The Need for Alternative Political Infrastructure

The political atmosphere of the United States at the moment is experiencing a rebirth. In recent months, a new form of politics has emerged, being nationalist, populist, and nativist. This begs the question, however, of the necessity of tangible political organization when it comes to increasingly digital political movements. Voters rally behind podcasters now, not parties; so what’s the point?

The point is that people require organization in order to be able to achieve their political goals. This is quite easy to conceptualize: people have more lobbying power when formally organized than when behaving as individual actors. Groups are also visibly more powerful; for example, if 10% of people are very organized, and the 90% aren’t, the 10% are going to hold more of the public imagination.¹

Historical Precedence

There are numerous historical examples that could provide credence to this claim. One of the most obvious would be the Sons of Liberty, the revolutionary organization that orchestrated the Boston Tea Party. Through secretive meetings yet a prominent public-facing presence, they were able to act as a vanguard in the Revolution, and our current recollection of them serves as proof of the impact of these movements within the public conscience.

But this is not the only group from the American Revolution to serve such a purpose, and not even the most influential. I would argue that the Continental Association was one of the most important movements during the Revolution, as they had the largest material impact on the British. The Continental Association was an agreement adopted by the First Continental Congress that stated the Colonies would not import goods from the British, nor consume them, nor export goods to the British. Now here’s the important part: this agreement was enforced primarily through local councils.² These local nationalist organizations prove that we can accept a political mandate (or create our own) and collaborate to pursue it ourselves. Not to say that it would be as extreme as the Association, nor that said organization would have any coercive power over non-affiliated citizens, but that said organizing to achieve these goals produces an effect larger than that of each of its constituent members.

The final example I will provide were the Committees of Safety and Inspection during the American Revolution. These parallel institutions lent legitimacy to the Revolution. As T. H. Breen puts it, they created:

“A formal structure capable not only of policing the revolution on the ground but also of solidifying ties with other communities.”³

These community committees allowed for the expression and guidance of each American’s revolutionary spirit, and were able to guide them in parallel with the needs of the Revolution.

Current Application

The question may be posited, “Why is this important? We have plenty of online voices saying what I want to hear!” Because online political movements lack the necessary real-world institutions or organizations to achieve their goals within a non-networked system like government. A naysayer might say in response, “But what about movements like the Arab Spring, or the Nepalese Gen-Z protests? Those were organized mostly online.” This is a good point, but these are different in two separate ways.

These movements wanted to tear down their current system of governance. We wish to be elected.
Their planning was rather short-term, relying on revolutionary fervor only. Our movement is a long-term focus, and to achieve a long-term goal, relying on such a volatile thing as emotion to remain the same is naive.

What the Nationalist and Populist movements need now more than ever are formal institutions of expression and guidance for their revolutionary fervor, like the Committees of Safety and Inspection provided for our ancestors. We need policy centers to pursue our ambitions in the political sphere, to provide actionable guidance to elected officials sympathetic to our movement, or ones we elect ourselves (looking at you, James Fishback). We also need our own news outlets to spread the message in a positive light (more things like AFPost), but actual companies; publications that exist in the real world, with a physical presence. When we start getting companies and organizations like that, and we’re able to put our capital to work towards the reformation of our government, we will achieve actual change, not just rhetorical wins from the Trump administration. It’s time to act.

Notes

This essay was originally published by Florida First on Substack.