(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . "That ****ing redneck!" says farewell to Daily Kos after almost 20 years. [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-12 I hadn’t really intended to write this. Particularly a GBCW- “goodbye, cruel world!”- post, because nobody will ever beat ErrinF’s epic masterpiece. They are almost inevitably full of what we, in the medical field, call “status dramaticus”. Besides, I fully agreed with Markos when he proclaimed that anyone posting a “GBCW” article would have their account permanently banned in a “suicide by cop”. If you want to leave, just leave. No drama necessary. But, well. Here I am. I suppose I didn’t have a plan, per se; I did figure the next thing I wrote on here would be the last thing I wrote, and since Daily Kos has been a place I’ve visited nearly daily for almost two decades. Because of that, I hemmed and hawed and avoided writing anything at all. Until now. I was pretty sanguine after losing my primary election this year, in what the Washington Post declared was a “shitshow” of a race; what ended up being the most one-sided and nastiest primary in recent history in Virginia. Part of why I haven’t spoken out about that here is because Daily Kos became a centerpiece of that nastiness in a number of different ways. My primary opponent found out that there was a group of Kossacks here who were so offended by my very existence, they posted openly suggesting that the worst part of the August 12th, 2017 “Unite the Right” attack in Charlottesville wasn’t the people killed or maimed, the way our community was attacked, or the way it was excused by Donald Trump- but that I had treated victims of it, as this meant it would make them look bad if they helped my MAGA opponent try to beat me. Being the only person running in Virginia who’d ever actually provided abortion care was something that incensed both them, and my Democratic opponent this year. They felt like that experience was strong enough that even in an environment where only two white guys in the entirety of Virginia won their primary campaigns- both experienced politicians with giant war chests who only won by the barest margins- they were in danger of losing to me. So my opponent used their assistance of these Kossacks to manipulate stories I told both here, and on the campaign trail, about having had nightmares after having watched women almost die from not being able to access abortion care in time… and purposefully fashioned that into a narrative of “Kellen says abortions give him nightmares” to suggest I was saying that the “nightmares” I had were not because I had to watch women almost orphan their children from bleeding to death, but because abortion was legal at all. When it all broke- in the middle of trying to recover from my malignant melanoma surgery, and trying to prepare my mom for her stem cell transplant- I wasn’t surprised in the slightest. We’d had people in her orbit- other politicians and elected officials across Virginia she’d tried to get on her side, people from her own campaign team, and even people inside national PACs like Emily’s List who had been leaking things openly to our campaign team, warning us of what they were plotting. But I did wonder if she’d really pull the trigger, as I understood fully the consequences of what doing so would entail. But, hey, again: here we are. When the muse finally struck in early fall of this year, it all poured out- to the tune of almost eighty pages and what Medium.com estimates to be a “157 minute read”. I surely didn’t plan on that. But I keep receipts. And now you can read them. Which is part of the “problem”, as what I wrote there commits the cardinal sin of politics: I talk openly about the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. The “making of the sausage”. I talk about how a ragtag group of Kossacks helped uncover a Republican Presidential nominees’ attempt to throw an election, way before anyone took that kind of threat seriously. How DailyKos was responsible for getting Medicaid Expansion passed in Virginia in 2018 that extended health insurance to hundreds of thousands of families. How a democratic politician proudly took credit for something they’d asked to be ghostwritten for them- and then unknowing badmouthed the same volunteer who’d authored it. How an emergency services provider was the subject of an almost half a million-dollar media campaign dedicated to re-traumatizing them for watching patients almost die. How a sitting Republican Congressman was tricked into pretending to be a Democrat and bad-mouthing Donald Trump. But I also talk about how many politicians I ghostwrote Daily Kos articles for. I will say it was fewer than the number that asked me to, as I refused to do it for anyone who was clearly in it with the sole intent using our community members as a wallet. I think you’ll find precious few who’d be shocked to hear that- but, again, you’re not supposed to admit that out loud. People in politics can handle a lot… but they can’t handle that. That’ll kill my chances to ever be relevant in politics again, but I never cared about being relevant. I cared about getting things done, about protecting my community, and fighting back against fascism. Relevance is meaningless; ask Rush Limbaugh how relevance is working out for him these days. Most GBCW diaries will have long lists of reasons that this site is horrible, why Markos is a jerk, how “things have changed”, etc. But I’m not going to do any of that. I wouldn’t trade the time I’ve spent as a part of this community and don’t regret a single minute of it. Besides, I’m sure Markos would openly admit he can be a jerk. I’d like to think it’s a trait he and I share- and I personally think it’s the only reason Daily Kos survived a dozen crises that derailed and took down other communities is understanding when to be tough, and when not to be. I haven’t always agreed with him, but I’ve always respected him and everyone on the Daily Kos team. That the progressive establishment hasn’t recognized that is a complete and abject failure. Right wing billionaires will buy an entire media apparatus just so they can force people to read their dreck, while this incredible community is forced to crowd fund in order to afford to fight off a bad-faith lawsuit. What a complete tragedy. The Kossacks I mention above are a vocal but infinitesimally small part of the community here. Their existence doesn’t offend me in the slightest. It does absolutely nothing to dim the brightness of the community here. And I nearly didn’t mention them, because they’re not the reason I’m leaving. It’s just time. It’s time for another generation to take the reigns. I sacrificed so much time over the last few years- after being an occasional front pager here back in the late Bush/early Obama administration, I took time off and left because I had a young family and wanted to dedicate time to them. It’s only Donald Trump that pulled me back in. I gave up an enormous amount of time with them. Time you only get once. I crunched the numbers, and the time I spent working unpaid for either other Democrats across Virginia, or myself, could have easily paid off my mortgage if I would have picked up shifts in the ER instead. And the ER is never overstaffed, so that’s not an idle boast. I rescinded an acceptance offer to go to Nurse Practitioner school when I ran for the House of Delegates in 2017 because I was told by an elected official it would “make it look like I wasn’t serious about winning”. I could go on and on. Anyone who gets into politics for the “attaboys” is delusional. But it makes the decision to go my own way really easy. The first time I interacted here on Daily Kos was in the wake of George Bush’s re-election. Someone wrote an article talking about why he’d won and what needed to be done to keep that from happening again. It was so resoundingly meaningful to a recovering young Republican like me who’d defied his entire family by supporting John Kerry that I made Daily Kos an everyday internet stop. This community has done so much more for progressive politics than you’ll ever know. It has made a real difference in our country. I've seen it firsthand. And I am proud of having had the chance to stand with you all since November 2004. I hope that Daily Kos not only continues to survive, but will thrive, and help continue to power progressive politics in our country far into the future. Keep up the good work. I love you all. Kellen Squire, RN [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/12/2210864/--That-ing-redneck-says-farewell-to-Daily-Kos-after-almost-20-years?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/