A question about Democratic Underground history

[PJMcK]

From a number of years ago, I have a vague memory of a heated argument between some very active DU members and possibly including some DU administrators that resulted in those members leaving DU to start a new "progressive" site called Jackpine Radicals.

Can someone fill me in on this story? I'm merely curious as to what happened. Thanks, in advance.

Incidentally, I thought of this last night when I tried to log onto that other site. The page doesn't load. Strange.

[hlthe2b]

1. You are about to get an "earful" so I'll keep getting dressed for work...

There were a couple of recent threads on JPR's latest existence (or lack-thereof) that includes comments on their history. Within the past couple of weeks.

Enjoy!

[PJMcK]

4. Thanks

I'll do a little searching.

[rurallib]

2. last I remember the Jackpine Radicals were a Facebook group

that is about all I know. Not even sure that is accurate.

[PJMcK]

3. Well, they did have a website

It was modeled after DU with "Latest," "Greatest," etc. sub-headings. The URL is/was http://jackpineradicals.com but it doesn't load.

I read it a few times but the general tone was uninteresting to me. There were a few users I recognized from DU.

[EYESORE 9001]

5. Last time I checked, several years ago

I got the impression that Russian bots were attempting to converse with one another. I mean literal bots. The syntax was so lousy I know English wasn’t their native tongue.

[mopinko]

6. iirc, this was post 08 primaries.

the feud was between the 'pumas' and the bernie fans.
imho, there were russians playing the same game then that they played so well in '16.
i was a mod at that time. tho some of the folks were long time members, there was a flood of new folks who came in w a pocket full of rocks to throw.
right before the inauguration, there was an uproar about the fundie preacher that spoke. some folks remember this as the 'great gay purge'. many long timers got banned or left.
i think that was about the point they stood up jpr.

and ftr, there have been at least a half doz sites set up by pissed off du'ers. they were smoldering piles of shit, and never lasted long.

[PJMcK]

7. Thank you

That's kind of what I remember now that you mention it. I forgot it was that long ago. What I recall was the animosity and ugliness that ensued.

Yeah, DU is a superior site, isn't it?

[mopinko]

9. none better on the web.

and no, kos is not as good.
fine for news/politics, but nowhere near the complete community we have here.

[wnylib]

27. Pumas? Who/what are/were they?

[gratuitous]

31. After Clinton lost the nomination to Obama

There was a group that "spontaneously" formed, styling themselves as "Party Unity My Ass" or PUMA. Ostensibly they were Democratic women (and some men) who were so disaffected that Hillary Clinton didn't win the nomination that they advocated voting for the McCain-Palin ticket because it had a woman on it. It turned out to be not quite so grass-roots, not quite so spontaneous, not quite so Democratic, and not so quite so gynocentric (is that a word?).

PUMA fell apart mostly because of their own ridiculousness - one woman candidate is not interchangeable with any other woman candidate - but also because there wasn't a market for it.

[wnylib]

32. Thanks for the explanation.

I had not heard of them. I heard talk of people voting for McCain because Hillary did not win the primary, but had not heard the term PUMA.

[Fla Dem]

8. If I remember correctly it was a group of DU'ers, some long term memebers

who were pushing for Bernie Sanders vs Hillary Clinton. Thing got pretty heated and I think a few of the Bernie supporter got the ax and other left. In any event they started the Jackpine Radical discussion page which mirrored the set-up of DU. The name was derived from a former, very left leaning, Bernie supporting DU'er who was very literate and wrote a lot of posts. He either died, left voluntarily or was booted. That's who this group of Bernie supporters named their discussion page after.

I don't think it ever grew beyond a couple of thousand members and last I heard, no longer exited.

Try a search on DU.

[mopinko]

10. he didnt die, he started it.

and iirc, was still around in '12 at least, pushing for bernie to primary obama.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

11. No, he didn't start it

Check In Memoriam, he died in 2015.
The founders of the site named it after him in 2016 after Bernie lost the primary.

[mopinko]

12. i believe it was started in 09, tho.

13 latest.

[Gore1FL]

14. It was a response to the DU environment of the 2016 election. nt

[mopinko]

15. no.

it was well before that. i believe it was after '08. i was a mod at the time, and mods were long gone by '16.

[Elessar Zappa]

19. It started in '15 or '16.

[XorXor]

25. I've always been under the impression it came about during the 2016 election period

But I've never got into the drama and I typically come and go from here in my "cool detached" way, so I have no doubt I could be wrong about that.

However, a lookup of the domain history on securitytrails.com shows first record of it being 2015-08-27 (7 years). The internet archive first archived it in 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160715000000*/jackpineradicals.com

Perhaps there was different domain used before that?

[Kali]

26. that was a different site

under the tree or something like that

[mopinko]

16. already up and running then-

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/1287625298

[Gore1FL]

23. That isn't my recollection.

I am not sure what the 2020 DU post does to conflict with my memory, but I don't really care when it when up or that it is down now.

[Fla Dem]

13. Thanks, I was pretty sure that was the case, but didn't think to check "In Memoriam".

[mopinko]

17. was up and running in 16

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/1287625298

[AZSkiffyGeek]

18. EDIT: Looks like it started in 2015

At least that's when the domain was purchased. I don't really remember it getting much traction until 2016, when the Busters started gloating about all the great things they could say there that would get them banned here, and they exodus when they were told to support Hillary or leave.

[PJMcK]

22. The sort-of mass exodus is what I remember

Thankis for putting in into perspective.

I think it's weird that people could get so deeply upset over an internet bulletin/chat board.

