Political Blogging is Self-Entertainment, Not Political Activism

And that's fine. As long as we're each aware that the sole result of our blogging is our own happiness

When I first started writing a political blog, I felt that I was partaking in a conversation that would have a, albeit small, influence on our political system. That it would persuade some to consider changes in their opinions, their efforts, their impact.

Many Saturday mornings I would sit down to write a well thought out piece, generally on political actions we should consider in Colorado. I interviewed most of the major electeds in Colorado and spent hours then writing up those interviews, figuring that they provided new & detailed information about the subject. And that would then impact voter’s views of the individual.

The thing is, looking back at it, I don’t think it accomplished much, if anything. And nowadays when people seem to be so much more cemented into their views, and unwilling to even listen to opposing comments, much less consider them, it all seems to be a bunch of reinforcing our own views and yelling at our opponents.

Even in my case, where I have a pretty broad set of daily reads (Talking Points Memo, Wall St. Journal, etc.), I don’t know that I am being persuaded by much. I learn from some of what I read, but it’s rare it causes me to rethink my views, or what I think our focus should be.

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And this is all fine. We read these blogs, we comment on these blogs, we write our own blogs, because we enjoy doing so. It’s social interaction. We feel good about doing it. We interact with some people we like. Life should be fun.

But we should acknowledge this for what it is, entertainment. If we want to truly impact the political arena, we need to volunteer on a campaign. We need to write a letter to our elected officials. We need to donate to campaigns. What we should not do is say to support candidate X I’m going to write a blog or post comments or tweet. Because that’s not effective, that’s self gratification.

And with that, I close out this effort at self gratification :)

1. Faster Please is an exception - it has made me think a lot about the importance of an abundance agenda.