The Revolution That Wasn't by Jen Schradie

Author:Jen Schradie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvard University Press

Bridging Freedom Institutions

What connected these groups opposing labor rights was a network that was tightly unified around a freedom ideology, or what one activist described as the “glue that bound everybody together.” And this unity supported the circulation of social media posts. It was not just that the groups on the right focused on freedom, as the left-wing groups focused on fairness. It was that their specific ideas about freedom were in sync across the groups—from Preppers to professionals. I often got the same phrase verbatim from different Patriot activists across interviews: “limited government, fiscal responsibility, and the free market,” and a close approximation of these phrases were on a variety of websites and Facebook pages.

These three principles were “core issues we can all unite around and not get distracted with all this other social issues and stuff,” said Ken from the CCTPP. Across the board, conservatives told me about this laser focus, and many were often quick to point out that this is what differentiated them from the Moral Majority in the 1980s. Gun rights came up occasionally as a form of big-government intrusion, but no one volunteered to talk about abortion or gay marriage when discussing their main issues or why they got involved.60

This specific focus enabled people who may have had differing views on social issues to get involved and stay involved. Verne explained that their “admission” standard was low for the Tea Party. “You will find that some of these stereotypes are substantively true. In that these people tend to be very much pro-life, they tend to be religious, they tend to be strongly supportive of the military,” he said. “But, they are not exclusive. For example, I’m an atheist, but I’m accepted.” Bob added, “He’s our token atheist.”

And this narrow and cohesive view of freedom, regardless of opinions on social issues, may have not only widened the net of participants but also contributed to their more extensive digital sharing. Of the conservative groups, those with the top scores overall were the professional advocacy groups, whose mission, of course, was informationalizing, so that was not surprising. They included the Carolina Journal and Civitas. But some of the grassroots groups, like the CCTPP, were close behind them in their internet use.61 The Patriot groups who were not Tea Parties, such as Preppers, had much more variation, with some high and some low scores.

But because of the coordination across conservative groups, even the organizations with lower digital activism scores worked closely with other Patriot groups for digital content because they valued it so highly for distributing information. For instance, the MCMM had a blog-based website and used Facebook but had a relatively low overall digital activism score. They were pleased with NC Renegade and NC Freedom for announcing their meetings and other events for them. And Randy not only had his own blog, he also contributed to NC Freedom and worked closely with David, posting on the NC Renegade site too.

Some of this cross-fertilization of online content grew out of the connections that Patriot groups had with each other across the state.

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