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Archive for the ‘astroturf’ Category

Is this to what the Dem operative was referring?

The above article, by Dana Loesch, discusses progressive, Democrat groups planning to start some “grassroots” demonstrations to show support for the Democrat health-care reforms; the article, as is often the case in this type of article, accuses the Democrat group of “astroturfing,” or creating a fake grassroots movement.  While this is a good example of astroturfing, I think the distinction between astroturf and grassroots is often quite vague.  One of the first things Democrats said against the Tea-Party movement is that it was astroturf, and this has created a back-and-forth between the two sides, each accusing the other of astroturfing.

What each group accuses the other of doing is really not important.  What is important is how are we going to view protests?  At what point do they cease to be a legitimate outpouring of individual feeling and become fake?

First, corporate involvement is definitely a factor.  Corporations, although made up of individuals and treated in many ways like individual people by the law, cannot by definition begin a grassroots movement.  For a movement to be grassroots, individuals have to be making their own choices to be involved, and an employee at Microsoft or EMI doesn’t usually choose to be employed there because of political feelings.

But what about employees of a non-profit political organization?  People employed by such an organization usually do so because they feel strongly about an issue.  Are their feelings and passions about an issued negated by doing what they do for a living?

Second, does it matter where it starts?  The above article takes this as being the important distinction.  This position holds that a grassroots organization should be started by everyday people who feel strongly about an issue but for whom that issue isn’t their main job.  Thus, a protest started by a political organization can’t be grassroots.  I’m not sure that I agree with that idea, and it becomes especially troublesome in the third point.

So, third, what happens if “professional” political organizations or individuals get involved in a grassroots movement?  For example, if we take the Tea-Party movement as a grassroots movement, does that change if Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity get behind them and support them?

These three problems really get to the problem with the whole grassroots-astroturf debate.  At the moment the debate has become simply a “tit-for-tat.”  While astroturfing definitely exists (the music industry is notorious for this), many of the examples I’ve seen recently are not as easy to call, and I think most of this argument has simply become a way of smearing your opponent without actually talking about the issue.