General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Emotarian Left Bears Responsibility for The #GOPshutdown [View all]DevonRex
(22,541 posts)happening at this time. The division has been terribly hurtful to so many people. To revive it and exacerbated it right now and even use that title? That seems pretty obviously suspicious.
Sometimes posters here establish certain criteria and say no real liberal or Democrat could ever think x, y or z. And invite people to agree or disagree, which results in everyone lining up on one side or another. And it also results in lots of bullying behavior back and forth between the sides. It's horrible and belies every value we hold dear. Even worse, people visiting DU think it is representative of the Democratic Party.
But we don't have to line up on sides just because a poster wants us to. We do not have to take anybody's bait. We need to actively think about whether a post IS bait. If we do that and decline to participate, then the arguments and bullying won't happen. If we get sucked in, we can withdraw. We don't have to continue. We can even self-delete or apologize.
Maybe I'm alone in this, but I wish Admin hadn't done away with Meta. At least the fighting was hidden from visitors. And it served another purpose. We found common ground with each other there. People who argued about politics in GD found they agreed with each other on LGBT or feminist issues in Meta. So we became multidimensional to each other. Human even.
Forgot to say I'm doing OK. The government shutdown isn't helpful for us. I'm a federal retiree and my husband is a current federal employee. But my son is much better. So that's all that matters.