So I open my kos this morning to find the four top spots on the rec list occupied by fervid circular firing squad diaries. In these diaries various people are urged by various other people to sit down, STFU, roll over, fuck off, reject him, reject her, kiss my ass, kiss his ass, hose off the clown makeup.
I haven't read the comments in any of these diaries. I don't want to read them. The diaries are enough.
When I began visiting this site, many moons ago, the front-pagers, those folks whose home is on the left-hand side of the page, were also all over the community diaries, here on the right. It was not uncommon to encounter four or five of them in a day, pitching in on matters all and sundry with us plebeians. In those days, it was all one site—FP and community. A couple of the FPers even liked it so much over here that they managed to pick up too many of our bad habits—they "went native," ran amok, and had to be put down.
Those days are long gone. Today, the only FPer who appears with any regularity in the community diaries is Meteor Blades, and he is here in the role of a cop. Because we can't behave ourselves. He is required to patrol this site like a schoolteacher with a ruler, because we have proven that we're all bozos on this bus.
This site is dedicated to Democratic electoral victory, to electing more and better Democrats. The FP still pursues that vision, which is why this site is elsewhere still taken seriously.
Although the FAQ famously proclaims that this is a "big tent" site, embracing Democrats of all persuasions, from conservative to progressive, regular reading of the FP makes it clear that this site, on most matters of importance, tilts toward the latter. FPers have been consistently critical of this Democratic President, and Democratic Congressmembers, when they wander from the tent, and into the weeds. And it has been stated clearly on the FP that site focus is now shifting from electing "more" Democrats to electing "better" Democrats.
But the FP writers never forget that the primary foes of the site's vision are the reactionary mossbacks of the Republican party, and the organ-grinders of the rightwing noise machine, that crank it up to 11 at all times in order to lure the rubes into their tent.
And the pieces on the FP remain within the realm of reason. The writers eschew rhetorical bullshit; they talk about things that are real, using words that are real.
And they certainly do not devote their days to shooting each other in the stomach, in rash, feverish combat over who is "pragmatic," or who is "progressive," or whatever the catch categories of the day excusing fratricidal war happen to be.
I used to think that people here on the right side of the page would someday grow to embrace the same: that, in the main, we would become serious people, saying serious things, about serious issues.
But probably it's never going to happen.
Too bad.
This site was born battling BushCo, and all its many evils. It was an oppositional site, prepared to leap upon every leaving of the 24-hour news cycle that indicated All Was Wrong. Hair was forever on fire. The community expressed the complete opposite of the attitude memorably enunciated by Mao, when he was once asked whether he thought the French Revolution had been a positive development: "too soon to tell."
In my view, this site, at least over here on the right side, has never fully adjusted to the fact that Democrats control the Congress, and occupy the White House. That there is no longer, as there was under BushCo, an "us" and a "them." Because this site, and the people on it, worked to install "them"—then "they," as Pogo once put it, "is us." We "own" them. And thus, rather than concentrating primarily on blogging about them, from a remove, as if they were apart from us, it might have been more useful if we had better explored means by which to work with them, thereby, hopefully, moving them more in tune with "us."
The incoming administration was viewed from the get-go by some here with a jaundiced eye; it was as if failure and betrayal were expected. And when the 24-hour news cycle, as it inevitably will, spits up something that seems to fit that narrative, it is snatched with the same hair-on-fire intensity of old, and raced, flaming and smoking, all round the site. Agents Of Evil are identified within the ranks of Congress and the White House, just as they were in the BushCo days, and howled out into the wilderness as scapegoats with bells on. In this way, those most comfortable with being oppositional, have continued to remain oppositional.
It is equally true, however, that among others on this site there is a tendency to enable or excuse Democratic behaviors because they are Democratic. In this "be true to your school" mentality, acts or attitudes are excused because they are those of one's "team." Though they would be, and were, condemned when they were, and are, associated with GOoPers.
The narrative here is being moved by extremists from both camps. The divide here is unprecedented; in primary dust-ups, every faction at least supports some sort of Democrat. Today, however, both Obama antagonists and true believers are derided as betrayers of "the Party"—nay, of the country.
Too many days on this site I get bad flashbacks to my time interned in various far-lefty fringe outfits, where people managed to spend more time picking at perceived heresies among themselves than in attending to "the struggle."
And I am as guilty as anyone, because there are people on this site who I perceive to be bad actors, and on occasion I speak up about it. Of course, I believe I am right . . . just as the other 1000 people who speak up about those they perceive to be bad actors believe that they are right.
And so here we are, a bunch of clowns beating each other with bladders, as the bus that is the right side of this site careens into irrelevancy.
When dKos 4.0 debuts, diaries flagged by the Rescue Rangers, and by site editors, will be featured prominently, continuously refreshed, at the top of the page, above the offerings even of the FPers themselves. The "recommended diaries," it has been made clear, will be considerably de-emphasized.
I think people here should think about what that means.
I think what it means is that, although people here get a nice charge, from time to time, in standing up, on some issue or another, to proclaim "I am Spartacus," they might also want to reflect that perhaps they should also spend some time standing to admit "I am bozo."
Because that's what we are. Bozos on this bus.