It’s simple really, I’m an executive and professional marketer. As a marketer data is very important to me. Professionally, I am going to assume Kos and those who make business decisions affecting profits here — one way or another — value data as well. Among the most important key data points to a marketer?
1. Why someone “bought” your product in the first place.
2. Why someone stopped buying it.
I lurked from 2007, then joined in mid-2008. I paid up as a subscriber because I valued the content (unlike most here who don’t put their money where their mouth is). At times I was an active writer. A very high percentage of my diaries made the Rec List. I was proud of that. My entire family knows how much DailyKos has meant to me over the years. I’ve met some truly wonderful people, if briefly. Joan, Navajo, OPOL, Vetwife, FishOutofWater, DocDawg, and more I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in person. I’ve chatted with Markos and shook his hand, congratulating him on his success. This is his site, and he’s free to do as he wishes.
But then there’s now. Kos can and will assert his claim to be a liberal, and maybe on many issues he most definitely is. He can pretend his site is still about “more and better” Democrats. But people can say anything. It’s the choices we make when shit is really on the line that reveals our true values, and this campaign has laid bare some shocking truths in my view.
It would be one thing to simply take the side of Clinton in the primary vs. Sanders. So be it, but I do find that shocking given the comparison above. I find it more stunning, given the alternative consistently polls better across the general election voter population against any potential GOP challenger compared to Clinton. Yet, neither the conservative nature of much of Clinton’s positions, nor her clear weakness as a candidate in a general election compared to Sanders moves management of this “progressive” website. Pardon if me if I then make the rather obvious conclusion about the real values of the “adults” here. It’s Party first, values second.
Further, is altogether another thing to openly mock values that have long defined the core of what it has meant to be a Democrat. And, it is downright vulgar to see “liberals” openly and intentionally scare less knowledgeable voters about “taking away their Obamacare” or “raising their taxes,” as they conveniently exclude the perspective. That’s literally sick in my view. Those who scare seniors and the less informed are among the lowest in the food chain politically to me. That so many here can do it gleefully is repulsive and I’ve nothing in common with you.
From a profitability standpoint, I do not know if people like me leaving DKos is a net positive or negative for profits, but I offer them at least my tiny data point for their internal analysis. As a professional and a person who has for years experienced community and gained value from this site, it’s the least I can offer in my departure.
Surely, many of the snarky people here will chime in with juvenile “good riddance” comments. Have fun, knock yourselves out. Somewhere maybe that makes you feel superior, so ride that emotion while you can. Like FDR, I welcome your hate.
So goodbye DKos. I loved you when you were you. I’m much less fond of your transition into a mouthpiece for the powerful and the entrenched.
- You’ve traded your 2nd hand threads for bespoke suits.
- I’ve watched you shift from support of OWS to support of the Wall Streeters who literally smoked cigars and drank champagne from the balconies above the tear-gassed protestors.
- I read in disbelief as you moved from pro-legalization to support for a supposed Democrat who supports its continued criminalization and the private prisons they get thrown in.
- I’ve watch you attack votes for war, then come full circle in this cycle to excuse it as a mistake, as if the hundreds of thousands of lives lost and impacted can be so cavalierly shrugged off.
- I’ve watched you fight fracking, and then choose its most powerful support, indeed the one person who sold it globally.
- I cheered as you slammed Obama for giving up on single payer before the negotiation even began, to now solemnly nodding your head when Hillary says it will never, ever come to pass.
Being witness to this transformation is no less grotesque than watching educated and once thoughtful old friends become brainwashed xenophobes by radio and FOX. I can’t do it anymore. It’s not healthy. I’ve much better things to do to help my own kids now that it’s clear the Democratic party has made its choice to shift right.
To those who do share my views, more power to you. I’ve not the disposition to commune with those who snarkily put my family, friends, and children at risk, whether in a new war or the further annihilation of the planet, or most simply through the continued economic asphyxiation by their support and gatekeeping (so much for “gate crashing”) of the establishment and its window-dressing we are calling “incrementalism.” It’s as meaningful as the TSA is to actual airport security; it feels good, but really just makes life miserable and provably achieves nothing in reality except making others rich.
Good luck to all.