This is the (sniff sniff) hardest (sniff, snotty snort) thing I've ever had to do in (sniff, sobbing) in MY LIFE! Eh, not really. Online Communities come and go, the circumstance changes, you change, something better comes along or you simply get tired of the B.S. And you leave. For me it is a mixture of all those things tugging at me as I type the words, Goodbye Daily Kos.
Yeah, it is one of those diaries. Afraid to say. I promise you this won't be completely self-serving, although not entirely free of self-service. I am writing about Me after all and I'd have to be some great, inhuman literary genius to divorce myself entirely from the portraits I paint.
I've read Daily Kos (and will probably continue to) since 2006 during the Dark Years of the Bush Administration. When hope was in precious short supply and it became necessary to seek out like minds lest I go completely crazy from despair. I started actively posting on Daily Kos last year during the height of the Primary Battles between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Partly I was a wild-eyed partisan who clung to Barack Obama with the last few strands of uncynical fiber in my being. Mostly though I was afraid of what might happen if the Democratic Party nerfed this one as it was often want to do and once again, somehow, turned the Presidency over to another Republican Administration. So, I thought, I better start getting involved. I am a man of few talents -- writing seems to be one of the few. If by blogging and volunteering I could help the cause -- well, my cause; not another Republican President -- then I could help, I could do something.
And we did things, Dear Kossacks, great and terrible and wondrous things. Despite the sizable idiosyncrasies of the community, We Did Something on November 4th, 2008. Or at least helped.
But since then -- really since the late days of the TARP I debate -- the idiosyncrasies feel as though they are overwhelming the ship and threatening to top the decks. Every day since November 5th I've looked at the Wreck List and groaned audibly. Then I looked at the Recent Diaries list and groaned even louder. A groan that rumbled somewhere deep inside me and came out accompanied by a quiet whisper, This is not the trip I signed up for.
This is what Daily Kos has become to me ... a trip I did not sign up for, a scene that I want no part of and occasionally feel ashamed to be around. I'm not an "anti-corporatist", I'm not much of a socialist, I really don't want to tear down the economic order, I found Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine kind of a tepid read that failed to change my life, and I don't think Barack Obama has failed.
If that's the kind of community a plurality of you want -- one where Shock Doctrine is Noun, Verb, and Adjective and a known batshit crazy conspiracy theorist makes the Rec List day after day -- well, more power to you. Good luck with that and all. Not really my scene however.
I'm not saying Goodbye Forever. I'm saying Goodbye for Now.
In the meantime, you can catch me on Twitter, and I have a screenwriting career that has been sitting at idle since 2008 that I really need to focus on jump starting. Anyone want a script? I've got 'em! Two for one! Got them spider bags!
Adieu, and remember, DBAA MoFos