Back before the election, right before "hackers" took us down, I started replying to every shit-stirring post with...

"Please stop, you are not being helpful."

If everyone would start doing this, the hardcore trolls will start to stand out.

you mean detailing truths? See, I like to KNOW what's in my milk shake - not just obediently slurp it down and smile a grin of solidarity. When I was in the military, I had to march in lockstep with my fellow servicemen - I understood the purpose of that. But if an NCO marched us into a swamp (Remember when just such a tragedy took some Marine's lives some years ago?), there was no choice but to stay with the group. I don't have a commitment to do that now. I rarely start threads for ANY reason - let alone for the sake of agitation. But stand up for truths or against contorted facts - yeah - I'm guilty. Guess that makes me one of them "hardcore trolls" you're sure are in your closet.

"Please stop" is good, but it would keep bad threads from dropping and disappearing, which they can do very quickly if ignored.

Imo, better would be Starsky's approach. We are innundated with malicious intruders, both amateur and professional, and letting them stand out often enough to identify would be a wonderful thing.

Adding to that, commenting on worthwhile threads, a positive, would also move those up and the dumpster fires down.

is the intelligent way to go here? Have you ever read about the radar operators who picked up a swarm of planes coming towards Hawaii ? They called their superior to report what they were looking at and the superior dismissed it as a glitch OR a group of American bombers they were expecting from the mainland. He told the operators to shut down and go to breakfast.

I'm registered as a Democrat, but I'm beginning to doubt I am. I ask too many questions.

You offer two here, but the first one is a discard as it's not really meant to elicit information. You might examine it for purpose to see what I mean.

Fwiw, the answer to the second is yes. I give that bit of information freely but question its value to development of knowledge, much less eventual contribution to wisdom.

Saves a tremendous amount of time and sanity.

Waste of time.

Helping Trump get elected once just wasn't enough.

and so on.

Now even that awesome guy Steyer is backing someone after Feinstein's seat, does even HE not understand how seniority works?

sigh

If they would just stop attacking democrats.

So sad to see people purposely misunderstand how seniority and experience works in the Senate. In the House as well. I think the anti mainstream dem folks actually want mainstream dems to lose.

how the system works.

use or apply in life, work or politics. That's not to say that a senior person can't be a better person than others not so senior -- but it depends on skill and ability, not longevity in my book.

And just so you know, I don't have an issue with ZPelosi. She's been great overall and would be a great Speaker again should that come to pass.

Here in WA we used to have a powerful majority leader, and we saw the loss of influence when we lost him.

Go ahead, CA, shoot yourselves in the foot.

UPDATE: No, don't. We also need leaders who know the ropes and can work the system. Her ability to do so is all we have to keep DT in check.

Unions are a good example of where seniority is fairly applied, i.e., as a deciding factor when all else is equal (job description/history and acceptable/adequate performance). That's not the case with Speaker role or any other high level organizational/institutional leadership role. Two different things.

You can of course, support this premise of yours with objective evidence illustrating precisely how a union's use of seniority is not in any form, used my the Democratic leadership in CA, yes?

Otherwise, your allegation is merely another bumper-sticker.

seniority is used in the CA Dem Party then? Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps you can clarify that piece for me.

It's hard for many to accept that inevitable change.

Bernie has a lot of new ideas that a lot of golden oldies think "can't be done."

We shall see.

The changes we face are sparked by social problems like racism, lack of healthcare among many others as well as environmental challenges and technological advances.

As a result, politics must, inevitably change too.

The question is whether we can work together, especially we who are Democrats, discuss the issues without hate, without holding onto the ideas of the past when they haven't worked and forge our way into the future. To do that, we need to discuss all kinds of ideas without fear and without snark. It's important that we not simply censor people who bring us new ideas based on who they are rather than on what they are presenting to us.

Being fair in this way is a challenge. Not everyone is capable of it. But if we don't meet this challenge, if we indulge in knee-jerk reactions and hatred against people, especially if they are working on our side in general, we will allow our nation to succumb to people who offer quick, easy answers.

Personally, I think that is why we ended up with Trump. Our entire Democratic Party, on all sides at the grassroots level, succumbed to anger at others who dared to support whichever candidate we didn't like.

Germany's democratic forces did that when they faced the challenges that required change after WWI. They divided and did not embrace each other. They failed. They failed to win elections. They failed to offer appealing answers to the challenges of their nation.

