Lessig and the nature of democracy

I've been reading Lawrence Lessig's book Free Culture and a section from Chapter 2 really popped out at me, especially with this being an election year. It has to do with democracy, what it is in America and how it's changed. More specifically he talks about the idea of public discourse and deliberation and how the blog has revitalized it. Since his book is published under the Creative Commons License, here is the section in the book that I am talking about:

( from Free Culture: Chapter Two: Mere Copyists )