What do Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore and Bill Clinton have in common?

[Tom Rinaldo]

59. I'm kind of out of time for now

I want to give your reply the attention it deserves but this is a quickie I will try to return to later.

Hillary supporters got a lot of real crap on DU during the primaries. So did Bernie supporters be the way but we all mostly remember "incoming". It all left scars. I have an interesting history regarding this. For most of the 2008 primary season I was backing Hillary on DU. I switched to Obama when it became really obvious to me Hillary couldn't win (right after she lost the Oregon primary). I was a very active and pretty effective advocate for Hillary though neither she nor Obama were among my initial top choices for the nomination. So I was just detached enough to keep some perspective. The attacks back and forth were vicious.

Because I was a strong Clinton advocate initially I blogged alongside some who were really devoted to her. Some of them were really angry with me for acknowledging before Hillary conceded that she could not win. Some of them went on to become PUMAs (Party Unity My Ass) and they never were able to back Obama - even Hillary becoming Secretary of State wasn't enough for some of them. But DU moved on.

This time around I think most of the DUers who really could not stand Hillary are gone from here now, some voluntarily and some non voluntarily. For the most part the few that remain just don't go there anymore with Hillary. We still all argue over the future of the Party at DU but that is something that should be debated.

There are some pro Hillary threads still posted at DU, and for the most part they don't get trashed anymore. They don't turn into 200 post marathons with the same group of posters barging in to repeat talking points against Hillary, even though she too remains a controversial figure to many. If the pro Bernie threads at DU were mostly ignored by those who don't respect him - not completely mind you, just merely not swarmed over. This place would settle down a lot. What draws out the knives always is when someone who has a strong following on DU gets repeatedly attacked.

I have gotten more involved, posting threads like this one, because of that. Negative threads bread negative discussions, breed negative feelings, breed more negative threads, then also more "in your face" positive ones. It's a viscous circle and we are in that now. I have taken some pains in this thread to acknowledge that Bernie has flaws and that Hillary has strengths.

I've been through the DU Dean/Clark primary wars, and the DU Clark/Edwards primary wars, and the DU Obama/Clinton primary wars and then the DU Clinton/Sanders primary war. I've seen hard feelings linger - but never before have I seen such sustained overt attacks against a leading figure on our side as this time, months after the elections all are over

I'll repeat something I wrote earlier. Sure Sanders is fair game for reasonable criticism, but why is he the second most vilified political figure on DU, by a mile, while the Republican Party is destroying our nation? Simply stated may I suggest that it is counter productive.