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.
Obama and Democrats will eventually provide conservatives with a “unifying grievance” that they can seize on. On the Democratic agenda could be universal healthcare proposals that would expand government programs, union-backed card-check legislation that would allow workers to bypass secret-ballot elections when unionizing, and calls to reverse momentum to expand offshore drilling, Henke said.
Being in the opposition is also a natural posture for conservatives, who want smaller government but have seen GOP lawmakers in the last few years create more federal programs, expand the deficit and spend greater sums of taxpayer dollars.
“It’s hard to be anti-state when you are state,” Henke said.
The problem with articles like this is that it assumes that conservative bloggers see themselves as activists. There is no single reason why people become bloggers, and as some bloggers organize for this or that cause, others will continue to blog for their own reasons.
I do it for the free pencils at blogging conferences.
Still others will find life in the opposition rather discouraging and quit. A few will go off the deep end. But I think the dream of a conservative blogging juggernaut to counter the netroots is not going to happen without a serious commitment by the GOP. I can't even get the state GOP to issue a press release.
