It was 18 months ago, March 14, 2008, at this hour, that perhaps the most dramatic and strange event in the "Primary Wars" on Daily Kos (and the progressive blogosphere generally) took place, when Daily Kos diarist Alegre posted a diary calling for a "writers' strike" by supporters of Hillary Clinton, who were deeply in the minority here.
I raise the fact of the "Writers' Strike" -- which many pointed out was more properly termed a boycott, though personally I'd call it an embargo -- not to pick at old wounds. First of all, those old wounds have largely (if not entirely) healed, and many (though certainly not all) Hillary advocates have returned, if they ever left, to play substantial roles on this site. Second, the site is doing pretty damn well, thanks.
I raise the topic, first, because many current Kosters don't know about it. Those of use who have been here a long time sometimes forget the pace of turnover here -- 18 months is a generation. People either need to know the story or maybe it's better that they not know the story. I lean towards the former view. It's history sometimes alluded to but rarely explained; rarer still addressed with dispassion.
I raise it also because it was significant -- at least in its way. Maybe it wasn't intrinsically significant (or interesting) that those left in a minority position left the site (self-styling their action as a "strike" and getting attention from media outlets that grooved on the controversy), but it was significant as an example of how these fissures take place within the progressive blogosphere. It's a model, in some respects, for how the next fissure(s) might take place.
It's also significant because lots of predictions were made about how the fissure would affect this site in particular -- and it gives us a chance to, now that we're far enough removed from events to be able to approach them with some scientific detachment, see what predictions did and did not come true.
I recognize that a "screw 'em" crowd exists here that will begrudge wasting a joule's worth of mental energy on those departed. I disagree. What happened interested me both as a political activist and a prodigal social scientist; I think it will be of interest to others, especially those who weren't yet around. So, if anyone reading this considers it a waste of their time and everyone else's, you can solve the former problem easily enough and leave it to others to address the latter.
1. What happened
Alegre's diaries supporting Hillary's campaign -- and they were posted almost daily from June 2007 until the day she left -- actually provide a pretty damn good historical record of how both the overall themes and the day-to-day jags of the primary campaign looked through the eyes of a fervent Hillary supporter. (The one diary title that did almost make me laugh out loud when I came across it while researching this diary was from August 19: WE'RE NOT GOING AWAY, YOU KNOW. As the saying goes: "heh, indeed.") Similarly, the work of TomP gave a particularly good sense of the view of the election from the Edwards camp, and the work of geekesque, among others, well-reflected the world view of the Obama camp.
(Some personal disclosure is probably appropriate here: my preference ordering prior to my sabbatical from the site was Edwards, Dodd, Obama, Clinton, and then the others, though I could have supported any of the first four them without much trouble (and could support none without some concern.) After abandoning my old user name on December 14, 2007, I missed the early portion of the primary wars, by choice, in self-imposed exile at Docudharma until the primary wars blew over, as of course we all knew would surely be the case by Super Tuesday in early February. I returned to the site on March 12 firmly in the Obama camp, and in fact my third diary after I returned was written partially as a response to the "strike.")
While DailyKos had been divided largely between Obama and Edwards partisans -- just as in the 2004 cycle (before my time) it had been divided mostly, though not entirely, between proponents of Dean and Clark -- some other websites had tilted decisively towards Hillary. The most prominent of longstanding sites within the netroots were probably MyDD, largely under the influence of Jerome Armstrong, and TalkLeft, where among other people Big Tent Democrat (ne Armando, a legendary former front-pager on this site) had taken up primary residence after a short stay at Docudharma. (My recollection is that BTD, with little company on TalkLeft, ultimately favored Obama despite liking him much less because he thought that he was more likely than Hillary to charm the press. There may have been more changes in his position after I stopped tuning in, though.)
I linked to the MyDD version in the intro not only because the DKos version is unwieldy -- it's the only time I can remember seeing ct shut down a diary and suggest that people continue discussion elsewhere, after 1258 comments in 5-1/2 hours, and comment #1237 came within less than three hours -- but the MyDD version presents both a clear set of grievances by people who were mostly sympathetic to her complaints, but (perhaps more interestingly) a set of predictions about the future of this site.
The first few comments contain complaints about this site ("they've ruined what was once a good blog," "[I wish I knew] why they killed it off. Was there a monetary offer that couldn't be refused?", "Quite a few folks totally lost their moral compass"), which then turned into predictions of calamity for DKos:
"Kos ... is burning his bridges as fast as he can. His front page posts have been vicious toward HRC, and by not discouraging the behavior of some of the most offensive posters, he has tacitly endorsed their behavior. I'm sure he thinks that everyone who has been run off by the immature Johnny-come-lately attackers will come back, just like Obama and his supporters assume that Obama will get all of HRC's votes. But sometimes, when you go too far, there is a price to pay."
[Kos's] 15 minutes will be up soon, and I can smell the stench of his site from here.
among other talk of declining ad revenues, pledges never to go back, etc. Some have never come back. Others have -- as occasional or frequent posters. (A top-ranked Recommended diary yesterday was by one person commenting in Alegre's MyDD diary who has been a main writer on a Hillary site.) I am glad to see back those Hillary supporters who returned. Some have remained strong critics of Obama, from both left and right; others have come to defend him. The discussion here survives.
