Well, that headline may be overselling things a bit, but clearly he's been reading this and other sites (are there other sites like dKos?) and observing, as we all have, the notable spike in rancor and infighting going on among the Democratic faithful who hang out at places like this. He warns of the
"circular firing squad" and proposes that we keep our eyes on the prize. It's hard not to agree.
Some of it obviously has to do with the primary race heating up, so passion and partisanship will necessarily get ratcheted up as well. Honest advocacy is of course essential and part of what this site is about. But with all the internecine squabbling I think we're wasting energy and bile that would be more productively directed at Bush.
Personally, I don't have much patience for squishy, let's-all-hold-hands-and-sing-kumbaya groupthink, since I believe one of the biggest dangers we as Bush-loathing Dems face is letting the echo-chamber of our own biases delude us into thinking that our perspective on things is obvious or inevitable out in the real world. Nor do I care much for anodyne let's-all-affirm-one-another therapy-speak. We're all (or mostly all) liberals here and we all agree that Bush is the enemy. So rather than carping about one another, or meta-carping about the decline of the discourse on this site, let's get to work.
I've proposed this before in a forlorn thread or two, but I'd like to propose it again:
I'd like to see a recurring feature (perhaps a semi-weekly thread dedicated specifically to this purpose) where the Kosians can contribute their best ideas for short, sharp, persuasive "talking points" that they think any/all of our candidates could/should use in the fight against Bush.
It should be a thread with certain rules: no speeches, no soapboxes, and no more than 50-75 words or so. Just your best ready-to-use ideas, boiled down into their pithiest, most persuasive form, suitable for a 30-second ad, debate response, bumper sticker, whatever. Let's put our collective heads together and help develop a clearing-house of rhetorical tools available to our candidates (and not necessarily only our national ones--they can be useful for local races as well, I think). Let's see if we can come up with a catalog of ideas that the folks running campaigns can come to and happily steal from.
This isn't a call for the same old tired catchphrases or shallow argumentation. One of the great things about this site is the space it provides for spacious, complex, thoughtful commentary. But I think that, whether we like it or not, sound-bites, 30-second ads and the like are among the principal weapons with which this battle will be fought and I believe that there are some excellent imaginative minds here at dKos that can help craft those weapons. Let's channel our online anger into constructive creative efforts at Bush eradication (I'm assuming we're all doing our part out in the real world, too). Let's think of ourselves as advertising or media consultants whose job it is to persude the unconvinced that Bush needs to go. Let's see if we can come up with some original work that can help get that bastard out of the White House.
Any thoughts?