I'm finished being an active participant on this website. As much as it saddens me--after all, I agree with the stated goal of this site so very strongly--I can no longer participate in the madness and hate that festers here like so many sores and boils.
A lengthier explanation after the fold.
I’m pretty far to the left, but I’ve been raised in areas with wonderful people who, largely, lean the other way just as strongly. From my Navy days to being raised in a rural part of Georgia, I’ve watched and listened as conservative friends, acquaintances and neighbors sometimes offered salient arguments with which I disagreed, but just about as often many offered only ad hominem attacks, accusations of anti-American viewpoints, and various other non-fact oriented garbage that serves only to clog the stream of discourse vital to producing a better country. Although I saw this behavior among my like-minded liberal friends, for the most part that was reserved only for bullshit sessions behind closed doors and out of the earshot of those who might take offense. Notable exceptions existed, of course, and I did my best to admonish those friends and acquaintances I saw as stepping over the line.
Typically the discourse mentioned above was enough for me; it filled my plate and kept me fat on politics and current events. Sometime in 2004, though, my metabolism shot through the roof and my appetite became insatiable. I can’t quite recall when I first stumbled through DailyKos’ front door, but I know I found the site through its endorsement of Howard Dean and immediately began lurking. We all recall how that whole Dean thing turned out, of course. I almost immediately noticed a certain predilection towards angry tirades from those who lost (or even those who won, at times), but for the most part I found people engaged in a species of political discourse for which I had been longing. I didn’t engage directly for some time but I enjoyed reading the discourse. I also kept coming, albeit not as often, in the "off" periods to keep abreast of downticket races.
About a year ago I finally registered and began actively participating. Since then I’ve only chimed in when I have something useful to say or when I have a very specific critique to offer. I’ve never made it to the rec list with my meager couple diaries, but that doesn’t bug me in the least because I’m normally able to engage one person (or a couple) in a dialogue about whatever issue I see as problematic and that makes me all sorts of happy. What I keep noticing, however, is that most of my posts (or those posts I begin to compose then delete) are of the "you really shouldn’t say that in that manner" variety. Many of my fellow Obama supporters (and I’ve been behind him since day one, please understand) absolutely disgusted me with their attitude towards HRC fans. That faded, thankfully, and people finally dropped the PUMA thing and the implicit sexism in their limiting actions.
Now, McCain haters spit venom and vitriol with the fiery intensity of the very McCain supporters they love to bemoan. Of course I was pissed as hell with the McCain camp for allowing their supporters to, among other things, yell "kill him" at the mere mention of Obama’s name. But to make the claim, as I have seen many folks do implicitly, that McCain supporters are almost universally racist (and please understand that I believe some of his policies are institutionally racist!) or bigoted or idiots, etc. drives me insane. Do you honestly think that’s a way to win and keep swingy moderates? How about former Republicans? How about fiscally conservative Democrats? Again, I’m pretty far left, but to not realize that this type of rhetoric will prove highly destructive in the coalition building act is shortsighted, immature and indicative of a worldview that I simply cannot hold. Politics is compromise, in no small way, and getting things done requires a coalition. Killing that coalition before it even has a chance to do its great work is counterproductive and idiotic. It’s as though (for those of you who adopt this worldview) you’ve not learned the lessons the many debacles of the Bush administration has had to offer.
From the use of the word "bitch" to refer to Palin ("horrible" is totally acceptable, frankly; perhaps even "criminal") to an underlying sense in many posts that those who are minorities are under some type of implicit obligation to ‘vote for the good of their race’ by siding with Obama (as though they’re incapable of making decisions on their own), to this sudden outpouring of unabashed hatred following McCain’s own attempts to calm his supporters down (seriously, how often does a politician actually rebuff some members of their base as strongly as he did?), I’ve come to see this site as part of the problem.
I love many of the front page posts, Project Orange, and I also get some fantastic news and updates through this site, so I know I’ll be back. But I also know I’m going to avoid the comments and side diaries like the plague because, ultimately, the type of discourse on here is quite often like a plague of hatred, a cancerous cluster of cells that turns the discourse in on itself, devouring the healthy cells and churning out copies that in turn infect another. I also won't be making any new comments because, well, they fall on deaf ears anyway.
I’ll miss the well-reasoned commenters, the wonderful stories of compassion and kindness, the sad tales of sudden financial distress, the victory of helping turn a conservative family member blue and a dozen other things. But I’ll hang up my briefly worn, almost new commenting cap and hike up my bag on my back in search of a new internet home to post in. I can’t deal with the far-too-common toxicity around here. Those of you who are of the reasonable persuasion and are able to deal with (and fight) it, I admire the hell out of you. It disheartens me too much and makes me think we sound like our opponents. They're our opponents, people, not our f-ing enemies! Stop vilifying them! Yuck.
Try to keep it kinder, eh? Think of 2010, 12, 14, etc. Thanks for indulging me.
p.s. In the interest of full disclosure, I voted "Obama's going to win in a landslide..."