I've been a problem solver since I figured out how to open the garden gate and abscond from the yard wearing nothing but a diaper, and I gotta tell you, the first step to solving a problem is defining it.

The source of the problem is rather obvious once you think about it. Grassroots movements are participatory, the conservative blogosphere is not.

Think about the fact that Lorie Byrd was invited to a meeting in Washington D.C. to participate on a committee. Think about Dan Riehl's irritation at not being invited to CPAC. Think about Jeff Goldstein (Protein Wisdom) brooding over his treatment at Pajamasmedia. Think about Pajamasmedia for crying out loud. This is elitist nonsense and frankly no one but the principals care a whit. Just recently I got a link from Don Surber, which was new because I've never gotten a link from him before. I emailed him my thanks, and in responding he mentioned that he's "not a big linker". The implication of this statement is clear--he doesn't blog to stroke other people's egos, but that is precisely the dynamic of any successful grassroots movement--the sense of empowerment and specialness that comes from belonging.

I've read the Daily Kos on an off since before 2002, when Kos basically wrote the thing himself. He wasn't offering political insight as much as cheerleading the lefty troops, even back then. It was very clear that he saw himself as part of a movement, not a guest host on a cable show. The Daily Kos always had very long comment streams, but Kos went a step further by allowing his readers to create diaries. Kos checked his own ego and let the kids have at it in his own sandbox.

The importance of that dynamic can be overestimated.

The small group as an instrument of community is initially how Communism spread, and in the postwar years Alcoholics Anonymous and its twelve-step progeny perfected the small-group technique. The small group did not have a designated leader who stood at the front of the room. Members sat in a circle. The focus was on discussion and interaction—not one person teaching and the others listening—and the remarkable thing about these groups was their power. An alcoholic could lose his job and his family, he could be hospitalized, he could be warned by half a dozen doctors—and go on drinking. But put him in a room of his peers once a week—make him share the burdens of others and have his burdens shared by others—and he could do something that once seemed impossible.

When churches—in particular, the megachurches that became the engine of the evangelical movement, in the nineteen-seventies and eighties—began to adopt the cellular model, they found out the same thing. The small group was an extraordinary vehicle of commitment. It was personal and flexible. It cost nothing. It was convenient, and every worshipper was able to find a small group that precisely matched his or her interests. Today, at least forty million Americans are in a religiously based small group, and the growing ranks of small-group membership have caused a profound shift in the nature of the American religious experience."

Being part of a small group is a better predictor of social action that belief system, or demographics. The social dynamics of the group are a powerful inducement to action, which is why incidentally, the infantry is organized in squads.

Small groups march, the volunteer, they write checks. Passive readers of conservative blogs do not.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.