Today’s society moves faster than ever before. Technological
innovations allow economies, people, and ideas to move and change in new ways
with ever-increasing speed. Naturally political theories must change to
accommodate changes in society, and those whose campaigns can adapt faster have
an obvious advantage. In this competitive environment emerged the very modern
idea of “grassroots activism.” This philosophy refers to the ideal of campaigns
originating among the people, as opposed to by some faceless elites in a far
away meeting.
This model for campaigns became the new standard for the
Democratic Party in the 2010 and 2012 election years. It required organizers to
redraw hierarchies of campaign leadership. The new model looked more like a web
of individuals, a fabric woven by the personal relationships of every voter in
America. The network mentality entered politics for the first time.
This network was created with the same dreams as all
networks. One was that grassroots activism would reform the political process
and give everyone an opportunity to become involved. To a great extent, this
became so. Regional organizers were given more responsibility to gather and
train volunteers, and volunteering happened at a more local, spread out level.
But this network did not reform electoral politics completely, nor did it bring
political involvement to people and places it did not already go. The same
limits of every network – online or otherwise – apply to grassroots activism as
well.
Networks are natural and inevitable systems to form as
communication becomes easier and the world of information continues to shrink.
But they seem to all have the same limits. Evidently barriers of geography
and class will always prevent people connecting with each other to some extent.
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