I think it's safe to say that Meteor Blades' announcement that he is leaving the Daily Kos community is THE story of the day, if not the week. The "Recently Published" tab is filling up with posts about Meteor Blades. I've read several of them but it seems they are being published faster than I can read them. Yet there's one thing none of the diaries has quite put its finger on yet: the degree to which the Obama flame-wars, more than anything else, have polarized this awesome community and contributed mightily to the incivility Meteor Blades' so rightly deplored. Join me below the squiggle to see if we can't agree to a cease-fire.
Many diarists have posted on Meteor Blades' well-deserved reputation as a fair-minded and judicious moderator. Several have already made the suggestion to self-moderate in his absence. This is very good advice. The level of rank trollery does indeed appear to be on the increase. But this is a diverse community. We're not like the Republican party, constantly engaged in trying to ferret out those who are insufficiently crazy. We are a big tent party, for better or worse. We would all be wise to heed John Wesley's famous advice: "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity."
With that in mind, can we address the 800 pound elephant in the room, dominating almost every diary? No, it's not racist, sexist, homophobic, or anti-Semitic trolls. Obnoxious as they are, they reveal their true colors very quickly and get bounced out. The fact is the overwhelming majority of people on this site are not trolls. Mostly, we are liberals (progressives if you must) who earnestly want to see a more just and equitable world. But there is one subject that has proven over the last few years to be a sure-fire way to get Kossacks to turn on each other with the ferocity of a rabid Rush Limbaugh: Namely, President Obama.
I'm not sure when all this started. As an Obama supporter from the early days, I had to stop reading Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald, much as I had previously enjoyed their insights, because of their constant Obama-bashing. At MyDD, things also seemed pretty hostile for an Obama supporter. Daily Kos, one of my "must-read" daily blogs going all the way back to 2004, was where both sides seemed to feel at home, a place broad enough and welcoming enough for both proto-tribes.
It hasn't felt like that in a long time. On most days, the Rec List is teeming with "pro" or "anti" Obama diaries, with charges of "sell-out!" and "quit yer whinin'!" becoming increasingly dominant. The carnage in the comment threads for either type of diary looks like the first day of the Battle of the Somme, with similarly unimpressive results. Neither side comes off well.
But the real tragedy is the message sent to new visitors to the site. I used to recommend Daily Kos whole-heartedly to friends and family. It's hard to do that now when venturing away from the Front Page or into the comment threads risks running into the umpteenth round of this pointless trench-warfare between "Obama supporters" and "Obama critics." I have to admit that on occasion I've been part of the problem. And I've seen several people leave DK just since the beginning of this year because of this toxic climate.
But all of us who appreciate everything that Meteor Blades has done for this community could stand to ask ourselves: What Would Meteor Blades Do?
Much more would be accomplished if just half the energy that goes into this internal battling went into the real activism that we see recounted or proposed in diaries every day. Some of the viciousness would probably be undermined if the "Preview" comment button were replaced by one saying "THINK!"
"Think!" That's something I've been doing a lot of since I read Meteor Blade's latest (I can't bear to type "last") post this morning. I remembered the thrill that went up my spine the first time Meteor Blades commented on a diary of mine. "He actually read my diary! I'm just a schmuck with a RHUID (really high user ID) and he read my diary and commented!" I remembered watching from afar as he gave constructive advice to other young bloggers, calling out bullshit and the mistakes all newbies make, but keeping a polite tone the entire time. I remembered reading through his comment threads and marveling at how he never stooped to the level of the trolls and flamers and others trying to pull him down to the least-common denominator. Meteor Blades has always been the epitome of fairness and open-minded discourse, what this community has always been about at its core.
