some sort of solace here. Welcome.

I live in a blue state, but I too appreciate the opportunity to learn and have dialogue.

I so agree that DU is a refuge, and a place to vent.

I've been here since 2005 and it's the first place I check into when I get up every morning.

I'm glad you're here.........along with so many good people!

...put aside paranoia and joined up in 2002. Hunter is a real life name, so I must have been feeling exceptionally brave (or foolish) that day.

I've lost family and friends to suicide.

That must have required some recovery time. I have lost family, too, but to ugly diseases--a few too many glioblastomas for my tastes, but it's not like anyone chose to get it. Suicide has a thousand causes, 990 of which are depression, an affliction far too often misdiagnosed and untreated.

I joined DU a year after she did, have seen MANY "warts" come and go. LOTS of one-trick ponies and one-track minds, but also some really good people (Peggy, Nance, a few others) that make it a place I still come back to. Festering wounds WILL attract lice, but wounds can be treated, too.

you are, along with Peggy, Nance and a couple others that I read here, who have the best and kindest posts that give me hope for humanity.
Moments of clarity.

DU is my home page from where I travel on the internet.
Thank you all.

i came here after the shock of shrub v gore. been here since . here we go again. i found like people here at least and in my community.

I love DU still.

day. I come and go here frequently, browsing, smiling, startled, nodding in agreement, frothing in indignation, refreshed, educated, befuddled, bemused, bewildered. But the greatest feeling I have is thankfulness for DU's existence and the members who populate its spaces.

thanks for being there.

I found myself nodding in agreement throughout that post!

After "the scream" I just got disgusted and wandered away.
Just recently I came back with a new name (couldn't remember what user name I had used, didn't remember password, had changed email servers, and was generally unable to discover/recover my original identity here.)

So somewhere in the database there is an "inactive" user who posted lots of enthusiastic stuff about Howard Dean way back when, and then disappeared. That might be me.

I didn't join until I really absolutely had to make a comment, lol! I shudder to remember the terrible internets in the early days, especially because I live in a very rural area. Most of my time was spent page loading!

You realize you are not alone.

Took me many years to post on a regular basis.

One thing I know, this is a place to come and vent.

There are nuances here that I don;t get in other places.

A good friend turned me onto DU in 2002 when Bush started beating the war drums, and I've never left.

I joined in '04 during the Plame investigation. I thought that and the Iraq war was the most horrific thing I'd ever seen from a US government. I came here for hope that the criminals would meet justice. Alas it was not to be. I left DU and worked on myself privately.

But then we got 8 years of a president who for the most part made me proud again. And hopeful. I was shocked at the racism, partisanship and all the rest. But everything seemed on the right track.

After the 2016 elections (and the unspeakable misogyny it seemed to rubber-stamp, along with more racism and other sickening facets of our society), I was again devastated. I tried to move on. I quit watching politics on TV for 6 months for my own sanity. Even NPR, nothing that might mention the monster in our White House. I took up learning French. I concentrated on other things.

But this blatant treason is more than I can bear. Once again I turned to DU for hope and early news of a fair and just end to this nightmare. I'm a bit obsessed, which I know is not healthy, because there's a chance this might not end the way (most Americans and most of the world) hope.

But you all give me something to cling to, like a life raft from a sinking ship. If nothing else, it's comforting to know there are so many who feel like I do. Thanks for being here.

The first place I went to was a web site called whitehouse.com or .org, I don't remember. Somehow that domain name had slipped by the White House, and it was a big part of that early W. resistance. I became and activist, supporting Howard Dean. I of course did this in D.C., so I was preaching to the choir. I did canvass and campaign though, especially in New Hampshire and in Ohio.

So D.U. is it for me today. Sometimes I post in the wrong forums because I am not very detail oriented as to the rules, but I love D.U. It is therapy for me.

I am not an activist anymore, at least not the way I used to be. I am in a delicate job position, where everything I say and do could possibly receive media attention (I am published). That's one of the reasons I stay away from social media. I won't say what I do today, but at the time I was publicly protesting against W., and supporting Dean, my office was within the IMF (not the Tom Cruise IMF, but the real one

so much was going on at the time, it was refreshing to see such highly knowledgeable, intelligent and caring community. I then left and never posted until trump got elected. It goes on to show that so many democrats became complacent during Obama years that no one thought we could ever go back. It really makes me feel nostalgic how good 2008 presidential cmapaign was played out - everyone followed the rules. Palin was wacky but she was dumb as a duck so few people were taking her seriously and the media did a good job showcasig her utter dumbness and uselessness. It was mccain at the top of the ticket so character did matter back then. And I rememeber how much I hated McCain back then - and now he is almost a 'good' guy, I don't hate him at all anymore.

