If you can chill out about the debate, then you can certainly chill out about worried DU reactions to the debate [View all]

[Silent3]

This discussion thread was locked by EarlG (a host of the General Discussion forum).

I mean, really.

In what universe is Biden's nationally-televised debate bomb a minor bump in the road, but comments from worried DUers are the thing that's going to bring the Republic crashing down?

Yes, we can recover from the debate. Yes, we're still not at a point where Biden dropping out fixes more problems than it would create.

I do think, however, that the Biden's poor debate performance quite legitimately makes Biden stepping aside a more salient topic of discussion than it was a few days ago, and it's hardy an unforgivable sin of disloyalty and hair-on-fire panic to merely broach the subject.

Too many of you act like it's chatter on DU that's the most powerful force in the election. You may know logically that it isn't, but many of you nevertheless react to and pounce on worriers as if it were.

The way I see it is that, first and foremost, DU is a discussion board.

We want to use DU, of course, to rally the troops and organize real-world action to promote Democrats. Most importantly these days, we want to promote Biden and save the country and the world from the ravages of a second Trump term.

But this place is still a discussion board first and foremost. And it's a perfectly natural human thing to want to discuss one's worries and fears as well as hopes and encouragement.

Someone here recently demanded that we "sell sell sell the fucking message", as if it's the job of everyone on DU to not engage in a discussion where a variety of views are expressed, but only to gather together to give sales pitches and pep talks to each other.

I vehemently reject point of view, and the related out-sized concerns that people expressing worry and despair on DU is a danger to the election that cannot be tolerated.

From the biggest think-positive cheerleaders on DU to the shakiest worrywarts, I think nearly every DUer (actual trolls aside, which are probably far fewer than the paranoid among us imagine) is prepared to crawl through broken glass in hail storm to vote for Biden, even if they live in a deep red state where their vote probably won't matter. Just to know we cast that vote is deeply important to most of us here, no matter where we live on the optimism/pessimism spectrum.

Yet some of you react like every expression of concern is the same thing as saying "I've given up, and I want you to give up too".

The knee-jerk reaction of "Don't worry! GOTV!" is treated as a pearl of great wisdom when it's merely a false dichotomy.

We aren't all obligated to belong to the cult of positive thinking, treating positive thinking as a magical force that wins all battles, and treating worry and fear as bad mojo that breaks the magical spell.

For those of you into the positive thinking thing, knock yourselves out with that. But don't act like it's everyone else's duty to play that game with you.