Continuing the discussion about adding a couple of new forums to DU [View all]

[EarlG]

Hi all,

I previously floated the idea that we should open a new forum to discuss the future of the Democratic Party. That thread received a lot of positive responses, and a lot of good name suggestions. Given that most of the suggestions recommended a forward-looking approach, I'm currently considering that we call this forum The Way Forward. I'm still working on a Statement of Purpose, but I think this new forum is a good idea, and something we will do early in the new year.

I'm also going to propose an idea for a second new forum. Here's the deal. The fact is that the noise-to-signal ratio in American politics is off the charts right now, and as we all know, this is something that Donald Trump relishes in, and uses (effectively, unfortunately) to keep his supporters in line and his opponents off balance.

My proposal is that we open a new top-level forum solely for the discussion of whatever the latest Trump BS may be, and I suggest that we call this forum Latest Trump BS. What do I mean by latest Trump BS? I mean anything that he spews out to troll, distract, misinform, or float as a trial balloon, as opposed to things his administration is actually doing in real life.

For example, a news story about a late-night tweet from Trump suggesting that we take over Greenland would be perfect for the Latest Trump BS forum. However, a news story about about Donald Trump directing the Joint Chiefs of Staff to start drawing up invasion plans for Greenland would be more appropriate in General Discussion or Latest Breaking News.

Currently we are set up to treat these stories as if they are the same thing, and so General Discussion gets a mashup of content which mixes Trump's brain farts with his actual policies and actions. But really, they are not the same thing at all, and this seems to be the conundrum that American media is currently struggling with. Because Trump will be president, every single thing he says is treated as if it's newsworthy, even if most of the things he says are more reminiscent of someone's drunk uncle propping up the end of the bar.

Like it or not, we are stuck with Trump for another four years, Meanwhile, Trump fatigue is real -- most of us are suffering from it even now, and he hasn't even been inaugurated yet. But we can't NOT talk about Trump for the next four years -- this is a political website, and Donald Trump will be the president.

The idea of this new top-level forum would be to try to separate the noise from the signal -- to provide a place where those who wish to engage with the latest Trump BS are free to do so (I have no criticism of anyone who would want to do that), while those who would like to engage in discussions of the actual real-world ramifications of Trump's actual policies, while avoiding much of the other extraneous BS should they choose to do so, can use GD or LBN.

This would require some finesse, attention from Forum Hosts, and some patience while we work to figure out what goes where, but I think that it might be doable.

That said, we might try it and find out that it's impractical. It might not be easy to figure out which threads should go where, and that might lead to annoyance and confusion among the membership in general.

And so, I present this idea for your consideration. What do you think?