When someone leaves DU and posts a GBCW post,

[cui bono]

85. I think it's more about the general poor treatment that certain issues gets from DU than

about them being treated poorly personally.

For example, redqueen was outspoken on feminist issues and there is a contingent of anti-feminism people on here who insist on going into threads and continue the backwards thinking about women and women's issues. This is really something that one would think would not be tolerated on DU, just as blatant racism is not (I believe it is not tolerated, though some people don't believe white privilege exists which is astounding, but you don't get to post pics of out and out racism on here and have them vigorously defended and not have the thread locked as has happened with the objectification of women OPs).

It's not just feminism, it's the aforementioned white privilege stances, the homophobic stances, the bullying. I swear when there are threads about bullying in the general society everyone thinks it's just awful, but I bet some of those same people are on here bullying other DUers because they said something they didn't like.

It gets tiring to be on a board that is so conservative at times when it purports to be a board about Democrats and presumably Democratic Party principles, presumably because too many on here are playing party politics and simply defending the actions of anyone who decided to put a "D" after their name rather than stand up for progressive principles.

That's another reason people get sick of DU. It gets tiring to have people ridicule well thought out posts that are about defending principles that we should all stand for just because by doing so one criticizes Dems who are in power. And because of that the person defending democratic principles gets treated to snark, being called names and a barrage of smilies while the posts have nothing of any substance in them at all. That comes down to whether you do politics as a "team player" or as a principled analyst. The team players tend to not respond to issues, just to the criticism. They attack the messenger - be it a reporter or a DUer - rather than discuss the issues. These methods are taken out of the GOP/Rove/Teabagger playbook. They are. And they are employed on here on a regular basis. There are things that should be completely disallowed but DU would rather be moderated by a malfunctioning jury system. So be it.

The conservative stances and the conservative methods are enough to drive any thoughtful poster from this site. Most people seem to deal with it in various ways - ignore function or standing up to it. Some choose to leave it.