At least a few people on DKos seem to have gotten really, really mad about this diary from Markos. The thinking seems to be that his diary essentially shat upon miners and former miners who — to our thinking — voted aggressively against their best interests.
I’m not writing this diary as an attempt to be Kos’ apologist (I’ve met the guy exactly once, for like 45 seconds — he wouldn’t recognize me if we ran into each other again.) It’s more to ask that everybody chill a little on the circular firing squad mentality that seems to be in blazing effect right now. I’ve literally lost track of who we’re supposed to be kicking today. I just know it’s someone who’s supposed to be on our side. Seems counterproductive.
So Markos got angry and posted an inflammatory diary title, maybe. Was his intent really that vindictive?
This is a quote of a comment I made in another diary today, which summates my views on not just Kos’ choice of words, but the Democratic party’s take on this particular demographic in general (because let’s be frank, it’s not like Kos is alone in his frustration).
The anger in Markos’ post, and to a lesser degree this one, isn’t:
Lazy mine workers, die in the bed you’ve made! You suck and we revel in your pain!
That’s what everyone seems to be reading it as (especially the vindictive last part), but that’s not what I, personally, read.
The anger I read is more like this:
Look, y’all. We’ve fought for you and bled for you. We took shots in the teeth for you. And the thanks we get for that is repeated knives in the gut and back. There’s only so many times we can go up that hill and leave our blood there without some kind of support or even acknowledgement from you that we actually are fighting for you. But when we tell you that, you don’t believe us — and you go right on undercutting us when we need you to help us continue that fight on your behalf.
So okay. You win. You hate us. We get it. And now, you may have noticed — you’ve won in government as well. You got what you wanted — in 2017, government is going to be deep red from scalp to sole. You’re already seeing the results of that — what little good Democrats were able to do for you with the ACA is vanishing before your eyes. This is exactly what you voted for. Is it what you wanted? Is it what’s best for your families?
Again: You win. You hate us. We get it. So here’s exactly what you asked for — smaller government, no government healthcare. It’s not going to work out well for you, and we tried to tell you that (but, again, you didn't believe us). You’ve just bought yourselves a chance to find out the hard way that we were right.
Good luck with that.
I figure the response is probably going to be something like, “Jon, take your paternalistic ‘in-sorrow-not-anger’ horseshit and go smoke a rope,” and that’s fine. I’m just saying that, in my view at least, the vindictiveness being attributed to both Kos and Mike isn’t really there. Frustration and surrender to inevitability aren’t cruelty.
JM2c.
I beg pardon for repping my own comment. My goal isn’t personal recognition, but rather recognition of a trend many readers and writers here have called out with just concern: we’re beating each other bloody. The bad guys are on the other side of the line — and no matter what you think about most of the Republicans this site’s set itself against in the last few years, the people setting up to “lead” the Federal Government right now are bad people — and we’ve got better things to go on with than doing their dirty work for them.
I really, really wish I’d somehow saved or bookmarked a page I saw during the primaries. It was, of course, from Reddit or some similar troll-ridden cesspool, and it was a roundtable for Trump supporters. They weren’t talking about GOTV, they were talking about sowing disunity and infighting among Democrats. From months-old memory, the money quote went something like this:
This is Trump’s gift. We can do as he does. I made an account on (some website — might have been DKos, I forget) and jumped right in with the idiots. All you have to do is parrot back some of their same slogans back at them and they trust you. Then just make one slightly questioning comment about this or that liberal sacred cow and like magic you get two warring camps of SJWs shouting insults at each other. It’s ridiculously easy to do. I couldn’t believe it.
It's easy to dismiss internet tribal squabbles as inconsequential flim-flammery and meaningless noise, but I’d argue there’s merit (and danger) to be found in online discourse. Sure, maybe 10% of people who post hopeful stuff about elections actually get out and beat feet to make things happen — but if you get one group angry at another group, or even one individual angry at another individual, how likely are they to organize comfortably? If you’re on the other side, and you make any alliances less solid, you’ve done at least something to help yourself. And I absolutely believe, absent data to disprove it, that this was a stated (and probably met) goal of at least some Team Red supporters in 2016.
So anyway. Seems like I post one of these diaries or so per year, basically asking Democrats to try thinking the best of each other before they think the worst. Put this one on my tally, but if you don’t mind, give it some thought as well.
Thanks for reading.
Edit 6:05 pm CST: Recommended List? Wow, thanks folks! Just now getting to the comments, but thanks regardless!