Test the Republicans: Participate in America Speaking Out

What if the Republicans threw a party caucus and everybody came?

The GOP has released a new website called America Speaking Out. I think it’s a good idea in its current form, and I think you ought to participate.

The basic activities at America Speaking Out are:

1. Introduction of Ideas, specific policy suggestions that you would like the Republican party to follow.
2. Writing Feedback in response to others’ ideas.
3. Voting others’ Ideas up or down.

The Republican Party says it will use the results of this policy Reddit “to listen to you.” If we take the Republicans at their word, America Speaking Out will be a broadening of civil discourse and an enrichment of representative democracy. After all, they say everybody is welcome to participate:

This is an open forum, however, where all Americans are welcome to respectfully offer their opinions, regardless of party affiliation and whether we endorse them or not. It is our hope the active engagement of the American people will produce a robust debate that will aid in the construction of a new American agenda.

The privacy infringements of the America Speaking Out website (which you can read here and here) are not too onerous. There are only two pieces of information about yourself you have to provide: an e-mail address and the zip code of where you live. That information is going to be sent by America Speaking Out to your member of Congress if she or he is a Republican. Part of this website clearly has a data-mining purpose for the Republican Party, but since your name, actual address and phone number need not be provided (at least currently), you can make it so the data aren’t connected to you personally.

Each person has to judge the cost of surrendering even personally-unrelated information to the GOP against the benefit of the website. I think there’s a significant benefit to participation which outweighs the cost. The benefit is the ability to test the hype. If the Republicans really mean to do what they say they’re going to do with America Speaking Out, then that’s a good thing, and as they respond to Americans of all stripes engaged in civil discourse, their policies should moderate to the benefit of us all.

If, on the other hand, the Republicans are using America Speaking Out as a Potemkin village of civil discourse to provide cover while they pursue extreme policies, then the architecture of America Speaking Out should allow us to discover that. Is everybody really allowed to participate, or are people being banned for having the “wrong” ideas? Are all policy proposals allowed to be aired, or are certain policy proposals being deleted more than others? When wide support emerges for a policy idea, do the Republicans incorporate the idea into their platform or do they dismiss the people’s will?

I say let’s participate and find out. Either the Republican Party is about to undergo an amazing transformation for the better, or it’s going to find yet another one of its astroturf (“fake grassroots”) operations debunked.