Dear Kossack Deaniacs,
I've been doing a lot of thinking about grief lately, and the stages that we always hear about. I note with existential interest how my own life is moving through these stages. dKos is a much-loved distraction these days, but as I scroll through the diaries lately, I am struck by something interesting.
You seem to be going through these stages as well.
For those of you who have forgotten (I had to go look it up), the stages of grief are as follows:
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
Stage 1: Deanial Third place? Are you fucking kidding me?
Stage 1 was interesting on this site, because it mostly consisted of an eerie quiet. Not much was happening in the diaries, and front page posts came to a standstill. Most posts in the diaries section could be boiled down to three tiny little letters.
WTF
Stage 2: Anger Death to the Smearers!
Stage 2 is just sad. If there's one thing Deaniacs know about, it's how to be righteously pissed. The whole campaign is run on the fuel of anger. Every dollar that Dean took in was given in anger. This is great. I'm pissed as well. Now it's different somehow.
It was one thing when the Deaniac anger on kos was reactive... as in rating a troll out of existence... but it becomes quite another when it is proactive anger... as in "Kill Whitey."
Today was Stage 2 Diary Day.
It seems that most of the more pessimistic among you is sitting at about stage 1.75 right now. Somwhere between "What the FUCK?" and "I Saw Kerry Smoking Crack!"
You'll probably stay there until NH finally gets here. if Dean loses NH, you'll head straight into Stage 3, etc.
Stage 3: Bargaining Would you like an angry VP, Mr. Kerry?
Stage 4: Depression Damn, I was about to bag that hottie from the Meetups!
Stage 5: Acceptance Oh well, I did claim I was ABB. Bush is gone and I guess that's probably a good thing. ;)
Just to see if you bothered to read this far down, I will say that I think Dean is going to come back strong, in spite of his agonizing death gasp/maniacal yeehaw thing. I think he'd make a fine president, as would Clark, Edwards and (ho-hum) Kerry. Kerry was my man back in the summer, but he slowly dropped to the back of my pack as the year wore on.
Good luck to you all.