This is why we need to be able to openly discuss facts, regardless of who the nominee is.

[meadowlander]

13. It's not about claiming victimhood. It's about asking for some self-reflection.

On a site that has rules enforcing civil discussion and "no kooky/extremist/hate" content I've been called a stupid, insane, fantasist, pants-wetting, bed-shitting, blathering, screeching, hysterical, Trump-supporting, Putin-shilling, false flag traitor who hates democracy and wants to overturn the will of the people and that who needs to STFU and get off this website.

For posting poll results.

I love DU. I've posted here for 23 years. And this was the first time I felt like it was a waste of time to even try to engage in civil discussion because we were not allowed to post facts or polite statements of our pro-party rather than pro-candidate positions without the threat of our account being suspended. And I found that profoundly sad and disheartening. And as much as I wanted to give up on coming here at all, I found that I couldn't because it's such an ingrained habit for me to check what's happening here like 20 times a day.

I give full props to EarlG for his new position and respect that we need to not relitigate past decisions and move forward. But I think there are some pretty essential "lessons learned" here and that's why I thought it was necessary to post what I did.