One of the reasons that FDL was never quite comfortable during the primary battles was because  the context for the conversation here has always been issue-based. And frankly, there just wasn’t much difference between the leading Democratic candidates when it came to issues. The voting records of Clinton and Obama were almost identical, and although Edwards voiced more concern over the issue of poverty, it was hard to know if he represented a real difference or just a slightly modified marketing campaign.

As we’re seeing now, white papers released in the middle of a campaign mean little when it comes to actual governance.

Sophisticated campaigns marketed the candidates as personalities and people became attached to them and felt like they knew them. Everyone who opposed them was the “enemy,” rhetoric was amped up and overheated, identity politics were exploited by both sides as strategic campaign elements and suddenly the blogosphere was a giant pie fight.

We made the decision to stay true to our charter and didn’t take sides, pledging to support the candidate that emerged with the nomination. We believed that once the election was over and we could get back to discussing issues again and evaluating politicians on both sides of the aisle with the same yardstick, we’d be back in our element.

And that is largely what happened. Whereas most liberal blogs suffered a huge drop in traffic after the election, FDL didn’t (though I imagine this had more to do with the fact that we didn’t see the enormous rise that those engaged more actively in the primary debates did). But over the last six months, when the number of people engaged in online politics on the left have dropped and most of the big blogs have either seen traffic flatline or decrease year-over-year, ours is up by 40%.

Part of the increased traffic is due to the fact that health care is on the front burner, and we’ve been doing a lot of work on that topic. But we’re also seeing increased audience engagement. The number of reader diaries at the Seminal have doubled of late, and they cover a variety of subjects. Commenting has tripled and quadrupled, and registrations have been up as much as 700% over our regular rate on any given day.

Much of the contention within the liberal blogosphere of late, is the inevitable fallout of the primary battles. Many people currently engaged in the online debate formed their view of politics in that crucible, and don’t know how to interpret anything outside of it. Thus all criticism of the candidate-become-President, when viewed through that prism, is dismissed as the work of “Hillary shills” (the worst thing you could call someone back then), or “helping the Republicans” (reflecting the second though certainly less emotional stage of the campaign).

It’s a “team sports” analysis of politics, where “our side” is good and “their side” is bad. But it’s an inadequate model with which to assess actual governance. The party that is out of power can say all the wonderful things it wants, and can cast high-minded symbolic votes  knowing that they will never have any impact. But the party in power is by definition the party in power, and the only one that is capable of taking action.

Spending your time trying to influence those who don’t have the power to do anything just isn’t an effective way to advocate for change. You have to motivate those who actually do have power to use it.

The crisis in the blogosphere is happening, I believe, because too many gave themselves over to party and personalities that never had any hope of living up to the expectations people placed in them. If anyone thought the Democrats were sincere when they stormed around claiming moral superiority after passing Medicare prescription drug price negotiation in 2003, or that Obama would act on his campaign promise to do just that, they should be disabused of that notion now.

Some won’t care. They’ll always accept the logic that “the Republicans are worse,” and believe that this justifies any moral compromise it takes for the Democrats to stay in power. The Republicans certainly are worse — as Robert Cruickshank noted, their ability to retain power over the past 30 years has been the result of the deal they made with the corporate world to further its influence — but the Democrats are trying to strike that same deal. And for those who operate from an issue-based perspective, whose reason for opposing the Republicans was because of that deal, that is going to be much more problematic.

But as the liberal blogosphere shakes off the hangover of the election in the wake of the reality that the health care bill presents both about President Obama and the Democratic party, they’re going to be uncomfortable with the rationalizations offered up by those who continue to interpret events polemically from within it.

As Avedon says:

Obama and the Democratic leadership are pushing right-wing corporate policies. That’s not a theory. And it’s not about “ideology” in the sense these comfortable gentlemen are speaking when they explain that we have to be “pragmatic” and “realistic”. It’s about hungry bellies and broken limbs that might be yours and your children’s and siblings’ and friends’ in the very near future. This isn’t abstract; it’s about the simple, obvious fact that which way the money goes determines how our lives go. Our lives. We don’t actually care about which politician you happened to fall in love with.

We’re witnessing a deeply emotional response to that kind of critique among those who support party or a personality first. And the rationalizations necessary to justify that allegiance in the wake of the extreme corporatist assault on government represented by the health care bill sounds an odd note in the liberal blogosphere, which came of age developing an internal narrative in direct opposition to that (as Armando points out).

While I’m delighted with the new visitors and the vibrant conversation that’s happening at FDL, we’re not doing anything different than we’ve always done. As people emerge from the primary haze, they’re finding we’re right where we’ve always been – fighting for a progressive agenda regardless of who is in power.