As a long time DUer, I just can't recall 2004 being as mean in the

[mediaman007]

primary season. I can only surmise that the new members are prone to tantrum to get their way. Coming to DU is always a highlight of my day. I get my news from DU. But lately this place has been hysterical about Obama and Clinton. I can't believe that their real supporters are so shrill.

So, I can only guess that the screamers are the 24% that think "moran" and "hugh" are in the dictionary. Right wing trolls!

I will just click "alert" and call them on their behavior. Send them back to Rush and the right-wing bunkers.

[Generic Brad]

1. Personally, I am happy with both Obama and Clinton

Whoever wins the nomination has my full support.

[The Straight Story]

2. It was just as mean as it is now sadly

:(

[paulk]

3. it was bad in 2004

a lot of people got tombstoned, a lot of Dean people went off and started their own website. A lot of people on the extreme left went off and started their own website.

This time is bad, too - IMO because the admin hasn't been as quick to pull the trigger on kicking people off as last time - maybe because they're scared it would result in another exodus...

[colorado thinker]

4. I haven't posted a lot but I've been reading for

several years. And it is far more mean in the last few months than it appeared to be in 2004. I no longer eagerly log in daily to read. And the few posts I have dared attempt lately have been snarled at.

Not worth it anymore.

[paulk]

5. they had done a split into a general discussion

and general discussion/politics forum back then that kept some of the worst of it in the GD/P forum. They've finally gotten around to it this time with the general discussion/primary forum. LBN used to be a lot better - there were some people that devoted a lot of time to just that forum. It seems like there are fewer people posting now than there were then. I think this site has lost a lot of members, and partly it's because it has become such a nasty place.

There's very little "discussion" that goes on anymore, and I admit I'm as guilty as the next person. But, it gets old putting ten - fifteen minutes into a post, doing the research so that your facts hold up - only to have the thing drop like a stone or be ridiculed by the same pack of idiots that always jumps your stuff. Maybe that's the fate of any community? I've wondered about that. Continued exposure tends to harden people's positions, rather than open them to new possibilities.

[intheozone]

6. I've been in DU for 6-7 years and, sadly, I'm inclined

to agree with you.

[SoCalDem]

15. Been here since '01 and I agree..

I think '04 was not as bad because I don't recall the feelings being as strong for or against any of our primary candidates..

It was a rather boring primary season ..

Dean was the only one with any energy, and the media shut him out pretty quickly.. the rest either signed on late, or were ho-hum from the beginning

[alittlelark]

9. It was as bad in 2004.

The day after the GE 3-4 'long-time posters' came out of the Repug closet laughing about how happy they were they had helped b*sh win.

It was pretty ugly.

[Hekate]

10. Jeeeez. I missed that. I was travelling (filed an absentee ballot, so I voted).

But I was reading DU before I took my trip, and I just don't remember it being anywhere near as hysterical and venomous as it is right now.

Boasting about being a troll would indeed have been ugly.

Hekate

[fujiyama]

7. It got bad then as well

but there is a nastiness that wasn't quite there. This time though, it feels like some really bad posters are just allowed to keep going...

[ForRusty]

8. Err...

Are you implying that a lot of the roaring Clinton and Obama supporters are right wingers trying to cause strife? O_O I'm befuddled by that second piece.

[Swamp Rat]

13. Well, there have been quite a few new arrivals with low post counts who are disrupting lately,

but they don't last very long. :D

[Swamp Rat]

11. Seems pretty much the same to me.

[Occulus]

12. I hid GD:P and DU got better n/t

[robbedvoter]

14. I think it's in part - because MSM involvement this time is much more intense

than last time. One has to just look at MoDo's newest effort to rip apart any notion of a "dream team" to decipher the effort put in making our strength - diversity - into a liability. They are playing us big time - bigger than in 2004.

[blondeatlast]

17. Agreed. This primary campign is much "sexier" for the media.

Racism, sexism, Bill Clinton--they happily exploit it all in the name of "news".

[leftofthedial]

16. there also is much more pack behavior

I don't know if it's organized, concerted or just gang behavior, but there are a few agenda-driven groups of posters who reliably always show up in certain kinds of threads.

Add to them the native population of knuckleheads and you get real ugly real fast sometimes.

FWIW, this crop of nastiness PALES compared to the post-2000 Nader wars.

[AP]

18. The Dean vs Clark nastiness was pretty intense.

[Honeycombe8]

19. I remember it as being worse, actually. Remember "Deaniacs" (the term)...

and Kucinich supporters were there, too, like this time. And Kerry supporters...the Dean and DK supporters were against the establishment Kerry supporters, and vice versa. And Edwards supporters were there, too, like this time.

It was all very hostile and ugly, more so than this time.