Being out of power may be bad for the Republican Party, but for a nation of conservative bloggers, the chance to do a little authentic rabblerousing could pay big dividends. That's what Walter Alarkon notes in his article in today's The Hill:
A Washington in the hands of Democrats offers online pundits on the right a fresh political target and a chance to vent against their ideological opponents. The reverse scenario allowed their liberal counterparts to blossom during the blogosphere's infancy, when the GOP controlled the Congress and the Bush administration held power between 2003 and 2006.
But the aptly named "rightosphere," much like its liberal counterpart, "the netroots," doesn't simply want to criticize the other team. It sees this as its time to reshape the Republican Party.
"The rightosphere will be much better when the right has something to oppose," said Jon Henke, who writes at The Next Right.
Alarkon cites the way blogging communities tend to amplify the rhetoric against a common "unified grievance," but if you ask me, the more potentially interesting aspect of this shift could be how the blogosphere influences the evolution of the GOP. On that regard, things could get quite divisive between the purveyors of right-wing bloggery. One relatively fresh demarcation of a schism can be seen over at RedState, where they've basically doubled down on Sarah Palin as the future of the party, and have threatened to ostracize any who criticize her.
Naturally, I'm quite excited to see all of the bloggers who furtively defended President Bush's many Executive Branch power grabs to suddenly oppose these actions on principle now that a Democrat is in the White House.
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