Internet Lays Foundation for GOP Rebirth

As anyone who has any recollection of the aftermath of the 2008 election cycle knows, the GOP is hopelessly behind on the internet, cannot possibly marshal any web resources on its behalf because it’s stuck in the 19th century politically and will be eclipsed by the forces of Web 2.0 as surely as Democrats were eclipsed by talk radio.

Or at least, that’s what the Mainstream Media force-fed to people after the 2008 election cycle. Naturally, like most Mainstream Media memes, it was an abject lie, but still, somehow the fear worked its way around establishment GOP circles to the point that a veritable avalanche of hysteria crashed down on party activists. “Why, if the internet swings to the Left,” many supposedly “concerned conservative” commentators opined, “then surely our restrictive, overly ideological makeup will make it impossible for us to attract anyone!”

One can’t blame them for buying an argument which was made with such nauseating frequency. Yet, as recent events since the Obama election have shown, the idea that conservatism cannot capture the internet is not at all accurate. What few people may realize, however, is why this argument was so inaccurate, and more importantly, why it took a Messianic bumbler like Obama to expose its falsehood. With respect, therefore, I must disagree with my fellow contributor’s rejection of youth culture as something irrevocably tainted by liberalism, though I understand his frustration entirely.

However, as I mean to prove, the current youth ethos embodied by internet subculture is fundamentally conservative in character, even if its denizens have not yet caught on to that fact. In order to prove this, I will draw on knowledge that I have gained both as an avid internet user and as a member of a generation for whom digital communication is a second language – knowledge which would require investigating not only the harmless environs of Youtube, Facebook and Twitter, but also the darkest, least talked about nether-regions of the internet – websites which produce 90% of the internet’s cultural references, and yet are so riddled with perversity that their own patrons take it as an unspoken rule never to talk about them.

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