General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: i really have been out of the political on DU since 2012. got obama, i could step away for a couple [View all]daredtowork
(3,732 posts)the reason the mockery, scorn, insults, and related defensiveness is at such a height is that it was going on far in advance of Hillary's announcement. And I'm not just pinning it on a particular group by picking out Hillary. It's the fact that the Hillary campaign started to seem "inevitable" months ago - so her supporters had ALREADY been trying to ram her through as the candidate-without-competition at the expense of other Democrat (chiefly left-leaning) viewpoints. The environment has been extremely mean-spirited, but when they got called on it, the Hillary supporters just did an "if I am rubber you are glue" victim-narrative of their own. This gave no relief to the left-leaning Dems who had been maltreated, and was a very bad look on the dominant Primary candidate.
You may think "cheerleaders" is a backhanded insulting term, but actually it's a very polite term that's being used in place of "insufferable bullies". You are right that Dems shouldn't treat other Dems this way. People have repeatedly brought up that it's the behavior of Hillary's supporters that's reinforcing the idea that Hillary doesn't really represent what some of us want to stand for: she's representing people who are willing to trample over anyone who gets in their way - and to use mockery, shaming, and all sorts of questionable rhetorical tactics to do it.
The problem is when you "win" that way you may shut your opponent up...but the resentment you incur is such that they may quietly vote another way later. Now if anyone tries to say that, all you will hear for days is: SEE! PROOF THAT ANYONE AGAINST HILLARY WILL VOTE REPUBLICAN!" Well, all I see is proof of Democrats being marginalized by insufferable bullies.
And since I called the insufferable bullies what they are instead of using the polite term "cheerleader", I expect to get dinged for that. But I'm not going to sit here and let it sound like the word "cheerleader" is some base and vile attack when it's pretty gentle deflect of people who will call you a "freeper" and a "purity troll" suffering from "derangement syndrome" in a heartbeat.
Ps. As a woman, I brought up the idea of Barbara Lee in a post that didn't get much play yesterday. I refuse to let Hillary be the only candidate for women.