Fires are burning this primary season. The smoke is overwhelming.

[Ninga]

Burning bridges is the cause of the overwhelming smoke...smoke clouds the vision.

Burned bridges permanently removes the ability to retrace steps and reconsider the path not taken.

I have not racked up big numbers of discussions here at DU - I've only been here since 2003. But I sure have seen a lot, heard a lot and changed my views a lot.

I check in with DU everyday and can not figure out for the life of me what this place will sound like once the Democratic nominee has been settled on...

Will hate continue to reign? Will passions subside and be replaced with apathy? Will people go away, never to return and post again?

Will a Republican win in the fall and give us Citizens United Part Two? Replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a female Anton Scalia or Clarence Thomas?

All of the yelling and screeching and name calling and he said/she said going on now, foreshadows passionate people staying home on election day - because burned bridges will do that.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. During revolutions things tend to get burned.

If the establishment wins, those get written into the history books as 'riots' and 'criminal acts'. If the revolutionaries win, they get written as 'elements' or 'tools' of changing a corrupt status quo.

How will DU sound after a nominee is chosen? It'll all be one-sided. Because the Terms of Service so dictate, and those who oppose will wind up banned, or, as you put it simply fading away, to reappear in places where expressing themselves about the flaws either candidate has (and both are flawed, mainly in different ways, although both do also share a few flaws) is not forbidden by site administration.

Will Republicans win in the fall? They just might, if we wind up with a weak nominee who cannot win over enough votes from the other nominee's supporters. Will we be running the general on a campaign of 'Hey, the Republicans suck worse!'? To me, that seems like a really lousy strategy that guarantees a defeat, but others obviously disagree.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. The important thing is, Phyrrus won.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. And, btw, I use the term 'revolution' narrowly.

A lot of people are getting pedantic about whether or not Sanders' 'revolution' is 'all that revolutionary' or 'radical' because he doesn't support the specific radical or revolutionary items they personally care about most.

But where it's 'revolutionary' is in describing a revolt within the Democratic Party from a large faction of voters on the left who are tired of triangulation politics and an ever rightward drift of the Party. Not a specific radical agenda.

[Ninga]

4. Honey catches more flies than vinegar. Right now at this moment I've not seen much honey.

In my view the discourse here is not building, but tearing down. That, coupled with silly season responses, only serve to make those who seriously are weighing their options...just want to go away.

[NurseJackie]

5. The number of people who "stay home on election day" because they're ...

... upset with the words of anonymous posters on an Internet web site are far fewer than you may imagine. This web site, and its participants do not accurately represent the real world. It's a closed ecosystem, a safe and temperate coral reef that (to its inhabitants) represents the entirety and totality of all the world's oceans. Spend too much time here, and it's easy to assume that the the ratio of Sanders and Clinton supporters is exactly the same in the outside world. It's not.

I think you're worrying unnecessarily. Common sense and cooler heads will prevail. All will be fine.

Hang in there!

[Ninga]

6. Thanks NurseJackie! I am by nature a worry wart. I can't help but

think about the usually miserably low turnout for elections.

[MisterP]

7. this rhetoric all would work had BIden and Brock not *given* us Thomas