Let's don't fall into that trap. I see that reaction very strongly here but also on other angry websites.

Focusing on past rivalries, infighting, blaming each other, snarking and closing our ears and minds to new ideas and new people will not help us solve the serious problems that face us.

Bernie and Hillary are just two people offering ideas and solutions. In our democracy, we need to listen to all voices, not just theirs, but also both of theirs, listen and think about their ideas and then maybe we will find solutions.

Dismissing someone who is offering ideas and solutions is just a huge, huge mistake.

Don't mean to insult, but I think we have a lot to gain as a nation by keeping open minds and considering the ideas of a wide variety of people.

And above all, we have to maintain even when it hurts, receptivity and acceptance of people who may have hurt us in the past. Holding on to anger is not just harmful to a political cause, it is very unhealthy.

Our primary focus should be on bringing Democrats and Independents who lean Democratic together to win in 2020. We cannot have another four years of Trump. But we have to be united if we are to succeed and win in 2020.

Therefore, we have to really change our focus from wanting to be right to wanting to find the right solutions for our country including finding the right candidate for 2020. We should welcome any liberal who wants to try.

Sanders campaign was based on a promised voter revolution https://www.vox.com/2016/2/21/11081086/bernie-sanders-nevada

at the Democratic national convention.

How do you think he did that? It is quite a large number of delegates.

Was it his ideas? His voice? His personality? What was it?

Hillary won about 3 million more votes than Trump in the final election.

Here in California, Hillary won big, but our votes only count a fraction of the vote of people in smaller states.

We do need some changes in this country, lots of changes. And we should start by ending the electoral college and electing the president directly. Originally we did not elect our senators directly. We changed that. We can change and end the electoral college.

The bitterness about Trump's electoral college win should be changed to a movement to end the electoral college. Twice in this century we have had to deal with a president appointed who did not win the popular vote. Twice. That's too often.

If the energy put into refighting the Democratic primary were put into ending the electoral college, Democrats would be way ahead. We need to unite our Democratic Party and making our presidential elections truly representative of the votes of all the people would be a good way to do it. Good for Democrats.

I know that math is hard for some. Sanders got the same amount of vote as Dean did in 2004 or bradley did in 2000. The percentage you cites also include a good number of delegates won in undemocratic caucuses, sanders magical voter revolution was a failure.

Sanders silly proposals needed a voter revolution to work. There was no revolution in the real world. Without a voter revolution, sanders proposals could never becadopted in the real world.

As for the electoral college , the national popular vote interstate compact is making some progress.

Here are some facts for you to ignore https://www.vox.com/2016/4/25/11497822/sanders-political-revolution-vote

To succeed, Sanders might have to drive Americans who don't normally participate to the polls. Unfortunately for him, groups who usually do not vote did not turn out in unusually large numbers in New Hampshire, according to exit polling data.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

...In fact, Sanders won by persuading many habitual Democratic primary voters to support him. With 95 percent of precincts reporting their results as of Wednesday morning, just 241,000 ballots had been cast in the Democratic primary, fewer than the 268,000 projected by New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner last week. Nearly 289,000 voters cast ballots in the state's Democratic primary in 2008.

So, what you yearn for is a "professional" government??? A government that makes the professionals stinking wealthy? Wealthy while we wait to see if they believe we need a break with health care? Really? Tenure?

you don't have to like, but it is what it is. And it is important. Forget the Mr. Smith goes to Washington and other philosophical delusions about how democracy works. Like most ideologies, the real world doesn't quite work that way. Democracy is a process of compromise in order to move agendas forward. Sometimes quickly, sometimes by inches. Ideological purity is like throwing sand in the gears and then wondering why the government isn't working terribly well. That goes for purity on the right as well as the left. Just think would could be accomplished if the nut job...umm..."freedom" caucus would stop being so damn recalcitrant and compromise for the greater good. The same applies to staunch ideologues on the left.

Get THE MONEY out of all three branches and watch how many folks make a career out of it. When we DO get a chance to send fresh blood to DC, what does it say that they have to start serving by spending half their day (OUR day, really!) making phone calls to get money? Manage to stick around long enough, and the donors eventually start calling YOU to give money! Yeah, I'm SO indebted to our millionaire class for the minuscule handouts I get from the VA and SS! I count myself LUCKY I have the freedom to not have access to affordable health care! Those tenured public servants deserve a RAISE - dammit!

but at least have their hearts are in the right place. Beyond that, they're just as destructive to a democracy that actually works.

