I am supposed to working on my thesis right now, which is basically about Identity construction in the novels of Virgina Woolf. Instead I figured I would write my first diary. I have been reading this site since 2004 and just recently became a member. I am not sure why, but for some reason I never really felt the need to comment or write a diary. You guys all do such a good job I figured I had little to add, until today.
This site has been up in arms in the past couple weeks about the bad mojo flying around due to "candidate wars" and it got me thinking about the self of the party and this site. In an article in The Journal of Marriage and the Family Sheldon Stryker offers up an idea that will be valuable to the discussion:
"One may postulate that the discrete identities which comprise the self exist in a hierarchy of salience, such that other things equal one can expect behavioral products to the degree that a given identity ranks high in this hierarchy. The concept of identity salience may be defined as the probability, for a give person, of a given identity being invoked in a variety of situations" (560).
The self is comprised of numerous identities that can be said to rank in order of importance. For the Democratic party this is extremely complex. We are the big tent party. We are comprised of many different competing identities that are all reaching for the top spot in the hierarchy. For example, the Dkos/netroots identity has certainly climbed the ladder the past few years and has a much larger influence. Well the DLC has fallen in importance and no longer commands such a strong roll in the party.
What does this have to do with the turmoil on Dkos?
Dkos, and the Democratic party, is experiencing an Identity Crisis. This may seem obvious but I think that people need to step back and understand this more clearly. We are questioning one of our key identities:
Do we want to work across the aisle or do we continue with partisan politics?
This is the Identity Crisis. Partisan politics is the way we do business and undoubtedly ranks at the top of the hierarchy of saliency within both American political parties. It is at the core of how the whole system operates and effects every other identity within the party. And this is not just about Barack and Hillary, rather it is about the whole party and even this site.
In sum, when you continue seeing "I am leaving" diaries, understand that this is getting ugly because we are arguing over our self. Also, I implore people to stick around because this crisis will affect the Dems and Dkos for years to come.