GOP’s Winning Team: Facebook/Twitter in ‘12

Republicans have been quick to recognize the practical benefits of technology, but slow to grasp its political implications. Amidst a backdrop of dizzying technological change, British Conservatives floundered, while the GOP used sophisticated programs to target voters and win elections with ruthless efficiency. But now a younger generation of Tories perceives that new online methods of communication are changing not just campaigns, but politics itself.

As the internet exploded into the mainstream over a decade ago, it was widely assumed that it would accelerate the fragmentation of society. Instead of watching the same television shows, attending the same movies, and patronizing the same stores, tech-savvy and self-reliant consumers would retreat into their own online spaces and express their individuality. Libertarianism would flourish.

In reality, Web 2.0 has had the opposite effect. Social networking sites, online chat and discussion forums, blogs, and peer-to-peer sharing have strengthened social bonds, not dissolved them. As never before, interconnectedness and interdependence are central facts in the lives of young people. Friends in Tokyo and Texas can share photos and thoughts instantly. Protesters in Tehran can tweet the crimes of their regime to the world. Technology is therefore merely reinforcing what an avalanche of recent social psychology confirms: that we are profoundly shaped by our surroundings and interactions with others.

In this context, excessive rhetoric about individualism and personal freedom is not just inappropriate; it’s insane. It’s no coincidence that Republicans are getting slaughtered in densely populated urban and suburban areas, filled with students and young professionals who are intimately involved in their communities, offline and online. They are repelled by swaggering calls to go it alone, to sink or swim, to believe that they alone determine their own destiny.

What is true in spacious America is doubly true in crowded Britain. This is why British Conservative leader David Cameron endlessly repeats that “we’re all in this together” and “there is such a thing as society.” After the economic revolution of the Thatcher era, Tories were viewed as the wrecking crew, as uprooters of communities and enemies of social cohesion. In truth, conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic are still trying to reconcile economic liberalism with respect for tradition and continuity. Perhaps the most crucial aspect of Cameron’s modernization agenda has been the enormous effort to recast his party as champions of social responsibility.

Behind the new language, there is a coherent philosophy. In his first main speech as party leader, Cameron stressed the importance of corporate, professional and civic responsibility. He pledged to trust and support local leaders and public sector employees, to harness new technology to make public services more responsive, and to encourage businesses to create solutions to social and environmental challenges.

In other words, he adapted conservative principles of localism, decentralization and free enterprise to the complex world as it is today. He did this while addressing counter-intuitive issues, contrasting his approach with a bossy, interventionist, liberal government, and managing to sound original and optimistic. Republicans please note.

Cameron’s understanding of technological progress is consistent with this approach. In a 2007 speech at Google, he elaborated on what he calls “the post-bureaucratic era… where true freedom of information makes possible a new world of responsibility, citizenship, choice and local control.”

First, he observed how technology facilitates transparency of information, so that government spending details can be published online. But he added that such accountability is “just the first step” toward promoting greater responsibility “so citizens take on a more active role.” He applied this notion of individuals taking on more responsibility within a highly connected framework to the area of international aid: “In the post-bureaucratic era, we should tell the public in the countries that receive our aid exactly how, when and where the money’s being spent – so they can hold their local politicians to account.”

Second, he emphasized the way in which technology increases the availability of information. He wants to see neighborhoods coming together to commission local services, social entrepreneurs competing with government departments, and citizens making responsible choices based on freely available information. In this way, he is elegantly leveraging new social and technological advancements to pursue more traditional conservative goals of choice and competition.

Globalization and technology are reshaping our world in exciting and empowering ways. But they are also contributing to the kind of massive uncertainty and disruption experienced by working-class, temperamentally conservative voters that Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat described in Grand New Party. By foolishly mocking Obama’s time as a community organizer, Republicans were reminding these people that he understands their concerns, and is aware of the importance of social groups, of communities, of families, of stability. He will continue to present himself as a solidly dependable moderate with a keen sense of social responsibility, while also exploiting his awesome online presence to mobilize voters and advance his agenda.

Jean Paul Sartre used to say that hell is other people. In the era of social networking, it would be amusing indeed if the Republican Party was capsized by clinging to the ideology of a communist French philosopher.