Democratic Underground
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Democratic Underground, also known as
DU, describes itself as an "
online community for
Democrats and other progressives." According to its web page, its membership is restricted by policy to those who are "generally supportive of progressive ideals," and who "support Democratic candidates for political office." [
1] However, the scope of discussion is wide and members represent a broad spectrum of liberal beliefs and backgrounds. DU was established on
January 20,
2001, the day
President George W. Bush was inaugurated.
According to statistics generated by Democratic Underground in June 2006, over 91,000 unique usernames have registered, and over 23 million messages have been posted. There is no cost for membership and participation, although voluntary donations are solicited quarterly, and some services are available only to donating members. DU
publishes articles six days a week and has an online store, a directory of links, and
forums where logged-in members may post on various topics of interest.
Columns
DU has several regular
columns, and on any given day may have a number of guest columns sent in from contributors.
* Mondays:
Top Ten Conservative Idiots, a rundown of what is thought of by DU administrators to be the most outrageous
right-wing activities in the past week.
* Wednesdays:
The Plaid Adder writes her column.
* Thursdays:
Ask Auntie Pinko, an 'advice' column.
* Fridays:
Equal Time with Bob Boudelang, a
satirical column supposedly written by a
Republican Team Leader.
* Occasionally, DU will feature a
Hate Mailbag of
hate mail.
Bernard Weiner and Ernest Partridge of
The Crisis Papers[
2] are frequent guests.
Forums
The DU Forums are a highly active scene for political discussions by "Democrats and other progressives". Administrators will "
tombstone" (ban) users for violating site policies, including conservatives, individuals who accuse others of being conservatives, and individuals that lack thick skin. As of June 3rd, 2006, 19,545 users have been tombstoned, leaving 71,955 active users from 91,500 unique registrations.
The main forums on DU have been re-arranged since the close of the 2004 US election season. They now include:
* Latest Breaking News
*
Editorials and Other Articles
* General Discussion
* General Discussion:
Politics (superseding "General Discussion: Campaign 2004")
* The Lounge (for general non-political discussion)
Other forums include:
* Individual forums for the discussion of state and local issues.
* Individual forums for the discussion of certain political topics such as education, homeland security, and guns.
* Individual forums for the discussion of certain relatively non-political topics such as books, science, and sports.
* "Group" forums where chartered groups of users may discuss topics of mutual interest such as hobbies, fan clubs, and potential
2008 presidential candidates.
An "Ask the Administrators" forum was maintained until
April 26,
2005; this forum allowed users to pose questions to the board administrators. This forum has now been shut down by the administrators. A "Rules" page, a "Frequently Asked Questions" page, and a "Contact the Administrators" page showing the email addresses of the administrators have been substituted.
Two of the most controversial forums are often scenes of hot debate between posters:
* The Justice/Public Safety board, used for discussing
gun issues and commonly referred to as the "Gun Dungeon" or "Gungeon"; and
* The
Israel-
Palestinian affairs board, sometimes referred to as the "Basement."
Influencing polls
Media websites (including newspapers, television networks, and
America Online) run occasional "polls" that do not use the
sampling methods of formal
opinion polls, but instead invite everyone to respond. Some DU forum messages, usually captioned "DU this poll", urge DU members to vote 'en masse' in these polls. The goal is to influence polls to reflect the aggregrate votes of DU members. After voting, members report back to thread, usually simply writing "Done" or "Done and kicked" ("kicked" meaning the message thread is being moved to the top of the forum page by the new message so that other members will see it).
This sort of attempt to influence online polls is employed by many activist websites of all political stripes.
Member avatars
Registered members can select an
avatar that will be displayed along with each of their forum postings. For donating members, this avatar can be a custom
image that they have supplied; non-donating members can choose from a set of standard images that include popular symbols, images of political figures or
popular culture figures, and state outlines, state flags, and a few national flags. These avatars allow users to show some of their personality with each posting.
After the
2004 election, many members displayed an upside-down American flag as their avatar; an inverted flag is an international symbol of distress.
An online community
Some prolific members have posted more than 1,000 times (the point at which their posts stop displaying the exact total). Through frequent contact in the forums (including special topic groups) and online private messages, members come to know one another. Discussions range beyond politics to include such diverse subjects as pets, pet peeves, and pop culture. Occasionally, members organize face-to-face get-togethers.
Like other communities, DU has its in-jokes. New members are often confused by DU vocabulary, usually referencing pop culture ("this thread needs more cowbell"), deficient spelling skills (such as "cazy," "moran," and "noble jesters"), or long-running threads that have worked their way into DU "lore" ("dupe," "the kudzu thread").
Campaign Underground
DU has an online
campaign headquarters named "Campaign Underground." The site, which was put together with help from DU members, features a database of information about campaigns, voting trends, and media. A "media blaster" feature provides the ability to email local media outlets in many
U.S. cities. Eventually DU hopes to have other features, such as integrated local news from the forums, a local event calendar, and other issues specific to states and locals.
