Oh Yeah Sh*t's Getting Real

Looks like it's time for The Talk again!

I keep thinking about dominance, and not in the sex way : (

I keep thinking about it as it pertains to white men, identity politics, the Left, the primary. Some Bernie people did not cover themselves in glory when they demanded conservatives, centrists, squishy liberals, and real liberals "bend the knee" to them. Sure, it's a quote from a popular television program. But people do not like being dominated. (It was also the most boring part of that popular television program. The hot queen is fighting on three fronts, including zombies, but she's going to take time every episode to demand someone "bend the knee"? Get your priorities in order, hot queen!) Insisting on "my way ... OR DRAGONS" is not actually awesome.

I am a Warren person, after first being a Kamala person. A plurality of Wonkette writers are Warren people too. One is Maybe Bernie. A couple are Affirmatively Undecided until it's time to vote but possibly leaning toward a more centrist candidate. Nobody is a Bidener, that I know of -- late-breaking news, we do have a Bidener! -- unless and until he wins the nom, at which point we will jump on that bandwagon so hard we break our ankles. There are people on staff (me!) who would vote Bernie before Biden, and people who would not do that. Maybe you're harder Left than we are, or less. Maybe you're more hawkish, or less. There's an entire spectrum, just among the staff. We argue quite a bit in the chatcave! There's a far larger spectrum outside it.

I have been in journalism since 1991. That is, math, 143 years in professional journalism. I have never had a mainstream media job. I have only had jobs where we were allowed to have human biases, where we were allowed to say "no, this is truth." Because I am allowed to say "no, this is truth," our blog is liberal. (No, that doesn't mean we're not also progressive; the kids who name people "liberals" as a slur have no idea that 20 years ago being "liberal" meant you were a red commie symp red, and that flat out calling yourself liberal meant people were allowed to come beat you up.) I don't have to hide behind "some say" or "the Republicans may have a point." Because I've been watching for roughly 35 years now, and they don't. (Okay, when a Republican, singular, does have a point, we are happy to pat them on the head and tell them what a good boy.) 

But despite the fact that our blog is liberal (yes, and progressive), we are not actually propaganda. We don't spin facts for the side that we believe is right, even though, because we believe they are right, that is "our side" and we don't hide it. We don't lie on people. At worst, we ignore some stupid dramas and bored-Politico-reporter-driven outrage clicks. (Or should we say AT BEST?)

Sometimes, though, different Wonkette writers have different opinions about things, just as our readers and commenters do. Consider the dust-up yesterday in Robyn's piece on Joe Biden's Iraq war vote, not because we are still insisting every vote ever taken must have been perfect, but because he is revising that history now. Some readers and commenters liked it, and others did not . Some at Wonkette think "Joe Biden should learn from his mistake and say so out loud" is a good and true statement. Others' eyes start twitching when the Iraq War vote is brought up as an end-all be-all litmus test and wonder if we'll still be doing that in the 2048 Democratic primary, as Sasha Obama is brought to account for being so irresponsible as to be only five years old when that vote was taken.

See? A diversity of opinions!

This month, we were able to double our full-time writing staff. I am overjoyed at how much news we are now able to cover, and it is thanks only to you. That also means, with so many more posts to fill each day, we are able to do more analysis, from a broader spectrum of thoughts and ideas.

What we don't do is try to dominate. When Robyn and I argue about whether you can get to universal healthcare with a stop at a public option first, otherwise nobody's helped during the transition ROBYN, I am trying to persuade her, not dominate her. Despite the cat suit and the whip, domination isn't actually my thing.

If you disagree with what we write sometimes, you are allowed to tell us that. And people in the comments are allowed to disagree with each other! But please -- like Joe Biden says! -- don't question our motives or each other's. Because we don't do "ends justify the means," we don't do dishonest, and we think our "motives" in what we cover are pretty fucking pure. And taking into account some drive-by trollings in the comments, you shouldn't be nasty to each other either; we agree on the vast supermajority of issues. We don't need to dominate each other into silence with bullying or shame.

It's already been a long primary season. The calendar claims there's an end in sight, but thanks to the Trump Time Distortion Field, it might take decades to get there. There's a debate tonight, we'll be blogging it of course, and I'm dreading it.

I have all kinds of fears lately. But not one of them, not one, is that whoever "we" (the right side) nominate will lose to Trump, barring Igor actually burrowing into the voting machines. Yes, Igor could do that! But if he does, it wouldn't matter whom we'd nominated in the first place.

We're all running around with our heads cut off in fear of the most unpopular president in recorded history, who already got solidly beat by a bunch of chicks in 2018. No, my fear is the lib-on-lib violence that clutches at my stomach every morning when I go online. Including, even, here.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't criticize other candidates. It just means try not to be shitty and mean. Don't treat people, including the candidates they love and you don't, with contempt. Criticism is different than dismissiveness, name-calling, and shivs. Try to better-angel yourself onto the right side of that line, and we'll try to remember that too. Unless we all give into factionalism and let our Inner Bitter Vengeance Girls out, because it's our way or no way, I believe we -- the right side -- will win. Even if that's not my first- or second-choice person. Barring Tulsi, of course.

Be kind to each other. And to us.

If you can, be kind with money -- YES, THIS POST IS YOUR MONTHLY MONEYBEG, BECAUSE WONKETTE WOULD NOT EXIST AND HAVE SUCH A NEWLY LARGE STAFF THAT GETS PAID SALARIES AND BENEFITS WITHOUT LOVE GIFTS FROM VIEWERS LIKE YOU, and we never have more than a month's worth of clams in the can! -- so we can keep going forever and ever. Because we hope what we do is important. That it's honest, and true, and that because of that we've gathered a community. Not a cult (sometimes a cult), but a coven. (Definitely a coven.)

And because if we don't hang together, we're all going to have to move to New Zealand, and wouldn't that be terrible, we'd just be fighting amongst ourselves, on the beach, in New Zealand .

In conclusion, please give Wonkette money to send us all to New Zealand. Or "salaries and healthcare and server costs and legal stuff" but maybe that other one too. Someday.