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The Internet Savvy Appear To Agree On A Lot Of Policy Ideas
from the the-internet-bloc dept
We were just talking about how the "internet bloc" of voters may be an important new constituent for politicians to be aware of -- and I've been wondering if there's evidence that the bloc does not, in fact, fall into typical partisan classifications. Alex Howard conveniently points us to the news that Popvox, one of a number of excellent sites for discussing proposed Congressional legislation, has put out a blog post and infographic about the top 50 bills, by interest on Popvox, for the 112th Congress.
I imagine that it will surprise approximately none of you that SOPA was the most popular bill on the site (PIPA came in fifth). And while there may be something interesting to talk about in terms of which bills were most popular, something else struck me that seems a lot more remarkable: look at how many of the top bills had overwhelming support for or against the bill. Nearly all of the bills had a viewpoint that was very strongly in favor of the bill or opposed to the bills. Looking down the list, you have to get to the 7th bill, before you even have one where the majority viewpoint wasn't over 90% (and even on that bill, it's 88%). You don't get any real "split" opinion until bill number 9, HR 3, or the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion" bill that hits on a high profile issue that is usually split down partisan lines -- and you can see the for/against are much closer: 56% for, 44% opposed. But that's a rare case.
If we set the cutoff on "in strong agreement" and "contested" at bills where you had over 70% on one side or the other, of the top 50 bills, only 11 fall into the contested category. Meanwhile, 20 of the top 50 bills had over 90% agreement, including each of the top 6 bills. This makes me wonder if sites like these are helping to expose what "the internet bloc" really feels about certain issues. Of course, there are some caveats that should be made clear. It's entirely possible that these votes are skewed, and not a representative sample. For example, if someone who was strongly in favor of, or strongly opposed to, one of these bills points a lot of others to the Popvox bill page, you could see how it would likely lead to getting a lot of votes in one direction. But you would then think that communities on the flip side would also send people to the same bill page to vote the other side.
Either way, it does seem clear that these folks -- who are quite likely more internet savvy and engaged on political issues -- have pretty strong feelings on these topics, and the views aren't in dispute, but strongly agreed upon by a large segment of those internet savvy folks. It seems like an opportunity for a politician to recognize this and really start focusing on supporting what the "internet bloc" has to say...
I imagine that it will surprise approximately none of you that SOPA was the most popular bill on the site (PIPA came in fifth). And while there may be something interesting to talk about in terms of which bills were most popular, something else struck me that seems a lot more remarkable: look at how many of the top bills had overwhelming support for or against the bill. Nearly all of the bills had a viewpoint that was very strongly in favor of the bill or opposed to the bills. Looking down the list, you have to get to the 7th bill, before you even have one where the majority viewpoint wasn't over 90% (and even on that bill, it's 88%). You don't get any real "split" opinion until bill number 9, HR 3, or the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion" bill that hits on a high profile issue that is usually split down partisan lines -- and you can see the for/against are much closer: 56% for, 44% opposed. But that's a rare case.
Either way, it does seem clear that these folks -- who are quite likely more internet savvy and engaged on political issues -- have pretty strong feelings on these topics, and the views aren't in dispute, but strongly agreed upon by a large segment of those internet savvy folks. It seems like an opportunity for a politician to recognize this and really start focusing on supporting what the "internet bloc" has to say...
I have an idea...
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I’m looking for policy...
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I have an app...
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You get extra points for not wasting valuable space with capitals or punctuation marks. Some might ding you for this, but I believe that many trolls these days put too much emphasis on clarity and presentation, at the expense of efficiency. But you know better.
Truly, this is a work of art, worthy of a golden troll award.
/end really dumb joke
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See? I can list karaoke bars too.
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And it's hard to see how politicians exploit this emerging voting bloc. The MPAA lauded the two major parties planks on IP; and both the supporters and the opponents of SOPA have been bipartisan. It will be interesting to watch but difficult to see legislative movement on IP in either direction.
For all of the overheated rhetoric surrounding IP issues, I'm not familiar with a single race where it is a major point of contention.
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I do see your point though that this nation has gotten far to stuck on the idea of this two party system. It is kind of sickening really. I'm willing to bet if you took a poll of people you would find most voting for the "lesser of the two evils" or something along those lines.
Most people are not as bat shit crazy as these politicians are.
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I think that's right. But my larger point is I don't see party ownership of the "internet freedom" issue. So ultimately, I think it gets drowned out more pedestrian concerns like Social security and Medicare. Or bigger polarizing issues like abortion.
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70% support HR 153 Affordable Energy Act (i.e. drill baby drill).
3 of the listed issues support gun rights. Approval ranges from 78% to 89%.
The anti-abortion bill on the list has a 12 point lead.
