This isn’t really long enough to be a diary — more like a long comment. But, it applies to pretty much the entire site, so I thought I’d write it as a general post.
Here’s the point, bluntly put: Can we please stop? Stop the hatred of each other, stop the name-calling, stop the condescension, stop the arrogance. Stop looking for insult in every comment. Stop leaping to the defense of your chosen candidate, guns blazing, flame shooting out of your keyboard.
The diaries are bad enough. The comment sections, though, are lethal. I’ve stopped reading most of the comments, as they always devolve into hatred within the first three.
Are there bad actions, on both sides? Yes. Are there bad actors, on both sides? Yes. Are both candidates flawed in some ways? Yes.
But damn, people — we are looking at an election where we could take the White House, the Senate, even the House, and yet we are spending our time attacking each other, ripping each other, and driving people away from not only this site but from being involved at all.
This site is becoming toxic. And I say that as someone who has been here a while, and used to recommend it regularly to my friends and fellow activists. Not any more — I don’t want them to see Democrats at their ugliest.
I know that this little post won’t change anything — both sides will continue to assume their people are always right and the other side’s people are horrible creatures — but after reading post after post today that went right to Red-State-level name-calling, I had to get it off my chest.
Now back to your regularly scheduled “pie fights,” which stopped being as much fun as a real pie fight many months ago.