Well, I'm here just to be somewhere safe [View all]

[Gloria]

I wandered into a thread on Howard Dean that happened to be in the Bernie group and was slammed and blocked in a very NASTY way.
I have written to the group's monitor about the lack of respect.

Frankly, I've just about had it. While many Sanders supporters are nice people, there is a rabid element that is scary.
I've been around long enough to find this sort of thing very unsettling.

Back in 2008, I was not gung ho on Obama. I tend not to get on bandwagons. What I thought was my closest friend, someone very active in politics went full-Obama. When I didn't jump on board, I was literally cut off at the knees.

At the time I was contributing to Buzzflash, which was based in Chicago, so you could expect them to favor Obama. But the site got increasingly pro-Obama AND viciously anti-Clinton. The tone was not unlike what I'm finding here at DU. It finally got so repulsive that I resigned...I wasn't getting paid, but it just got to be too much. I did not want my name associated with that sort of thing.

I've been a member of DU since the start, during Bush II. In the good old days, I don't think things were that divisive. But all the splintering into "groups" seems unnatural to me. I don't look for groups. If I see a topic I find interesting, I just read and post if I feel I want to. So, wandering into a thread on Howard Dean and mistaking it for a general thread isn't that odd. To be banned and called a "sweetie" before summarily being told "Buh-bye" is utterly rude. I simply responded to a derogatory bit about Dean and Clinton by saying that "Clinton has given plenty of policy details..."

Frankly, I'm pretty disgusted. I am thinking of calling the Sanders campaign and telling them about what some of their fans are doing. I feel like asking Maddow about what she thinks of this sort of viciousness. I'm thinking of contacting the Clinton campaign, too...because the vicious nature of some of these people should be considered. I don't trust some of these "Bernie" supporters...are they really just Republicans in disguise???