ABSTRACT
Politics fights new battles each day but, as the Middle East continually reminds us, it fights old battles again and again. Politics is said to be an entertainment industry for ugly people, which is to say it is an industry that asks everyday people to rise up and solve great problems. Anyone with a beef, anyone with an attitude, can get online, thereby giving scholars unique access to the "tectonic plates," the deep structures, of politics. Online bounties exist but politics is, ultimately, a brick-and-mortar business where real people with real problems work things out. Read any political history from any era and it is as if time has stood still, which is why so many people reject politics out of hand. The seven deadly sins of the Digital Age have made folly attractive and politics seem easy. The Digital Age makes us feel in charge even when we are not in charge, something that television does as well.