You are not being helpful.

There are likely trolls who specialize in stirring up racial animosity. They probably study their assigned issues in depth and are intimately associated with the nuances of their particular iarea. If I was running a troll campaign that’s how I’d do it. Be very strategic about it.

a totally legit topic. Multiple posts that are definitely about (re) triggering the Sanders/Clinton thing are posted daily, and they are distractions from a crucial election THIS YEAR.

I really wish they had their own forum as GD is crowded enough, and we focus mainly on new topics on this board. The Sanders/Clinton stuff should go somewhere else.

Gives them a coffee break...

I really don't care anymore, don't pay attention to them at all (don't read, gloss over, thus don't even see)...blah blah blah

Overdone.

I try hard not to feed that ugly beast

I see no purpose in dragging out the discussion any further.

Thank you for stopping the anti/Biden posts.

We didn’t need that—much appreciated.

I just don't read them. 2016 is over.

It is a fast track to my ignore list.

The Koch brothers will invest in both sides in order to promote division and prevent policy from coming to a vote. You can control people by creating a "them vs us" environment. These people that try to provoke turmoil are probably paid shills that infiltrate the DU and other groups to make sure we can never agree amongst ourselves on a path forward that might ultimately remove the big money control from politics.

This is no different than what happened during the primaries. Some posters got us all whipped up on purpose. And after some of them were banned or we became wise to them, they came back in as new users or old dormant accounts reactivated.

she's a private citizen with no further future in elected politics.

Bernie, however, is clearly ramping up for a 2020 run. He's in the news, and is continuously being promoted here at DU.

Posts about Bernie, both supportive and critical, will become more and more common as the 2020 primary contest becomes more active.

Sid

the so-called criticisms as part of his brand, and we’re all supposed to roll over and ask for more. Now there is a real layer to it of the Russia interference that is clearly underplayed...makes you wonder.

with your usual pokes and jabs at a long serving ally of the Democratic party, who is regarded by the administration of DU, for all intents and purposes, as a Democrat. I don't know if you simply can't see the irony, or you just don't care.

thanks for confirming the divisiveness of this thread and what it is really about. It was obvious to me, as well.

And read post #23 that I responded to— there is nothing in it but fact.

to bash Hillary as you do to Bernie? Especially in such a personal way that you stoop to against Bernie. Deciding that everything he does must be for nefarious reasons, and telling as many people as you can your CT opinions.

Sorry but simply defending Bernie, from unfair personal insults, is not anywhere near the same thing as bashing Hillary. No matter how your brain tries to connect them as being the same thing. Its time to stop living in 2015/2016. We need to move forward. And if Bernie insists on helping Democrats win by staying on, even if at times it is with 'tough love', then sorry, you'll have to put up with him.

You? Everything you wrote is more manufactured tripe, and it only serves to confirm the divisiveness of this thread. Great job... It wasn’t hard to figure out what this was about.

Doesn’t the outreach work both ways ??? When does it start?? I’m in California, so Bermont politics don’t mean much to me.

Sorry, you’ll just have to deal with reality. No Fox News type distortions, sorry. Complaining about my party is not helping. Not then, now, or ever. Fail.

And if Bernie would have won the primary I'm sure you'd have been all on board too right? Or what if he actually won the primary for 2020? I can't wait for your admonishing of anyone in here that dares speak out against the Democratic nominee in that case. Personally I think we should have younger, newer blood, and I don't think he'd win it if he tried again regardless, but if he did happen to be the nominee? It might be worth it just to watch some heads explode.

You're from California? Maybe you should try and not insult almost half of your fellow Democrats in that state that supported the other candidate. Almost every major poll was within 2 points heading in. 49% - 47% mostly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Democratic_primary,_2016


And the ironies of all ironies, you wade into the thread with an OP urging NOT bashing either one, with some inflammatory comments about, what else, Sanders being an asshole. And then have the gall to say my calling you out on it, "confirm(s) the divisiveness of this thread"! Talk about 'manufatured' lol.

dictates the content of your posts. You gave many contrived scenarios here of what I may or may not do. Where do you find the time??

Reality only. No Fox News tactics of alternate realities.

