Official Staff Communication
Okay, so.
First: Michael Bloomberg is polling at 14% in the Democratic primary and rapidly going up. This is bad, because Mike Bloomberg is a billionaire doing his best to buy himself a presidential nomination, a racist, a transphobe, and also effectively a Republican. He governed for most of his terms as Mayor as a Republican, and then as an embarrassed Republican in the term he bought after that. This badness is freaking a lot of people out, since he's scooping up a lot of support, on account of the aforementioned money in part, but also because he's literally the only person campaigning in a lot of later states, so for god's sake stop lashing out. Venting is fine, but it's gone way past that.
Second: For crying out loud, do not accuse people of being racist transphobes for saying that they'd hold their noses and vote for him over Donald motherfucking Trump. That is a hell of an accusation to be tossing around lightly, and it's not okay. Recognizing the political reality of the two party American system does not mean you're signing off on every part of it. Stop trying to assign every single awful thing about Bloomberg to people who don't want to vote for him but, in the event of an ENTIRELY HYPOTHETICAL Bloomberg nomination, would. Because holy shit is Trump awful. We'll also be watching for posts using phrasing implying that other members are "just as bad as X".
Third: To loop back to Bloomberg's incredible terribleness, some people are NOT going to make the distinction I'm making above. This is a natural reaction to making a Republican in all but registration into the Democratic nominee for President. People saying that they will stay home are echoing this basic reality. It doesn't make them fascists or fascist supporters. They're being honest, and a lot of them are minorities who'll be hurt worst by Trump. If they don't think Bloomberg is worth voting for, listen.
Fourth: For crying out loud, Trump vs. Bush? This is what's going on? Inverse political Death Battles? That's what people are tearing into each other over now? They both suck. That the question was raised at all is ridiculous, but now that it has, picking one over the other should not be read as an endorsement, because, again, it's a ridiculous question to begin with. Also, while we're on silly questions, stop relitigating 2016.
Fifth: PoliEra is the general politics OT, but it's also a community thread. It's good to get new participants - that's how you get new regulars - but there's a number of users who seem to nearly exclusively show up in the thread to start fights and make snide remarks. That's not something we'd tolerate in any other community thread, it's not something we're going to tolerate here, and going forward, it's something we're going to be policing much more tightly.
