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Some background: Yes, I’m rather new here – at least as a registered member. I lurked years ago but eventually left, mostly because I was turned off by all the nastiness, especially (but not only) during the 2004 primary. After Kerry conceded in 2004 without putting up much of a fight regarding the voting problems in Ohio, I was so disheartened that I took a complete break from politics for a couple years (except for voting).
I started getting back into politics last year, but I decided to try to be more action-oriented and to work at the local level. I didn’t want to be an armchair activist who rarely escaped the echo chamber of the Internet. (I realize that many of you are doing ground work in addition to posting here; but for myself, because I’m introverted and because I tend to be more of a thinker than a doer, I felt the lure of the Internet might keep me away from productive, real-life activism.) I also wanted to avoid the nastiness I remembered.
Like many, I felt certain that the 2008 Dem nominee would be decided long before my state, Ohio, got to have any say in it, so I tried to remain positive about but emotionally detached from all the candidates so that I could hit the ground running in working toward the general election after the nominee was decided. I had preferences of course: in a vacuum, Kucinich was my ideal. I liked Edwards too and considered him very electable; I would be voting for him if he hadn’t dropped out. What a surprise it is that the race is far from decided at this late a date and Ohio is actually a pivotal state. Once it came down to Clinton and Obama, I decided I had to take a closer look at both of them since I knew I would be voting for one or the other and that my vote would actually matter this time. I ultimately chose (let's just say Candidate X), for reasons I won’t go into since I’m not trying to plug my candidate in this thread. However, I’ve been looking at this site and some other old favorites a lot recently in an effort to stay informed.
Wow. The nastiness on here is even worse than I remembered. I’m certain some share of the nastiness is coming from trolls who intentionally want to cultivate dissension – but probably not as large a share as I’d like to believe. People on here seem to be betting on the notion that they can be as nasty as they want to be to their primary season opposition and that once the primaries are over, everyone will just fall into line and vote Dem in November. If any posters dare to suggest they will do otherwise, they are swarmed on immediately. I can assure you that in November I will be voting for whomever is the Dem nominee. I’m a hardcore Democrat who always votes Dem and always tries to be pragmatic. But you know what? Not everyone is like me. You can make people here pledge to vote for the Dem in November, and it’ll probably work as well as the chastity pledges they push on teens, which is to say not well at all. You can look back as recently as 2000 at the Nader voters for evidence that people do not always vote pragmatically. And if you think voters learned any kind of lesson from that, think again. People’s memories are incredibly short, and people will make the same dumb moves over and over again. That’s why even after 8 years of Republican-made disasters, this is not going to be a slam-dunk election for Dems. It should be, but it won’t be.
But votes aren’t even the most important thing we have to worry about losing because of all this ugliness. Most people here probably will vote Dem in the end – after some time has passed and some of the bitterness and hurt feelings have subsided. I think the ones who are saying they won’t really do mean it at the time they say it – but I think they will surprise themselves. After Kerry became the nominee in 2004, I was extremely disappointed; at the time, it was hard to imagine feeling any enthusiasm for him or the presidential contest, but eventually I did. And of course I voted for him. But votes are relatively easy. Over a hundred million people voted for president in 2000 and even more in 2004. Do you think a hundred million people donated money to one of the two candidates? Do you think a hundred million people went door to door for their candidates, or made phone calls? No. When you start looking at the real, important work that is done in politics, it’s actually a relatively small group of dedicated activists. And we need all those people. All you do with your trash talk and snide remarks is make it less likely that the candidate you support will be able to win those people over if he/she becomes the nominee. I actually saw someone on here say something to the effect of, “You people need to leave so we real Democrats can unify the Party.” Um, exactly whom are we going to unite after we’ve driven off half the Party? People whose candidate has been bashed and trashed, who have been themselves ridiculed for their support of said candidate are not going to be as effective working for the other candidate if he/she becomes the nominee even if they consciously decide to put the ill feelings of the primaries behind them. Those feelings are going to linger in some form and those people are not going to contribute as much, not going to work as hard, not going to get behind the nominee as fully as they otherwise would. It's basic psychology.
Obviously, not every person on here was either an Obama or Clinton supporter from the start. Imagine if it had come down to a two-way race between the candidate you started out with and the candidate you ended up with. If the same sort of nastiness existed between those two camps and your original candidate then lost the two-way, how easy would it be for you to line up behind the candidate you’re actually supporting now?
My personal experience is that I came on here as a Candidate X supporter, but one who had only recently made that decision and who had no feelings of ill will toward Candidate Y. I am amazed at how quickly this place has soured me on Candidate Y because of the ugliness I've seen directed at Candidate X and his/her supporters. You can argue that I shouldn't let a bunch of anonymous Internet posters affect how I feel about Candidate Y, and I've tried telling myself the same thing. But I'm a human being subject to human nature and emotions, and it's not always easy to talk oneself into a state of complete rationality. And I can assure you that there are many others who are going to come away from this place feeling the same as I do and who won't be trying to talk themselves out of their feelings. I'm not trying to claim that the nastiness from the Candidate Y camp is worse than the nastiness from the Candidate X camp. I haven't been here that long and I haven't seen every thread. I personally feel I've seen a lot more hatred toward the Candidate X side, but that's just my perspective; yours may be different and is just as valid a view as mine. I'm just trying to share my personal experience as one example of how counterproductive such posts are. I'm really directing this post to both camps equally. Honestly, does the trash talk serve any useful purpose for your candidate at all? He/she will either become the nominee or not. You're not winning any new voters with your hate, you may even be losing voters, and you're certainly alienating people you will need later on.
I know it’s almost too late to post this, but after all I haven’t been on here that long. I’m hoping at least a few people will read this and try to act a little better in the time we have left.
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