88% support the Repeal of Obamacare Act.
79% support the Fair tax.
72% support repealing the 16th Amendment (income tax)
If this polling site is to be believed, it appears the internet is mostly these "Teabaggers" you hate so much.
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Interesting observation.
The 92% support for "Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition" might throw a bit of a curve ball into your mix though. I believe the Tea Party is about on par with the general population at around the 50/50 area.
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For all of the overheated rhetoric surrounding IP issues, I'm not familiar with a single race where it is a major point of contention.
That's where I fall on this. While I would fall within Internet bloc in terms of those issues, I feel far more strongly about other issues and would never vote based primarily on a candidate's Internet stance. I think the number of people who only pay attention to Internet issues and discount other factors is relatively small. However, it would be interesting to see if a candidate can win an election by making the Internet his/her primary cause.
My representative, Jared Polis, represents Boulder and has been an Internet entrepreneur, so it is a given that he is going to represent the Internet bloc, but voters who elected him also care about sustainability (probably to a greater extent than the Internet), gay rights (and Jared is openly gay), support of science research (we've got a lot of government-supported science here), etc. If Jared were a Tea Party conservative who happened to align with the Internet bloc for that one issue, he wouldn't get elected in his district.
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Jared Polis is the US Representative for the district that contains Boulder. If Polis only represented the "Internet bloc" without supporting issues that were important to the other four startup communities, he wouldn't get elected.
Internet corporations at this point can spend enough money on lobbyists to have an impact in DC, but in terms of voter priorities, I think other issues will determine how they vote. I'm pretty sure lobbyists can buy support in DC and that is probably sufficient to get certain laws changed. But I think that is different than organizing voting blocs around Internet issues.
In short, it might not matter in terms of lawmaking who gets elected if those who are elected can be "bought" by Internet companies. Pay both liberals and conservatives enough money to "see" it your way, and voila, Congress changes the laws.
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If I was forced to choose between romney or obama, i'd probably pick romney. The reason being that I don't think he'd get away with as much civil liberty erosion as Obama has.
The republican legislators rarely go partisan against the police state. The democrats, however, will make a fuss if a republican president erodes civil liberties, but, as a party, they remain silent (or even supportive) when Obama exceeds even Bush's power grabs. So I figure the only way to slow our descent into gestapo-land is to put in a president outside the dem party and to give the dems a slight advantage in the legislature.
--the same AC as above.
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Jobs:
I'm guessing this is a difference of opinion centered on CREATE MORE GOOD JOBS with different ideas of /how/ to do that. (Doubling NASA funding would likely advance material sciences and produce side-benefits that increased the American brand reputation as well as competitiveness.)
Healthcare:
I think this has a lot to do with jobs and other stuff. Honestly I'm all for private enterprise /attempting to compete with government care/. The government should establish a baseline for care (public option replacement for medicare/medicaid) and let a 'market' compete with the minimum code offered by the government. Oh and also force all jobs to pro-rated pay for healthcare based on a 30 hour work week equating to fully funding buying in to said government option. (Work more and you get luxury care items like private rooms in better plans.)
Abortion:
This sounds like healthcare to me; funding for it should be in all healthcare plans. Also, if you're so against abortion, hand out condoms for free and fund 'gift child' (adoption) systems as well as maternity leave?
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they're all for funding some bit of military hardware, and several bills specifically about paying soldiers...
but are against the bill to fund the military?
there's probably some details or something i'm not aware of, not being an american or anything, but take by itself that looks a bit strange :)
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Now, how many of these were passed/failed?
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Then it hits me - that on most of these contentious issues both sides (in the US at least) of the political spectrum generally support things the internet hates - and if you're only a 2 party system, both parties can effectively ignore that demographic as long as they both stand on the same side of these issues.
So much of this seems like just a waiting game. Waiting for old, rich guys to die, so that the sentiment of the youth of today can become policy of tomorrow.
Perhaps what's needed is an Internet Party - a serious political party, with policies ready on all issues (not just one-issue). The major hurdle is convincing a politically bipolar electorate to support a more democratic form of government.
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Really I do find this interesting and will be willing to try it out if something like this takes effect.
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Plus, sadly, many people (at least in the UK) dont even know what the pirate party is about. They think its some kind of joke party, like the MRLP.
A party with fully formed policies, with an understandable name and message, possibly headed by some respected internet personalities, may stand a chance of garnering more votes.
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Sorry previous AC (replying) was me, for some reason the cookies didn't take.
