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I never watched The Hills, and if you’d asked me a month ago to explain who Spencer Pratt is or why he’s well known, I’m fairly certain I would have come up empty. Mention his MTV show and that may have rung a bell, but you also could have convinced me that “Spencer Pratt” is a billionaire booster who helped fund AJ Dybantsa’s freshman season at BYU.
In any event, millions of Americans now know Pratt as an insurgent, Republican-coded candidate for mayor in Los Angeles, where Democrats have held office for the past 25 years. The next big step in Pratt’s political adventure comes Tuesday, in the L.A. nomination primary, where he has to finish in the top two to advance to a runoff, most likely with incumbent mayor Karen Bass.
As I’ve gotten acquainted with what I initially thought might be some kind of viral stunt, I’ve been fascinated by Pratt’s campaign. He’s entirely serious and he’s been surprisingly successful, and all of it is drawing national attention. Hence today’s post, which is not really about tech per se, but an ongoing cultural shift that has been partly enabled by social media and certainly mediated by it. In brief: I think the cultural, political and moral power that Democrats have enjoyed for my entire adult life is now waning, and whether he wins an election or not, Pratt’s success should be instructive to liberals interested in reversing that trend. But first, some background.
