You come across some strange stuff on Twitter. In the past couple of days, some Republican activists have ginned up a primarily Twitter-based campaign called “dontgo,” or in Twitterese, #dontgo. (For those not conversant with Twitter, this is a hashtag. It’s included in postings – sorry, I hate to call them tweets – so search engines will pick them up and sort them with other, identically-tagged messages, like this for #dontgo.)
The DontGo Movement is essentially a bunch of websites and social media tools backed by energy interests. It wants Congress to remain in session in order to relax restrictions on oil and gas drilling and pass other industry-friendly provisions, all on the pretext that Americans are demanding this as a response to high gas prices. This is a new form of astroturfing, the cultivation of faux grassroots campaigns by large, moneyed interests to create the appearance of public support, usually to put pressure on individual members of Congress, who take notice if they hear from enough people in their districts.
But DontGo’s own contradictions make it a pretty big reach. Public support for drilling has grown, but it’s no panacea, and a lot of people know that, and the urgency will likely drop along with the price of oil. Meanwhile, the polling on Congress is unambiguous: Americans don’t think much of it. To the extent they’re paying attention at all, most citizens are undoubtedly relieved the House and Senate are out of session. So you have a Republican campaign that undermines what Republicans claim to stand for, begging Nancy Pelosi to stick around and do a little more damage, pass a little more pork. Not exactly tinder for a populist prairiefire.
