Lucas, for the past six years, I have managed the email and activism program
here at Daily Kos. Before then, I spent six years blogging at two old
places you might remember: Open Left and MyDD.
From the Iraq anti-war protests and the rise of Howard Dean, to the unsuccessful
fights to defeat George W. Bush and Joe Lieberman, to the crusade for
a public option in Obamacare, to the #WIunion and Occupy Wall Street movements,
to filibuster reform, Net Neutrality, Black Lives Matter and the Clinton
vs. Sanders battle for the Democratic nomination, my position has given
me a front row seat to watch, participate in, and sometimes help build
the modern progressive movement.
Now, I've teamed up with Matthew Kerbel, the chair of the political
science department at Villanova University, to write a book about it all:
Next Generation Netroots: Realignment and the Rise of the Internet Left. If you want to find out where we have come from and where we are going
as a movement, then
please click here to purchase Next Generation Netroots
directly from Routledge Publishers and type the promo code NGN16 at checkout
for a 33% discount.
Over the past week, Matt and I have written a few articles describing
the big ideas in the book in the context of the 2016 Democratic presidential
nomination campaign:
- The biggest difference between Clinton and Sanders wasn't policy. It was something more important.
- Bernie’s loss highlights the progressive movement’s greatest liability
- The unmistakable lesson of the Sanders campaign: The left-wing is ascendent in the Democratic Party
- A surprising, unexpected, recurring factor in partisan realignment—and what it means to the netroots
- If history is a guide, a progressive Democratic Party may be closer than you think
If you have the sense that the American political scene is on the verge
of a big shakeup, you are not alone. Our political moment shares with
other realigning periods the sense that political parties are failing
to address the public interest in a time of rapid change. In an era defined
by the collapse of the political center, extreme income inequality, changing
demography, and new technologies for political communication and organizing,
a second-generation online progressive movement fueled by email and social
media is coming into its own.
In our scholarly but highly readable book, we draw on unique data and
insider experience to answer key questions at the core of our tumultuous
politics. What similarities does our own era share with other periods
of significant political change? How has Internet activism changed in
form and function since the early days of Howard Dean, MoveOn and the
blogosphere? How has the rise of the digital media world affected American
political power? What are the biggest obstacles preventing the progressive
movement from becoming a governing majority?
No other book out there tells the netroots story like this. If you want
to find out where we have come from and where we are going as a movement, then
please click here to purchase Next Generation Netroots
directly from Routledge Publishers and type the promo code NGN16 at checkout
for a 33% discount.
Cheers,
Chris Bowers
Executive Campaign Director, Daily Kos