This is not a GBCW diary.
For one thing, I don't like them. Most of them are I-get-the-last-word-after-all-ha-ha kinds of things by people going away mad. The rest read more like suicide notes.
I don't want to do either of those things. I'm not going away, and I'm less mad than I was a week ago.
What I am is dismayed and demoralized by what this discussion context has become.
I got here in 2004. Long time in blog years. And those were bad, bad days to be a Democrat. We'd had four years of watching the Constitution used as toilet paper by a genuinely evil cabal of violent, smash-and-grab thugs who had stolen the most powerful position in the world in plain view, and had the theft ratified by a 1-vote majority of the Supreme Court. We were just starting to learn the meaning of the term "Swift Boat". We were seeing that in the era of Rove and Murdoch, there is no depth too low for the Right to sink to in order to win.
And you know what? It felt pretty great around here. In those days, there was NOTHING progressive going in in the media. There was no Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow--James Carville got trotted out to represent the "liberal" perspective on talking head shows. Fox News ruled the world, Free Republic and RedState and Little Green Footballs dominated the political net, and we were invisible.
Kos changed that. It was a tremendous relief to have a place where we could gather with those of like mind and see how many of us there were. To share information, to plan, to fundraise, to strategize. To work together and start the ball rolling on taking back the country.
Flash forward seven years to today, when we've had so many victories and achievements, we've been in the majority, we still hold the Senate and the White House. The progressive blogosphere outstrips its conservative counterparts by any measure. We DO have Maddow and Olbermann and other voices on the airwaves, and hey: they even bring on representatives from The Nation now and again. On national television!
And we are at one another's throats. Half of us can't be satisfied under any circumstances: no real-world outcome is good enough. The vibe is so much uglier here now. I see more cynicism, bitterness and outright hatred here than I ever did during the Bush years. I'll say it: the Daily Kos community does not wear power well.
A little while back I wrote a diary. It was pugnacious and called out those who are trashing the President as strategically foolish and counterproductive to what they say are their own goals. It had nearly 3,000 reads, hit the top of the rec list and engendered a predictable food fight in the comments section. No minds were changed, no learning occurred, but spleens were vented and everyone--including me--got to be self-righteous.
It can feel good to write something like that, when you're afraid about outcomes, angry and mystified that people who are supposedly on your side can't see things as you do, and when you believe--as I do--that a goodly portion of my supposed allies on the progressive left are spending their efforts pro-actively destroying any hopes for success on any of our issues in the coming years.
Yes, venting feels good. And I can vent pretty well. I have a sharp tongue and it translates well through a keyboard. Feels powerful, waving that weapon around. Helps to reduce the feeling of helplessness.
Yesterday, I published another diary. In it, I described how my perspective had evolved. How I didn't want to disrespect people who disagreed with me here any longer, nor try to persuade them. I apologized for the calling-out in the previous diary, and retracted it. All I asked--and I pledged to do it myself--is that in our advocacy for what we want, we all agree to avoid questioning or negatively characterizing the character, values, or loyalties of Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats: just through 2012. Because the stakes, as I argued, are astronomically high. They are literally, to my mind, about whether or not the United States will become a fully fascistic, repressive, authoritarian corporatocracy.
That diary had less than 150 reads and, as of this writing, 15 comments. 10 people agreed to join me in that pledge.
It's clear that what I proposed doesn't meet the needs of very many here. I think an awful lot of people participating here now aren't really focused on the original purpose of the blog, which was to elect Democrats and then, when possible, better Democrats. I think many--if not most of us, and I have sometimes been one of them--are here to hear themselves talk and to feel indignantly self-righteous. Clashing with those they disagree with is what brings them the endorphin hit that is the reward for participating.
I consider this, and my fondness for using my words, knowledge and logic to press my case and poke holes in those of others. For waving that weapon around.
And you know what? It's not doing anything. And when you do it, you're not doing anything, either.
Nobody gets persuaded here. This community used to have a lot of curiosity and inquiry and willingness to consider a variety of views in a manner other than an automatic default to a cage fight.
The contrast between the responses to those two diaries has convinced me. This is to a large degree no longer a dialogue; it is a shouting match, and it is accomplishing nothing.
I am going to put down the gun, and back slowly away. I'm simply not going to fight with you any more, even when it is completely obvious that you are wrong. It is an absolute, complete waste of time and effort.
I don't see myself writing much here for the foreseeable future. I'll probably check in for breaking inside news, and who knows, maybe I'll gingerly comment once in awhile. I'll certainly keep reading those who enrich this forum with actual knowledge, like Unitary Moonbat and Ojibwa.
But DK has been a bread-and-butter part of my life for nearly 7 years now, and that is changing, starting today. If--as I believe--the tenor of the conversation here truly is a progressive self-immolation, I will not pour my portion of gasoline on the fire any longer. I'm sick of it: sick of unsatisfiable outrage, sick of smug condescension, sick of the cult of ain't-it-awfulism, sick of our apparently inherent inability to recognize progress when it happens or to give anyone--elected or fellow blogger--the benefit of the doubt.
I'll see you around.