I quote the comments above (and, for that matter, write the diary at all) not to twist the knife -- the real and legitimate pain present in many of those comments is not easy to ignore, and I hope that commenters will join in the conciliatory spirit with which this diary is intended -- but simply to remind us of how bad things got and to wonder if this can help restrain our future internecine battles. I don't recall our ever having quite the distance to talk through much of what happened in the wake of the strike; 18 months seems like enough time past to perhaps allow a more dispassionate conversation.
What did we learn from all this?
Was something like this inevitable?
Were there was it could have been mitigated?
Were those ways worth trying or was the cost too high?
Who could have prevented the deterioration of site relations?
Was that even worth doing or did things work out as they should have?
How would things had worked out differently here had, after mid-March, Hillary somehow won?
Is it worth newer members knowing this history?
Should we never speak of this again?
Are future such fissures preventable? How, if at all?
I don't raise these points with any agenda other than to provoke interesting and -- I hope -- dispassionate and calm conversation about these points. I hope I don't have to say that, even if you're critical, the moment for trash talk has long passed.
2. The Aftermath
In the wake of "the strike" and the substantial (but far from entire) removal of commentary from the Hillary camp on DKos, the site changed. It became -- and a strong thread of this remains -- a cite for celebration of Barack Obama and his family, something I think is most strongly evident in the photo diaries. The main difference between 2004 and 2008 is that while everyone expected 2004 to be close, about a year ago this past weekend, when Lehman collapsed (followed quickly by McCain's composure), the site was suffused with optimism. The relative lack of SYFPH (look it up) was probably due to the lack of people expressed pessimism through their FPHs. While we still, to a great extent, have "camps" here -- "Obama's got this" versus "He's buckling under" -- my sense is that they are far less firmly bounded than camps during the primary. Also, so far as I can tell, the latter camp includes a lot of people who were strong Obama supporters back before the strike, most of whom profess that they are willing to support Obama again anytime they think that he's right. The skeptical camp about Obama does not seem to be a mere continuation of what was once the Hillary camp here or elsewhere.
In researching this diary, I took a look at MyDD and TalkLeft, as well as some of the newer sites that were created by formerly respected members of the DKos community, such as Alegre's Corner and goldberry's The Confluence. (I'm simply not going to address some of the nastier and more overtly racist and conspiratorial sites out there; I'm sure that someone will mention them in comments. Mention of the above should not be taken as endorsement. Disclosure: I am a member of MyDD, though I posted rarely, and I recall joining but I don't think ever posting at TalkLeft. I participate in neither of the newer sites, though I did consider goldberry in particular a "comrade-in-arms" here in years prior to her departure.)
MyDD, the demise of which many people here predicted, seems to have returned pretty much to the status quo ante -- a good, general, news-oriented site without (at least in the diaries I reviewed) much evidence of scars from the primary wars. How many of us here would have predicted that 18 months ago?
TalkLeft has survived as a good outlet for both BTD's commentary and for the generally more narrowly focused commentary of the proprietor, Jeralyn Merritt, who continues to focus on law and crime from a public defender's viewpoint. Judging from the number of comments, it appears to be less of a cause celebre than it once was, but still a venue for healthy discussion. A quick review of the site did not show that Obama-bashing was a primary focus of the site, although my sense was that BTD shares many of the critical views expressed here that Obama and the Dems are not taking a strong enough position on health care and other issues.
Alegre's Corner (motto: "We're not finished folks - not by a long shot!") currently figures a conspicuous absence of Alegre -- if there's a back story to that, I'm not familiar with it -- and a reasonably health 2-4 stories today by two primary authors. It clearly has a pro-Hillary focus, occasional DKos-bashing, but most of the content would not raise eyebrows here.
Goldberry's The Confluence similarly displays a substantial lack of goldberry -- again, I don't know the backstory, if there is one -- but is a reasonably vibrant site with around the same number of stories as Alegre's Corner but more comments.
Now, I've been cheating thus far by leaving out sites like Hillaryis44, where one can see the full continued flowering of the spirit of 18 months ago today, for example:
Today Dimocrats and PINOs are in full nutjob at a Washington rally in support of the flim-flam man from Chicago - Barack Obama.
Honestly, reading this didn't leave me feeling wounded, but almost nostalgic, like visiting an Amish community or some other group locked in the folkways of bygone days. Anyway, it's there for you if you want it -- about a diary a day, 100-400 comments, which I didn't review but which I suspect may involve a lot of participants agreeing with each other -- and it does not seem to have rent a hole in the space-time continuum.
In the long aftermath of the "writers' strike," the victory seems to belong to those who said that it would all blow over. DKos is as strong and internal riven with conflict as ever. MyDD is about where it was before. BTD landed a good gig with an appreciative audience. Alegre and goldberry started minor blogs that continue to serve communities of like-minded people. All of them, as do we here, feature cynicism about Obama, but nothing I read on any of them seems more corrosive as what one can read from respected writers here from time to time. For those who want corrosion -- it's still available at the last site I linked and some others (though that site has no blogroll.)
Maybe this fighting and fissuring and settling is how things were supposed to work out. Maybe the system worked. If so, the question is: was that inevitable, or did we get lucky? What would have happened had Hillary won the nomination -- or had McCain won the election? (Yes, 18 months ago today, both prospects were possible -- we didn't yet know how the Wright disclosures would play out, for one thing.)
I have an opinion or two on that, but they don't really matter more than anyone else's who might comment here. If readers think any of this is interesting to discuss, I look forward to reading your perspectives. If not -- well, it won't be the first diary here that didn't get a lot of attention. That's how things work here: you attract attention or you slide into obscurity, and then maybe try again.