happen in the future). My blog is mostly right-leaning, and I use software from Six Apart (Typepad), while I know that Ben and Mena Trott are lefties.

The problem isn't the political affiliations of the technologists, but the fact that, especially since Joe Trippi's success, the Democratic Party activist class has, as you say, decided to take over blogging. One of the most depressing things is that the medium, which initially was attractive because it featured a lot of analysis and commentary from an independent, non-partisan perspective, has become more and more dominated by mindless, rah-rah partisan activism.

Note that of all of the left-leaning blogs in Cox's Top Ten (Also note that I assume that the numbers are page views per day, but have no idea of the source, though they all sound plausible.) the only ones that aren't simply mindless rah-rah Democratic Party activism are Andrew Sullivan (whom I think he is correct at this point to put in the left-leaning category in light of recent developments) and Wonkette (only because hers is a humour blog). The top blog in the "right" category, Instapundit, isn't exactly a straight-ticket conservative, or even a Republican. In fact, the only explicitly partisan Republican blogger in the top ten is Hugh Hewitt.

Again, what correlation this has with the almost universally left-wing (or left-Libertarian) politics of those in the tech sector is hard to determine, but it seems likely that there is some correlation.

Judith is also wondering if it's possible that:

much of the Michael Moore-ish rabidness of liberal politics these days comes from techie nerds who are just starting to participate in mainstream politics. They made lots of money in the 90s, got laid off in the bust, and now have time on their hands, so they jump into politics. But they are very ignorant. But they are rich techie nerds so they don't know they are ignorant, and they are full of opinions and ready to inflict them on everyone. And they increase the flamishness of political discourse because that's how they are used to talking anyway.

I would also add that they have no real life experience, aside from the experience of getting rich at a young age, which has to give you a skewed perspective on things. On top of that, they are most likely socially retarded. So, is there any truth to this? Is the new liberal activist and political fund-raising class composed of a lot of dot-com millionares from the 90's? And how does this correlate with the shift in energy and traffic in blogging from right to left?

UPDATE:Robert Cox e-mailed me to say that he was surprised to see his e-mail published here. I now realize I was remiss in not asking his permission first, but the e-mail expressed his point pretty well so I think everything worked out. He's now written a longer, more detailed post about this subject, which also explains where his traffic numbers come from.

Comments

[Robert Cox]

Eric,

I guess I was just being inarticulate. I was pretty tired from trapsing around Manhattan on foot all weekend shooting photos of the protests and the TV sets.

Here ismy post on all of this...

[fat kid]

much of the Michael Moore-ish rabidness of liberal politics these days comes from techie nerds who are just starting to participate in mainstream politics. They made lots of money in the 90s, got laid off in the bust, and now have time on their hands, so they jump into politics. But they are very ignorant. But they are rich techie nerds so they don't know they are ignorant, and they are full of opinions and ready to inflict them on everyone. And they increase the flamishness of political discourse because that's how they are used to talking anyway.

Being of this generation, with friends of this demeanor, I'm going to have to agree with this assessment... and add the concept of "marketing folks". Many of my friends (graduated college in 2000) went on to marketing jobs, b/c that's where the $$ was if you couldn't hack investment banking. Well, we all know what happened to marketing budgets. *poof* pretty much overnight. In any case, this is also a point I've been making for the past 6-7 months or so in various comments on both Allah and Ace's blogs. Good to finally hear a little feedback/justification :)

[Adina Levin]

Got to this post from Judith's link on Kesher talk, and disagree pretty strongly with the idea that left-wing bloggers "decided to take over blogging."

Blogging can't be "taken over." It's not a logical possiblity.

Unlike the mass media, which are capital-intensive businesses that can turn into oligopolies or monopolies (ClearChannel), weblogs are cheap. Anyone with political ideas is free to read and write blogs for the cost of entry in a public library or basic internet access.

It's not physically possible for left bloggers to somehow crowd out right bloggers. Unlike physical books and records, which depend heavily on limited, expensive store shelf space, blogs are in the unlimited space of the internet.

If left bloggers are writing, it's because individuals felt they had something to say. If their blogs are being widely read, it's because people find them compelling to read.