No one on DU was in denial about trump's strong chance of winning while virtually all of my friends were convinced Hillary would win in a landslide and were in complete shock on election night. And, mind you, this was after Comey thing when I said to my friends - 'are you ready for president trump?!' My comment was dismissed completely - 'people are not that stupid'.

DU got hacked on election day; I felt like I knew what was gonna happen a few hours later. Things have been getting worse progressively every single day since then and having DU community really helps to go forward knowing how many people out there have exact same thoughts and worries.

I will say that back in 2008, DU was almost unanimous in supporting Obama in the primaries. Hillary had no chance. I remember thinking how she voted for the war in iraq which made her unelectable against obama. I had precisely zero interest in her and it took many years for me to respect her again.
In 2016, DU was not nearly as unanimius for Hillary as they were for Barack back then. Make no mistake, Sanders had fundamentally fractured our party vote leading up to trump election. The effects are still felt and may even affect both 2018 and 2020 elections. I see a lot of posts on how we hate those who voted for trump. I don't hate any of them. The real enemies are those who did not vote at all or voted third party knowing it was a waste. Back in 2008 everyone showed up to vote for Obama, it was pure love.

I'm feeling less welcome and less interested in DU every day. I check in daily as a group host because I'm responsible, not because there's solidarity here anymore.

The intra-party squabbles leftover from 2016 are incredibly destructive. I'm horrified at the lack of focus on 2018.

I'm glad though that you've found a circle of love here.

The day of W's inauguration when I saw a guy on TV carrying a banner with a link to this website.

DU does provide some respite from the daily chaos.

Thanks to all for the slice of sanity!

I couldn't believe we made a huge mistake a second time.

I appreciate your post.

and often find some here at DU.

Thank you for reminding us to be mindful of that and to show our sincere appreciation for this rare island of intelligent discussion, quality news analysis and general sanity.

It certainly helped me get through the 2nd Obama election. The whole Romney and Ryan thing was putrid!

There are very few of us left from the early days. A lot of them moved on. (To where? I'm not sure I want to know. I can't imagine finding somewhere else what I found here...) And far too many have died.

But I'm not going anywhere. We DU-ers need each other now more than ever...

Really don't know what I'd do without DU. Can barely even watch MSNBC anymore because they keep showing trump's face. I have to get my news here.
It is good to know there are people of like mind here.

DU was two or three months old when I found the place. It's the first place I check in the morning and the last place I check before I bail out for the night.

if not for DU. That feeling of isolation can really take you to a bad place. Knowing there kindred spirits who are capable of EMPATHY, as well as sympathy, goes a long way to making things bearable in this screwed up world.

We all appreciate YOU as well!

I grew up in Longview. Just curious if you're from near there.

I've been on DU for many years--can't remember how many. My hubby found it first, and I followed shortly after.

As frustrated as I sometimes get with some of the squabbling, I like that people mostly realize that we're all on the same side--the side of sanity, humaneness, and common sense.

That's when I discovered DU...it's been a source of inspiration and information ever since.

families have. DU literally saved my home & my cats in 2012 and for that I will be forever grateful. Now that I'm in much better financial shape, I try to pay it forward as much as I can. DU helped me through the death of my mom, husband, and a few feline family members. DU is my political "safe place" and I didn't realize just how much I relied on all of you until DU was hacked and was down for what seemed like forever. I felt disoriented and adrift, and was so very relieved when it went back online.

Thank you to everybody.

This is my second idiot president--are ALL repugs lame-brained?--but the Obama years were a constant beacon of hope.

The coarsening of politics began with Ronald Ray-gun, and has been handed down from Thug to Thug. This anomaly had to be nurtured by the steady stream of lies and hate from piss-ants playing politics. People reflect how they live, and any right-wing venue is awash with slime: try dropping the "n-word" at a tea bagger rally and watch the faces light up. But of course they're not racist. Right. People reflect how they live, and that's reflected in the slow rotting of the consciences of right-wing pontificaters who have brain-washed what little brains with which Americans have remaining, all while pandering to deluded religious simpletons.

We're told that politics has always been a brutal playing field, but I have seen the fish "rot from the head down." Carter was right.

I've been here since the selection of Bush.

I don't know where exactly you are but I'm in NE Texas too. You're not alone. If you're on Facebook there are secret dem/liberal groups that are for East Texas if you're interested.

We appreciate you too!