Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics - Softcover

Armstrong, Jerome; Moulitsas, Markos

Softcover

ISBN 10: 193339241X ISBN 13: 9781933392417

Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Co, 2006

Synopsis

Crashing the Gate is a shot across the bow at the political establishment in Washington, DC and a call to re-democratize politics in America. This book lays bare, with passion and precision, how ineffective, incompetent, and antiquated the Democratic Party establishment has become, and how it has failed to adapt and respond to new realities and challenges. The authors save their sharpest knives to go for the jugular in their critique of Republican ideologues who are now running, and ruining, our country. Written by two of the most popular political bloggers in America, the book hails the new movement of the netroots, the grassroots, the unorthodox labor unions, the maverick big donors that is the antidote to old-school politics as usual. Fueled by advances in technology and a hunger for a more authentic democracy, this broad-based movement is changing the way political campaigns are waged and managed. A must-read book for anyone with an interest in the future of American democracy.

About this title

About the Author

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga served in the U.S. Army for three years and later earned two bachelors degrees from Northern Illinois University and a law degree from Boston University. After moving to California to work in the tech industry, Markos started DailyKos.com in May 2002. His blog has had a meteoric rise and now gets more than a million unique visitors each day, making it one of the most popular blogs in the nation. Markos lives in Berkeley, California. Jerome Armstrong, a pioneer of the political blogosphere, founded one of the first political blogs, MyDD.com, in 2001. The person behind the netroots strategy that used blogs and meetups for Howard Dean's campaign, Jerome works as an internet strategist for advocay organizations and political campaigns. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

From the Inside Flap

In a given week, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga's progressive blog, Daily Kos, receives more than 3 million visits, making it one of the most widely read political blogs in the world, and earning its proprietor regular calls for advice from Democratic Party leaders. Not bad for somebody who just four years ago was a Silicon Valley dropout with no real political experience. Now Moulitsas, along with fellow blogger Jerome Armstrong of MyDD.com (the DD stands for "Direct Democracy"), has put down some thoughts in a more traditional medium a book.In "Crashing the Gate," the two are not shy about what they hope to accomplish: nothing but an all-out "people-powered" takeover of the Democratic Party which, they are firmly convinced, is the only way to take America back from the conservatives currently ruining it. "To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson," they write, "the tree of a political party must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of reformers and insiders." So begins a chapter titled "Civil War." ..."Crashing the Gate" is brash and infuriating, as it should be. The progressive blogosphere is starting to feel its own strength in the continued growth of Web traffic, in its powerful fund-raising capacity, and in the rise of its man, Howard Dean, as Democratic National Committee chairman. As Eli Pariser of Moveon.org's political action wing wrote in December 2004 (after helping to raise a few hundred million dollars online): "Now it's our party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back." "Crashing the Gate" is a powerful salvo in that battle. And as such, it commands attention. -Lee Drutman, Los Angeles Times

Edition details

• Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Co
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 193339241X
• ISBN 13: 9781933392417
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216