Whenever people discuss the Internet and democracy, they tend to be impatient to find out the bottom line.

Is the Internet causing a revolution that will overturn the status quo? What are the Internet penetration numbers, and are they enough to make a difference in elections?

These are obviously important questions. But being overly concerned with them creates a kind of mental block that I call bottom-lineism.

Bottom-lineism blinds us to two fundamental features of political activism: long-term change and ideological struggle.