History of Feminism

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12598326

. I agree that person is a troll.

He dropped a turd in a thread, stared a shitstorm, and then made no effort whatsoever to explain himself. Furthermore, he has a history of inflammatory comments like this.

To be clear, as much as it pains me to say it, I don't think that specific post is by itself cause for banning. As you know there is a very long history (including here on DU) of people using the word "whore" to refer to public figures (both male and female) who are doing the bidding of powerful interests. People on this website routinely post about "corporate whores" or "media whores" and barely anyone thinks it is out-of-bounds.

But the fact that this was aimed specifically at a prominent Democrat who is also a woman does bother me very deeply. I am really disappointed that large numbers of DU members (including a majority of the jurors on that post) thought that that post was within bounds. And it wasn't a jury of "trolls" either -- the jurors who voted to leave the post were all long-term members with thousands upon thousands of posts and stars next to their usernames.

So I guess the takeaway here is that we need to decide what kind of community we want this to be. We have the power, though our posts and through our jury service, to set a higher standard. We just have to decide to use it.

And another thing: For people who are seeing this through the partisan lens of the Democratic presidential primary, it seems to me that that supporters of every Democratic presidential candidate have an interest in curbing this kind of language. Obviously Hillary Clinton supporters don't like seeing their favored candidate smeared in this way. But supporters of Bernie Sanders or other Democrats should not want to see this either, because it makes them (and by association, their candidate) look very bad.