It looks like the heightening divisions with the Democratic party over the Obama-Clinton contest are causing a split in the online progressive city known as DailyKos. Yesterday at 5pm PDT, a diarist who posts under the name Alegre put up an open letter titled “Writers Strike at DailyKos” and threw down the gauntlet:
I’ve decided to go on “strike” and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution. I will not be posting at DailyKos effective immediately. I will not help drive up traffic or page-hits as long as my candidate – a good and fine DEMOCRAT – is attacked in such a horrid and sexist manner not only by other diarists, but by several of those posting to the front page.
Alegre’s call — “This is a strike – a walkout over unfair writing conditions” — appears to have hit a nerve. Several dozen diarists joined in, and Alegre’s post made the recommended list, accumulating more than 1250 comments. You can find her over at HillaryBloggers.com now.
For a long time, it’s been clear that Kossacks, as denizens of the sprawling community site (it even has a gardening club!) are known, were not enthralled with the Senator from New York. She went to YearlyKos last summer and earned a lot of heckling from the audience. Regular snap online polls of the site found her attracting little more than ten to fifteen percent of the vote, with the bulk going to Edwards and Obama–and when Edwards dropped out, his folks mostly went to the Senator from Illinois.
Now the lines appear to be hardening, and Alegre’s action may signal a real breaking point for a rump faction of Kossacks that have simply tired of arguing with their fellow progressives. This response [LINK FIXED] from one diarist named Gemina13, which is currently on the recommended list, may be indicative of most Kossacks’ attitude to the “strike” by the Clintonites. “Your collective hissy fit” isn’t anything like a real strike, Gemina13 says to Alegre, describing how her forbears fought the coal industry. “Are you sh*tting me?!”