Well-earned doubts about Bernie personal. People who voted for Hillary/Demicrats don’t need to be attacked .

Then wants to use the Democratic party as his own personal vehicle.

I stay out of them. Thanks for noticing.

I scan but don't bother with them any more.

Until it fails to produce the desired results for the amount of time, effort, and money put into it.

every single day. I definitely think it is shit stirring as we simply don’t need to have four or five new threads on what is now an old topic taking up space on the GD “front page.” I do think we’ve had some posters join since 2016 who are simply into posting divisive topics for whatever reason rather than focusing on important dem issues for 2018. There are others who have obviously been here a long time and seem to want to discuss this endlessly. I really wish the Bernie/Hillary posts could be given their own forum.

trash, hide, or even ignore!

Yeah annoying, aren't they?

n/t

and your efforts to make it personal just confirms it. Thank you for making it more obvious...

Thank you!

The intent is to keep us distracted from what really matters, right now.

that these posts were brought to you by Putin. We need to be smarter and ignore these divisive posts. Ignore and then VOTE!

How is that helpful? Anything that could have been learned should have been, by now. Perhaps some reexamination will be useful at some point, but I fail to see the good in it now.

still trying to fight the primary?

I think anyone who doesn't want this divisive $hit to continue should do what I do and use the "trash thread" feature.

of the Bernie Group Forum. Announcements of their postings in the Brrnie Group can be made in GD and kicked with regularity. These measures should cut down on the food fights.

It is time for a younger crowd to take over the Dems

Bernie would be 79 when he takes office if he runs and wins in 2020

You want young voters, run a younger candidate that runs on re-entering the The Paris Agreement, strong gun control, and legalizing pot (& on undoing most of what Trump has done)

and someone is trying to distract us from building our big blue wave to elect our candidates in lots of elections across the country.

It's so obvious. And so disappointing that so many DUers are taking the bait.

aren’t real DUers if you catch my drift

but some long time real DUers fall for it a bit too easily.

during the past election cycle. He will definitely be getting a closer and more critical examination as he shows all the signs of running again.

BTW excellent series of posts.

It has helped me identify a few more people to block.

Until then, its just divisive attacks meant to disrupt us before the midterms. I consider any of the people posting anti-Bernie threads before November to basically be helping the Republicans, whether that be deliberate or not.

I trash all of those threads habitually as soon as I wade into GD. I hope others do the same.

followers but it faded pretty fast and Obama was a lot tougher on Hillary than Obama ever was. We know Russia wanted to keep the feud alive for a reason and the fact that it is STILL going on just blows my mind.

Because if you can’t let go of it now you never will, so talking and fighting about it will never be over.

Just move on or don’t. It’s nothing more than a choice.

If the names are there, and the post count is low, I don't click on it.



I concentrate on those who need it for midterms.

I'm not in the Clinton camp but I have a great deal of admiration for her. She has achieved amazing things and broken glass ceilings and having done so, has a very unique level of experience and perspective worthy of being heard and discussed, whether one disagrees with something she says or agrees with it.

When people post negative threads about Sanders sometimes they are legitimate criticisms(I certainly don't think that's always the case, but sometimes) and these are worthwhile discussions to be had today, not because of the 2020 elections which are miles off, but because these are questions of party direction today.

When people post things Sanders proposes or bills Sanders signs onto(typically these posts are pro-Sanders), that seems like a reasonable thing to do as well, since these are policy and direction related issues. How we talk about them at that point is infinitely depressing since the actual proposals are barely addressed except to say "unicorns..." and most of the critical posts are about the man rather than the issues, and we also have the positive posts that bother me as well when there is a blatant fan-boyism that ignores every other person involved in said proposal or legislation to give Sanders a bravo for being the peoples savior. When Sanders signs onto Corey Booker's bill, there's no reason that Sanders name should come before Bookers in a post about how both men are championing decriminalization, and certainly no reason why Booker or any other legislator should be left off a list of names in order to feature Sanders front and center. That is understandably insulting to people, and as such, entirely counter-productive.

For my part, I wish all discussions could be less about the cult of personality (whether pro or con) and more about the specific issue on the table in any given moment, but I reject the idea that these threads should be avoided.

serves no other purpose...it takes more that posting only Bernie rah-rah OP's (and the inevitable apologist responses) to be a contributing member of DU