"Political efficacy," defined roughly, is the feeling that a person can effect the system. That their voice matters in the large scheme of things. Political efficacy matters because if people don't feel that they have much, they become increasingly unlikely to participate, vote, attend meetings, volunteer, and so on. This is what I think DailyKos is about.
DailyKos is important to Democratic political efficacy because it is a channel by which an otherwise untapped and once-disaffected LARGE group of citizens can gather to share information about races and effect those races. If the reader follows the larger narrative of this website, it started with Kos blogging and slowly coalescing a group of people who care about progressive politics.
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I arrived here around 2003, and one of the things that really jazzed me about this website was the degree to which I felt efficacious as a result of it. I would take a break at work, log in, read up, and occasionally call someone and complain/badger, rant, and post. I posted here about 2 weeks ago about the "Broken Local Political Machines." That the local party matters little these days, especially if someone wants to walk precincts or manage a neighborhood. Parties don't return calls, and give precious little information about their structure (much of which would be different if I had lots of money - I'm sure).
What DKos did is it allowed people to bypass the party machinery. This was particularly fun because, and I can't speak for others, I had begun to feel that even the Democratic party was relying on the silence of its publics. That the party had been getting along just fine without hearing from the riff-raff. That the mechanisms available for the purposes of facilitating participation were now being used as roadblocks to participation. But with the critical mass at DKos, we could more-or-less tell the smugger ones of the bunch (e.g., Leiberman) to go fuck themselves. That was power! That was great! That was political efficacy!
Now, this is NOT a "concern troll" diary. This is a "Gee-I-Wish-We-Did-More-Of-This-Again" diary. I wish we did more ACTION ALERTS. While I'm convinced that the fundraising done here is important (and I give!), it is also important that DKos not be reduced to just a relatively more progressive and targeted fundraising lever of the party.
I posted something tangentially related to this argument the other day, and someone replied that ACTION ALERTS just annoy people. And, let's say that I grant that this is the case. What people ignore is that it gives people a chance to express themselves publicly. To express their outrage. And it helps them develop habits of action. I would rather ring the holy shit out of Bill O'Reilly's phone, annoying the shit out of someone in the process, than simply being asked for money. Just think! We were all asked to badger reporters about the Macaca video, and that not only got attention but became a defining moment in the entire election!
I think ACTION ALERTS are very important.