The disintermediation of the political supply chain

An interesting argument from Jonah Goldberg in The hollowing out of American political parties.

It is perhaps the central irony of our politics today: We live in an incredibly polarized and partisan moment, but our political parties have never been weaker.

As odd as it sounds, political parties in democracies have an important anti-democratic function. Traditionally, the parties shaped the choices put to voters. Long before voters decided anything in the primary or general elections, party bosses worked to groom good candidates, weed out bad ones, organize interests, and frame issues.

In the modern era, the story of party decline usually begins in the aftermath of the 1968 presidential election. The move toward primaries and the democratic selection of delegates took power away from the bosses.

After Watergate, there were more reforms, curbing the ability of the parties to raise and spend money freely. This led to the rise of political-action committees, which raise cash independent of the formal party structure. As Senator Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said during the floor debate over the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill in 2001: “We haven’t taken a penny of money out of politics. We’ve only taken the parties out of politics.”

[snip]

Technology is another, less obvious force siphoning power from the parties. For instance, as political historian Michael Barone has noted, the telephone dealt a grievous blow to political conventions, where insiders have outsize power.

“Until the 1960s, the national convention was a communications medium,” Barone writes. “Political leaders in the various states seldom met each other, outside of sessions of Congress, during the four years between presidential elections.”

The telephone eliminated the need for the face-to-face negotiations. Today, political conventions are little more than infomercials for presidential candidates.

The Internet and cable TV have accelerated the eclipsing of parties. Opinion websites and TV and radio hosts now do more to shape issues and select candidates than the parties do. It’s a bit like comic books. Readership of comics has been in steady decline, but movie studios and toy manufacturers still feed off the brands created generations ago.

Goldberg doesn't put in these terms but a fair inference is that in an era of dramatic expansion and inclusion of communications technologies (the telephone, the smart phone, computers, the internet, AI, etc.) political parties are in the process of being disintermediated just as has occurred in supply chains around the world with the disintermediation of wholesalers and retailers.

You could go on and argue that candidate selection and the establishment of that candidate's narrative is moving away from parties towards new actors (such as talking heads) but also that those functions are moving closer to the electorate.

Much of the ruckus about fake news is also probably related to this disintermediation of parties and the party apparatus (including the traditional mainstream media). The electorate have more avenues for obtaining information and exposure to a greater variety of ways of interpreting it than through the traditional monopoly channels. Everyone in the traditional political supply chain (parties, media, candidates, etc.) is fighting a rearguard action against their own disintermediation. No wonder there is such panic and hysteria when on all objective measures we are more prosperous and living better lives than ever.