This email I got in January was from some part of Daily Kos1 asking me to come and write a post describing if and why I have switched from one of the Democratic candidates for President to the other. Since I hadn’t, I tossed it into the infinite expanse of my email archive with all the rest, and didn’t think of it again.
For some reason, it popped up again on my phone over the weekend. Since I am thinking of posting a series on the Year Without A Summer, I decided to take the temperature of Daily Kos by poking around for the first time in awhile.
I wasn’t surprised by all the internecine animosity—that’s just primary season—but there seems to be a looming editorial crackdown underway, too. I know that’s not unprecedented, but now I have to assess the climate of the site anew, before posting anything, even that essay series. It’s annoying and counterprogressive to have to second-guess speech.
Anyway. Here’s my simple take. Daily Kos was founded, rather famously, to elect “more and better Democrats”.
One of the candidates was recently an Independent, and became a Democrat. That at least boosts the “more Democrats” by one.
This candidate is known primarily for New Deal and European-style socialist positions, whereas the other one is not. I still see that as arguably a “better Democrat”.
So in the primary, I’m voting for that more and better one. In the general, I’ll be voting for the Democrat.
That’s it. No need for nuance on the top of the ticket, with how it works and all. Channeling much of the more useless Sturm und Drang into the more useful downticket efforts is still something DK does well, and I hope that’s where most active members will focus their time.
Of course, these efforts have to be inspired by genuine esprit, and not distracted by a false morale.
1campaigns@dailykos.com via mail.salsalabs.net, January 21, 2016; referring to this post from Meteor Blades.