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What is needed is for people to ask their congressmen and senators for opinions on these things, inform them on where to find inspiration on the internet for arguments and explain your own standpoint. If enough people do that, it will force the politicians and ultimately the parties to take them into consideration. The SOPA and PIPA protests were a big surprise to a lot of politicians since they are living in a world with a limited amount of opinions represented (some of them litterally only get informed through lobbyists!) and very unrepresentative opinions for the general population at that.
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Anger the American people enough and Congress will take notice. Is it any wonder they want to keep TPP as secret as possible. The government has learned from the backlash against the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act in 2007 and against the Stop Online Piracy Act in 2011 that you need to keep the facts from the people as long as possible, if you want to get something past the American people they will not like
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That's obsolete. Voters don't vote their pocketbook anymore (as often as not, they vote against their pocketbook), but instead have devolved to pure tribalism.
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It should also surprise no one that the vast majority of people don't give a flying fuck about what the readership of "popvox" think.
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If we could just vote on an issue-by-issue basis
And if we can't eliminate having people in office, then perhaps we can at least eliminate political parties. Republicans have moved farther to the right, so anyone who wants to run as a Republican has had to advocate for more far right policies to get his party's support. That has pretty much wiped out the moderate Republican candidate. If, on the other hand, people weren't associated with a political party, then perhaps we would get a wider array of political viewpoints, ranging from far right, far left, and everything in between.
Of course, if we got rid of representative government, we'd have a different set of problems, with big money campaigns to sway voters on those issues. We see it all the time with ballot issues. Every group with a strong stance on an issue and access to money would try to influence voters.
I wonder what would happen if we got rid of all political financing, and also required every voter to become thoroughly familiar with the issues before voting.
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Re: If we could just vote on an issue-by-issue basis
I don't think much would change. Who ever comes up with the best bumper sticker, slogan or soundbite will still win. The American electorate is very broad, but about an inch deep.
Also, you have to be mindful of simply tilting the odds in favor of vastly wealthy candidates like Bloomberg, Romney, McMahon etc. who can comfortably self-finance their run for office.
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Re: If we could just vote on an issue-by-issue basis
Given that the vast majority of political money is needed to buy TV ads, I suggest a slightly different take on this:
Ban paid political advertising on television. Period. Set aside a certain allotment of time for TV ads that is doled out equally amongst the various factions, at no charge to the candidates.
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I might be pro-Internet, but am wary of corporations
I see Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google, etc. as today's equivalent of GM, Ford, Conoco, Exxon, Monsanto, etc.
What I support in terms of Internet issues will be moderated by who I see benefiting from the legislation.
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Re: I might be pro-Internet, but am wary of corporations
The Tech World Gets a New Trade Association, Or “How to Read a DC Press Release” | Bytegeist: "In short: the Internet Association is a group formed by Google and other like-minded companies to soothe the hurt feelings of key House Republicans who had their feathers singed on SOPA."
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For now
Even if they do, speaking as someone who has been online since well before there was a world wide web, I can't see it as anything other than a passing phase. Over time it becomes more and more the case that everyone is online. There ceases to be a perceptibly distinct internet identity.
It's like asking "what kind of music does the internet like to listen to?" "What kind of porn do they watch?"
As a friend of mine is fond of saying, "It doesn't take all kinds; we just have all kinds."
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Re: For now
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For example, the people who cared about PIPA/SOPA were for the most part people who were against them and worried that they would pass, whereas the people who cared about the various Obamacare repeal laws were mostly people against them (because everyone knew they would never pass with Obama still President).
The abortion bill is a rare case where both sides would likely take it somewhat seriously and want to know more about what it actually proposed.
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The Internet Voting Block
In order to fully appreciate the bullshit that Mike will be shoveling down your throat for the next couple weeks, I suggest you drink water and relax. You can get it down faster if you learn not to taste it.
Seriously though, come on Mike. Don't confuse internet noise driven mostly by groups like anonymous and 4chan as being particularly meaningful.
Did you look at the demographics of you own site? Mostly Male, mostly under 25, mostly connecting from school, mostly single, and remarkably mostly white.
That's the same group that generally doesn't vote at all. Voting rates are 10 points behind the overall (including them) vote, and nearly 20 points behind the over 50 crowd.
Yabbering on about the internet vote is just not going to work out much. But I know you are going to try to jam this down everyones throat. Nice graphic by the way, certainly contributes to the tone of yellow journalism nicely! Did microsoft sponsors that too?
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Mike, is this part of your work for the White House?
Do tell... it might be nice to disclose what posts you get paid for.
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There quite simply is no larger douche-rag on this planet than you, Masnick.
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see the popvox site
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And there is also the "cannabis vote."
"... it seems to be something that the candidates are aware of, especially the libertarian, Gary Johnson, whose campaign is - make no bones about it - they're after what they call the cannabis vote. And they feel confident that they can make a dent in Romney's numbers."
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