Inspired by Angry Mouse's conversion diary on dkos, I decided to come over to MyDD to see how thing's were going. I've been gone for a while, which is sad really because MyDD was where I first waded into political waters on the Internet. But I'm back now, and I felt as though this were a good time to write my first diary here.
I lurked for over a year here before I decided to join the conversation. At first, I saw it more as a source of information than anything else. Finally moved by irritation to speak up, I realized quickly that I had chosen the wrong time to become a vocal part of the community. Presidential politics stir passions like little else in politics, and trying to make passionate arguments without having the basic etiquette down, and without having some reputation to stand on, was a frustrating experience. What's more, many of the members and authors I respected the most seemed to be Hillary supporters, and I was most definitely on the ABC (Anybody But Clinton) bandwagon, for reasons that are not particularly relevant to this diary, but it will suffice to say that I was not a big fan of Bill Clinton during his Presidency.
That experience, along with the overt Clinton support, had me spending less and less time here. It's not that I feel the need to be surrounded by people who agree with me all the time, but I became more and more interested in participating, and I found it difficult to find my voice in those circumstances. To the contrary, I'm often considered among the most argumentative personalities on the non-partisan and apolitical message boards and forums I frequent, but the tenor of the discussions in those venues is remarkably different, and I possessed neither the netiquette nor the self-control to discuss Hillary Clinton and her opponents in a constructive manner.
Then in mid-January, I decided to just stop coming here all together. I truly could not understand how you all could support her.
Fast forward to last week. There was some grumbling on dkos about how intolerable MyDD had become. As you can tell, I certainly sympathized with that. But it made me think of all the reasons I really like MyDD: smaller, closer community; in depth, analytical diaries; lively, respectful debate; strong, partisan Democrats; a membership that understands DC in and out. I came over here to see how long it would take me to cringe, and it didn't take long. But I'm starting to feel more comfortable with my voice in the Dem blogosphere now that the cycle has reached its precipice, and I found that I could express what I'm thinking and feeling without being overly abrasive or hiding my loud personality, and doing so made the visit much more tolerable.
So here we are today. Angry Mouse (not sure what her handle is here) wrote quite eloquently on the dilemma of having two historic candidates battle it out in what is an already a chaotic political climate of war, lies, and surveillance tape. Even two ho-hum candidates would likely have us ripping at each other's throats; throw in the two tremendous personas we've been handed and it's no wonder we've all been so butt-hurt these past few months.
I'm not a very sympathetic person, and while the pieces of her diary that touched on seeing the other side's point of view made sense logically, I still cannot truly understand why so many of you (still) support her. But I am definitely glad to be back amongst a group of smart, tough Democrats, and truly hope that, one way or another, this stuff will all be behind us soon and we can start working on electing someone who will start signing good bills and vetoing bad ones.
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