While we cower in the corner, gibbering madly over the possibility that the signs the apocalypse may be nigh - a lunar eclipse, a Red Sox World Series win, and a Bush reelection - we need to start preparing ourselves for the repression that is coming.
Bush almost lost this race, and he's not likely to forget why: Even though he used every one of Rove's dirty tricks, spewed propaganda and lies to outstanding effect, even though he painted his opponent as unfit to lead, cowed the corporate media and maybe even fudged the ballot numbers a bit, he had one bugaboo that he ignored until it was too late - one opponent that he underestimated.
That was the Internet.
Without the Internet, the Democrats couldn't have organized grassroots efforts both locally and nationally. They wouldn't have solicited nearly as many funds, and the funds they would have solicited would have come from corporations. More importantly, television news repeated many of the smears produced by the Bush campaign, while the Internet debunked them.
The Democrats used the new medium to get their message out, while the Republicans labored under Rove's vision of the Internet, a place where negative campaigning and dirty tricks better suited for Nixon's era were the order of the day. It may have worked, but not as effectively. Whisper-campaign e-mails entered inboxes but got debunked by Snopes or Annenberg. Attacks didn't play as well when the other side could tell their side of the story immediately.
There's a saying that conservatives want ammunition, liberals want information. The Bush Web site was a model of negativity, offering no content, only attacks against Kerry. But, since the Internet is an active, rather than passive medium, it didn't entice as many visitors to view it as it could have. Instead, it drove people - specifically, the interested swing-voter - away. It worked to turn out Bush's base, but, by and large, the Internet abhors an intellectual vacuum.
Kerry's site provided concrete answers and had content and policy, something that appealed not just to the base but also to the moderate voter, and those who acquire a sudden interest in politics and want quick but accurate information - like young voters worried about terrorism and the draft.
Bloggers and other independent media caught the lies and did the reporting that other news outlets just didn't cover. Primary source documents could be linked to show an objective truth - a truth that showed the Bush/Cheney story didn't hold water. Studies showed that people who got their news from the Internet were more informed, more up on world events, more knowledgeable about the candidates than those who got their information from television. Since Bush and Cheney rely on ignorance, the Internet is an enemy.
Over the next four years, we will see two things happen with the Internet - a much more restrictive Internet with much greater restraint on speech, possibly passed in the name of "protecting the children," or "protecting copyrighted works." We will see an end to government support of Internet programs, instead allowing individual corporations to balkanize the Internet, lowering its value.
It is no coincidence that young people vote Democratic - the youth are more comfortable with the 21st century's tools. As the "television generation" dies off and new voters from the youth come in to replace them, we would have found ourselves becoming a more informed, more progressive society. If the Republicans don't kill this cheap, ubiquitous source of information, they will find themselves unable to compete in 2008.
We have started down the road to ruin, where those who have a vested interest in keeping us ignorant and apathetic now have carte blanche to do exactly that. We have decided to submit to authority rather than to think for ourselves. We have started to build a foundation for a world where, when politicians lie, cheat and steal, we no longer hold them accountable and we reward them for their misdeeds.
For the first time in my life, I no longer think that America can be salvaged.
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