So, fellow "Obama supporters" and "Obama critics" alike -- can we come to a truce on the central fault-line of the liberal blogosphere? It might help if we can acknowledge that those two groups are not mutually exclusive. Although an Obama supporter from the earliest days, I was upset by his about-turn on FISA telecom immunity in June 2008 and joined a protest group on MyBarackObama.com which quickly became the largest group in that network. Almost every week since then, Obama has in some way disappointed or angered me. Usually more than once a week. These feelings are natural and I can understand how some people, good people, would feel this disappointment and anger even more intensely than I. To criticize Obama does not make one a bad Democrat or a bad liberal. But can those of you who feel the strongest anger against Obama try not to launch blanket attacks such as "Obama is a sell-out! He's a corporatist! He's the Manchurian Candidate! He might as well be a Republican! NObama!" Would it be possible to criticize Obama's actions (or lack thereof) without impugning his motives and those of his supporters?
For those like myself, who see yourselves as Obama supporters (even those of you who profess in diaries and comments to have never disagreed with a single decision he's taken), can we try to stow away our righteous indignation over attacks on "OUR" president, our accusations that his critics have "Obama Derangement Syndrome" or never got over Hillary losing or are bigoted, etc? Can we disagree with Obama's harshest critics without claiming to know their motives? And can both sides agree to stop habitually labeling the other as "trolls"?
Because at the end of the day, "This site is about more and better Democrats." Or as blue aardvark suggested, "NO REPUBLICANS IN POWER - AT ALL."
This site and this movement have ALWAYS been bigger than Obama or even the Democratic party. We have to stand for our most cherished principles, meaning that first and foremost, we cannot allow ANY administration, Democratic or Republican, to undo the New Deal and Great Society social safety net programs. There are probably some other red lines we could draw (pro-choice? pro-marriage equality? pro-separation of church and state?) and I would love to read any red-line suggestions in the comments. But ultimately, as Kos said, we have to elect better Democrats.
The revitalization of the political left in America is going to take a long time. It took the John Birchers, Jerry Falwells, Jesse Helmses, and Ronald Reagans a full generation to rehabilitate conservatism. Our project will take multiple decades and quite possibly multiple generations to come to fruition.
But it's important to take stock of what we've already accomplished. Do you remember where you were when you heard that Howard Dean had stood up for the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party"? How small and frail that wing looked back in those days when cowardly Democrats were voting to authorize Bush's Not-So-Excellent Adventure in Iraq! Flash forward 8 years. We recaptured the White House and Congress on a wave of grassroots activism. We got TWO left-of-center Supreme Court justices who will sit on the court and defend our rights for decades to come (when President McCain or Palin would have appointed more Alito clones). Last year we saw the Blue Dogs get wiped out faster than they could run away from the scarlet letter "D" attached to their name.
And most recently, we saw the Democratic caucus split evenly on the "Satan sandwich." Eight years ago if you had told me that 95 House Democrats, half of the caucus, would vote against a bill being pushed hard by the Republicans, the media, and a Democratic president -- all on the grounds the bill was too conservative, I wouldn't have believed it. "Democrats don't have the spine!" Half of them do now. We've got our work cut out for us with the other half, but we shouldn't let that blind us to the progress we've made... or the fact that we don't have a better option.
Two parties are the only game in town and one and half of those parties are owned lock, stock, and barrel by corporate interests who, in Meteor Blade's words, "see the working classes of America as nothing more than fodder to make themselves ever richer." By default, our home is "the Democratic wing of the Democratic party." Blue aardvark once again states it better than I ever could:
If the zombie demons from DOOM invade my home and start threatening my family, I'm going to fight them with whatever weapons I have. If my best weapon is a butter knife, I use the butter knife. Screaming at the butter knife "DAMN YOU WHY AREN'T YOU A CHAINSAW? OR A BFG 9000?" doesn't save my family.
When a butter knife's all you've got, you use the butter knife. Obama and other Democrats in Congress might not be the machine gun you want. But they're all we've got to hold back the Tea Bagger zombie hordes. So whether you think of Obama as a BFG 9000 or a butter knife, can we agree to stop the flame-wars and channel our outrage and passion into "real activism," whether against Walker and his cronies in Wisconsin or in furtherance of ANY progressive goal? At least for a while? Out of respect for Meteor Blades if nothing else? I pledge to do my part, small though it might be, to make Daily Kos the kind of place worthy of kind souls like Meteor Blades.
"In all things, Charity."