Mazal Mualem interviews experts over how the Internet is mutating the Israel representative democracy, as seen in the ascendancy of Prime Minister Netanyahu, in AL Monitor:
But Netanyahu’s electoral victory was the product of much more than his own effective internet campaign. His achievement reflects a deep-seated change taking place in Israeli politics as a result of the social network revolution. It is a process that has kept many experts busy working to understand where it is all leading. Four of them spoke with Al-Monitor in an effort to answer that question. Karine Nahon is a researcher of the politics of information and social networks, Asher Idan is a philosopher and authority on social networks and futurism, Alex Rosenfarb is a manager of digital media and political campaigns, and Arad Akikous is a political strategist and researcher of social networks.All agree on one point: Israel’s system of representative parliamentary democracy is becoming increasingly irrelevant. It is in the process of being replaced by direct, personal politics, while at the same time, the traditional party structure is losing power.
“The most prominent trend is the way that politicians are funded. It has already begun in Israel and will only grow stronger,” said Rosenfarb. “The saying ‘follow the money’ is very true in this case.” According to him, “[President Barack] Obama’s model of a mechanism based on small donations, which has since been adopted in Israel by politicians like [Labor Knesset members] Shelly Yachimovich and Stav Shafir, will continue to catch on and impact the political structure. That is because when there are many small donors, politicians naturally grant importance to their opinions. What happens, in effect, is that bargaining power is transferred to the masses.” He added, “We are in the midst of a transition from a distant representative democracy to a form of democracy in which more and more citizens are involved in the various political processes.”
As for how this process will impact the parties, Rosenfarb said, “Everything we knew about mass party registration will disappear. We will move from the model of democratic elections with people going to vote every four years to a model in which the citizen is involved in politics on a daily basis through the internet.”
I really just want to copy the entire article as it fascinates anyone who’s been involved with telecommunications1 and its impact on how people think about and implement politics.
Source: whitehouse.gov
The first thought that comes to mind is whether or not we are seeing something similar in the United States, and I’d say that Donald Trump may be a personification of these new trends – a candidate who has appealed to constituencies deeply root in the Internet; with little explicit dependence on the GOP structure; with rhetoric emphasizing his personal brand, and in fact a message that is destructive to the GOP as a Party. By contrast, President Barack Obama is the personification of the best of old-style American politics – identifying with the Democrat brand, endorsing other Democratic candidates, building coalitions and hiring the best available personnel, regardless of party identification (see the Secretary of Defense and the FBI Director); and most importantly, constantly reaching out to Congress to attempt to work with them. During his first two years, when the Democratic Party held both chambers of Congress, they worked together to implement the ACA, amongst other issues, and it was quite a public process, as compromises were reached and hypothetical consequences worked out and dealt with.
Since the Democrats lost control of Congress, the confounding Republican refusal to consider working with the President has been a discouragement and puzzle, and I suspect bolder commentary than mine might speculate that the hatred of certain segments of the American populace for President Obama communicates to the Republican Congressional members and enforces their current behaviors. Other commentary might suggest that those same Republicans are merely hand puppets for the shadowy funders of the conservative movement, who happen to despise President Obama. I don’t know, myself. Perhaps the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus of the House is really fully in control. Are the fringe-right members of Congress there because their constituents are fringe right, or is the process of selecting candidates in the GOP such that fringe candidates hold an advantage? I suspect the latter, with little solid evidence.
Secondly, is this good for the nation? Does direct democracy trump representative democracy?
I’m biased towards quality results, and to my mind a representative democracy permits a small fraction of the citizenry to become experts in the issues of government. I’m aware of the “wisdom of the crowds,” but my experience is that, in politics, the levers of government and the power they bring, perceived or real, bring out some of the worst elements of the citizenry, the most extreme views, and the ability to mobilize, not precisely public opinion but focused, multiplied opinion tends to distort the apparent desires of the nation as a whole.
And, of course, desire is not always a good measure of where we should go – a statement that might be anathema to an advocate of direct democracy. For them, voting on every issue is the ideal because then the people are participating and in charge of their collective future – never mind what they actually know about sometimes subtle issues.
But sometimes bitter medicine is necessary – the replacement of fossil fuels as the primary power sources of the nation, as a simple, irrefutable example, may not play well in Peoria, but it is necessary for the future prosperity of the nation and the world. When it hits 130° in Peoria it’ll be too late to make the good Peorians happy again – they’ll be busy packing to move to Canada. Florida will be known as the State of Inundation. And where will we be then?
The Party system of the United States, for all of its quirks and flaws, does serve, when it’s not been subverted (as by the RINO-yappers of the GOP), to train future political leaders, to teach them what is acceptable and what is unacceptably extreme, the procedures and the issues. Consider the exceptional performance of President Obama, his knowledge of the machinery of government, the theory of our government. And we should expect the same from candidate Hillary Clinton.
And then think about “the Donald.” From his statements we can honestly wonder if he has ever read the Constitution, given serious thought to the issues of race, theory of government, or much else beyond real estate dealings. Does he have any knowledge of what a President can and cannot do? If he is the end result of “direct democracy”, then that model should have little future.
But it probably will continue, and hopefully the nation will develop new gatekeeping mechanisms to train the novices and keep the flakes out.