Have a good week.

[wnylib]

28. In 2008? Wasn't that Obama vs Hillary?

Bernie vs Hillary was 2016.

[Fla Dem]

30. You're correct.

[demtenjeep]

20. not worth the trouble

best to let them stir in their own hive

[LetMyPeopleVote]

21. I remember that a large number of members of that board applauding the booing of John Lewis

I was a Clinton delegate to the 2016 National Convention and the Clinton campaign had a "whipping infrastructure" in place in case of floor vote fights. My whip warned me 20 to 30 minutes in advance of the planned stunt by the Sanders campaign to boo John Lewis. Elijah Cummings, Stacy Abrams and a number of other speakers were booked as part of planned stunts and my whip warned me acht time this happen According to my Whip, Sanders was asked to stop this stunt and declined.

I checked and I found an archive of this JRP thread
https://jackpineradicals.com/boards/topic/hey-john-lewis-karmas-a-mf-aint-it/

Hey John Lewis; karma's a MF, ain't it?
When you had the chance to get behind a true progressive in the primaries, you pretended you had no idea who he was. Not only that, you did so in a press conference in order to show your allegiance to Hillary “bring them to heel” Clinton. Yep. You sold your legacy of police beatings and marches for civil rights with MLK to align yourself with the biggest corporate sellout loser candidate the dems have ever run. “Why would you have done such a thing?” people may wonder. Well, I’m sure it has nothing to do with attaining more power in an already corrupt system that you don’t seem to have a problem with now that you’re a part of it. So when you take to the stage and claim that Trump isn’t a “legitimate” president, not only are you wrong, you’re also to blame for his having been elected in the first place. You and every other sellout in the party can all go fuck yourselves. And please do so in a place that’s far away from any levers of power.

There was good DU thread a while back where the posts on JPR were copied and pasted
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10028476265
The people who posted on JPR about the booing of John Lewis are sad and sick people.

[Hortensis]

35. LEFT WING AUTHORITARIANS. I believe that's what Nancegreggs

was trying to describe then but didn't have the vocabulary for. And I. The tRumpists are very heavily made up of RW authoritarians, but back then research hadn't definitively identified a LW version.

I had posted a few times about what I hinted at as an "authoritarian whiff" coming from the Sanders camp and from his more antagonistic zealots on DU, more like reek from some of his unconstrained off-DU followers. (We're not talking about those who favored Sanders in the primary but intended to vote for whoever became the Democratic candidate.)

Their attitudes reflected the typical strong authoritarian hostility to anyone who didn't support their leader and an equally identifying uber strong loyalty, even adoration, for a leader himself, elevating the leader over goals and principles -- and notably over any democracy that gets in the way. There were strong, unmistakable resemblances between a lot of their behaviors and those of tRump's zealots. Such as support from both sides for imprisoning the virulently demonized political opponent and stealing the election. (Btw, authoritarian behaviors do have a lot of overlap with those of aggressive populists, and both tRump and Sanders waged populist campaigns; but being part of a populist movement need not mean being authoritarian.)

Well, since then, research has confirmed there is such a thing as LW authoritarian personality, which is being studied further. Fwiw, the traits are believed to manifest "weaker" on the left, including being not as viciously violent, and probably show up among a smaller percentage. Good thing for humanity, not just democracy.

Left-wing authoritarians share key psychological traits with far right, Emory study finds
https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/09/esc_left_wing_authoritarians_psychology/campus.html

Large study indicates left-wing authoritarianism exists and is a key predictor of psychological and behavioral outcomes
https://www.psypost.org/2021/06/large-study-indicates-left-wing-authoritarianism-exists-and-is-a-key-predictor-of-psychological-and-behavioral-outcomes-61318

How Experts Overlooked Left-Wing Authoritarianism
https://www.google.com/search?q=left+wing+authoritarianism&rlz=1C1AWFC_enUS924US924&oq=left+wing+authoritarianism&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i512l3j0i22i30l6.8442j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Clarifying the structure and nature of left-wing authoritarianism
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34383522/#:~:text=Relative%20to%20right%2Dwing%20authoritarians,with%20substantial%20centralized%20state%20control.
"We find that LWA, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation reflect a shared constellation of personality traits, cognitive features, beliefs, and motivational values that might be considered the "heart" of authoritarianism. Relative to right-wing authoritarians, left-wing authoritarians were lower in dogmatism and cognitive rigidity, higher in negative emotionality, and expressed stronger support for a political system with substantial centralized state control (Me: As in socialism). Our results also indicate that LWA powerfully predicts behavioral aggression and is strongly correlated with participation in political violence."

[XorXor]

24. I was disappointed when I saw the site was down last time I tried going there

I often times go there and to places like freerepublic just to get the latest unfiltered Kremlin talking points.

Does a anyone know who actually started it? That's actually how I came across this thread. I was trying to figure that out after I realized the site was still down.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

29. If you really want to see a bunch of unfiltered Kremlin bots, go here,

https://hide5politics.com/viewforum.php?f=2

but make sure you're wearing an NBC suit because the place is toxic.

[XorXor]

34. Ohh, I've never heard of that forum before.

I'll have to add that to my list of sites I use to conduct my studies

[BluesRunTheGame]

33. Be interesting to see a history of these spin-off sites.

Before JPR there was People4Change ( I think they were disgruntled Deaniacs ). There was the Under the (?) Tree site mentioned up-thread. And there were a couple others I can’t remember. At one point a couple of the spin-offs merged into a single site. I’ve checked all of them out and never found them to be as active or interesting as DU.