The Waffle Is Dead...

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The failure of interactive government

I like Barack Obama; that is, I like him in the same way I like or dislike any constructed celebrity: based on the veneer that I see on a regular basis he seems not to be a rampaging, incompetent asshole. In general, I tolerate Obama politically, which for me is a fairly generous statement -- my social and political views are usually impractical, perfectionistic, aggressive, and unpopular (at least, many of them are) so I don't expect to see a successful politician adopt them any time soon. But there has been one constellation of ideas coming from Obama and his team that I seemed to be really, honestly agreeing with: it looked like, from the change.gov website, Obama was going to actually start synthesizing a new style of transparent and interactive government from a combination of technology and "forward" thinking.

I say "forward" in quotes because it's really only "forward" thinking from a backward, beauracratic, governmental point of view. We could have started with real and meaningful open government as soon as we had technology that supported it. Minimally, the bare-bones Internet was enough to make an effort, but certainly by the early 1990's the web was available enough that it could have been put to use productively by the government.

But governments and technology generally mix like oil and water, so only now do we see the glimmer of a government that has anything to do with modern communications and interactivity.

Or rather, only now had we seen a glimmer of this kind of government. Change.gov was a brilliant platform: though it sometimes felt a little ad-hoc, it was a surprisingly open forum, where lots of people posted lots of comments about lots of things. People could make suggestions about what Obama should be doing, and then they could vote on and talk about suggestions from other people. I was impressed by this, coming from a president-elect -- it was a good sign.

But now we've lept off the precipice of warm-fuzzy-president-elect / change.gov and landed in the shit-storm that is omfg-that's-the-oval-office-president / whitehouse.gov.

I gather from the large button that says "Participate - Office of Public Liaison - Changing the way Americans engage with their government" that there is some intent to offer similar interactivity on whitehouse.gov... but right now clicking on that button gives you a stock "Contact Us" form and this introduction:

The Office of Public Liaison & Intergovernmental Affairs (OPL-IGA) is the front door to the White House through which everyone can participate and inform the work of the President.

OPL-IGA takes the Administration out of Washington and into communities across America, stimulating honest dialogue and ensuring that America's citizens and their elected officials have a government that works effectively for them and with them.

OPL-IGA will bring new voices to the table, build relationships with constituents and seeks to embody the essence of the President's movement for change through the meaningful engagement of citizens and their elected officials by the federal government.

We'll be adding many more ways for you to interact with OPA-IGA at this page in the weeks and months ahead. In the meantime, please take a moment to share your thoughts using the form below.

Here're my thoughts: Fuck you.

"Weeks and months ahead"? This is the web in 2009 -- weeks and months might as well be eons and eternity. And change.gov is (was) working now. What do you need weeks and months for? Are you tweaking the god-dammed color scheme for the "many more ways" for me to interact? This is like a California prop-8 bait and switch: throw out change.gov as some distant beacon of how we might start moving forward with an open government then snatch it away right after everybody realizes its actually there. I hope that little contact form has been flooded by people complaining that they miss being able to actually interact. If it hasn't been, we're in even worse shape than I thought: we had something -- something good -- and now we don't have it any more -- that should piss us off.

Some people probably think I should just be patient. Those people are wrong. They're wrong because it just doesn't take that long to start offerring real, useful interactivity on a website. They're wrong because even if it did take ages to assemble those kinds of online tools they've already been built and deployed at change.gov -- they could just be moved, if only as a stop-gap measure so the fledgling "I actually want to interact with my government, even if it's all imaginary and pointless in the end" community would have something -- some token of good faith -- to work with.

And, perhaps most importantly, they're wrong because we don't live in an age of patience anymore. Sometimes patience is still a virtue -- sometimes we need to wait for things, and savor the waiting. But most of the time our technology gives us things quickly -- I can send a message nearly instantly to any one in the world with a computer, I could travel anywhere on the planet within 3 days, I can stream entertainment of all kinds from all over the world, and I can even contribute to that entertainment (and information) whenever I wish. We live in a world of astounding agility, and we are at the dawn (yes, really, still just the very early dawn) of a world in which information and ideas race around at speeds, and in ways, that will continue to amaze us for generations.

It is long past time for the government to catch up and start acting like an agile, modern institution, instead of like a plodding 18th century juggernaut with busted cog.

I can single-handedly conjure at least a basic interactive, community building website from my ass in less than a day. A lot less if I use existing open-source platforms and tools. In fact, if I already had an existing site I could probably drop in a basic message board in minutes.

Am I suggesting that I think building a chunk of whitehouse.gov where the public can voice and discuss their concerns is as simple as whipping up a common message board? No, I'm not. But there's a whole office of the whitehouse devoted to this... and there's a substantial base of existing tools at change.gov... and there's a huge base of existing tools other people have built... and it doesn't have to be perfect on launch day, it just has to be there. And, on reflection, a lightly but visibly moderated message board with a section for, say, each item on The Agenda would actually go a very long way towards restoring my faith in this open government idea that change.gov started; aside from bueracratic crap or plain old laziness I don't see any reason why that couldn't be available tonight.

"Weeks and months" my ass.