The rec list is mostly sniveling pearl clutching and hand wringing about how terrible Bernie Sanders and his supporters are. The thinkers and the protesters and the rabble and the hippies have all but left. Without their counterbalance this place is becoming an echo chamber. The owner has drunk the kool aid and now leads a parade of unquestioning soldiers of the established order. This site has largely become a bastion of selective blindness and wishful thinking, where great feats of acrobatic reasoning provide defense of the indefensible alongside condemnation of the disloyal who dare to point to the elephant in the room (which shall remain stubbornly invisible), while, ironically, dreams of progressive endorsement are encouraged. Ironic, because it’s quite obvious the left isn’t really invited to the party any more. Increasingly, progressive people have begun to reject the usual routine that’s been played for the last 25 years, of lip service from campaigns, then dismissal when it’s time for actual policy discussions. Raising that point is inconvenient for those whose tenure that routine ensures, and it’s no surprise the response would be a fierce, and necessarily dismissive defense. The surprise is the extent to which dailykos has become part of the army of that defense, and the war that they’ve declared as a result, on an integral and longtime (and not small) part of their own community, in an apparent effort to stomp out dissent. This has attracted legions of mindless followers to fill the vacuum. The methods of these legions have a vague familiarity – for instance, the projection of their weaknesses on the challenger, while attacking that challenger on his strengths. It has fundamentally altered the feel and content of this site, and reduced the amount of value and opinions to be found here.