All Politics Is Local

Tip O'Neal was right: All politics is local. But the concept of local is different today than it was 30 years ago when Tip was around.

30 years ago local was the people on your block, in your neighborhood or your city. Today, local can be everyone on your I Love Star Trek listserv or in the Proud Geeks chat room.

In the radio program On Point, the host keeps asking "Is politics still local or can it be run in a top-down, Amway type of model?" One has to ask how many of our local institutions do we have left? We shop at Target, eat a McDonald's, drink coffee at Starbucks...all top-down institutions. We are totally programmed now to have our local institutions and businesses actually be corporate giants run from New York or Los Angeles.

The only community created local we have left is on the Internet, where you can create a group dedicated to Queen Amidala's hairstyle or speaking Klingon*. Trippi-style online campaigning is the only link we have left to Tip's immortal words.

*Thanks to Justin, this post has been updated to correct the spelling of Klingon and avoid the wrath of Star Trek fans everywhere!