Demopedia
On
December 7,
2004, DU launched the
beta version of
Demopedia, a
wiki based collaborative project aimed at presenting the Democratic and
progressive opinion and outlook, and at collating and preserving some of the information generated on the forums. During the beta, only users who had registered at DU before December 7 were able to contribute. It uses the
MediaWiki software.
Although DU restricts its postings to people on the political left, members have many internal disagreements over a wide range of issues, as well as disagreements over tactics of opposition to the Bush Administration. Nearly all members oppose the
2003 invasion of Iraq, but some DU members favor only a gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, while other members favor an immediate and total pullout. Some members favor the
death penalty, while a majority do not. Another such issue is
gun politics; DU participants include supporters and opponents of further restrictions on gun ownership.
While supporters of
Ralph Nader are a minority at DU, many posts criticize the
Democratic Party from the left. Democrats such as
Joe Lieberman and
Dianne Feinstein, who are more inclined toward compromise and conciliation with the Bush Administration, are regularly attacked at DU, while Democrats such as
John Conyers and
Barbara Boxer, who favor a more confrontational approach, are more highly regarded.
As on many other political forums, the
conflict between
Israel and
Palestine is a contentious issue. Supporters of both Israel and Palestine are present on the site, but there is a designated forum for the Israel-Palestine conflict and no discussion of the matter is allowed outside of this particular forum. Users who express overly critical viewpoints of either side may find themselves ostracised, or even blocked.
Relationship to Free Republic
DU has a longstanding rivalry with the conservative website
Free Republic. Significant cross-membership exists, as members of both sites (who often refer to each other as "Freepers" and "DUmmies", respectively) watch the competitors' message boards. Members frequently post or link to posts on the opposing message boards to point out what they consider incorrect or outrageous posts, or to keep watch on which polls are are influenced in the competitors' favor (see Influencing polls, above).
Some members argue against these practices, saying that they give the competitors an advantage by driving up the
Alexa rating and
Google PageRank of the other site. Allegations are occasionally made that '
rabble-rousing' members from one forum post extreme or shocking bulletins on the other in order to made the competitors look overly radical or inappropriate, but these claims are not substantiable.
DUers are active in U.S. politics in many ways. Many of them attend political protests and rallies, volunteer for campaigns, and write letters to editors of newspapers and members of Congress. Some, like Ben Burch, are among the members of the Democratic Party infrastructure, serving as precinct chairs. Others actually work within the confines of various legislative and congressional bodies as staff. Many active posters at Democratic Underground have worked for various causes in both paid and unpaid positions, in campaigns and for special interest groups such as the AFL-CIO and SEIU. Others are members of the DLC, Progressive Democrats of America, MoveOn, and Democracy for America.
Activist Corps
One of the newest ways in which DUers are involved is called the DU Activist Corps. Founded on
July 1,
2005, the Activist Corps is a group of over 1,000 DUers who are committed to taking action on a certain issue whenever an official Activist Corps activity is posted.
The first Activist Corps action was posted on
July 12; members wrote letters to the editors of local newspapers regarding
Karl Rove's role in the leaking of
CIA agent
Valerie Plame's name. More than 70 letters were published in newspapers throughout the country. Other Corps activities have included signing online
petitions to
U.S. Senators asking them to reject
Supreme Court nominee
John Roberts, and to write letters of support
Cindy Sheehan.
Political candidates
Some DUers have run for, and have even been elected to, political offices as high as
Congress. Examples of these include:
*Herb Riede, the Mayor of
McSherrystown, Pennsylvania;
*Monica McGlocklin, a three-term former member of the
Maine House of Representatives;
*Elizabeth Rogers, Congressman
J.D. Hayworth's opponent in the
2004 election;
*
Jeff Seemann, Congressman
Ralph Regula's opponent in the
2004 election; (In an ironic twist, during his campaign, Seemann was banned from DU as a disruptor even though he was the Democratic Party's candidate for his Congressional district.)
*Justin Sowa, Congressman
Paul Ryan's potential opponent in the
2006 election; and
*The late
Andy Stephenson, a voting-reform activist who ran against Sam Reed for
Washington Secretary of State in
2004.
*
Carl Sheeler who is running for the Democratic Nomination to run for the US Senate from Rhode Island in
2006.[
3][
4][
5]
Debate over which candidates deserve support from DU members occurs frequently.
State Forums
DU also provides specific forums for each state, where statewide issues are addressed by State residents and those with an interest in state specific issues such as primaries, gubenatorial races and the like.
Several notable figures have posted in the forums at some point. Among those who have been verified as not being
hoaxes are:
* Ben Burch, noted sexworkers' rights activist and proprietor of
The White Rose Society website.
* Wes Clark, Jr., the son of
Wesley Clark;
*
John Conyers, member of the
House of Representatives from
Michigan;
*
Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of
John Edwards;
*
Christopher Heinz, a son of
Teresa Heinz Kerry;
*
Larry C. Johnson, a former
CIA agent;
*
William Rivers Pitt, liberal activist and author;
*
David L. Wolper, noted filmmaker;
The website is owned by Democratic Underground, LLC (a
limited liability company), which is in turn owned by David Allen of Washington, D.C. He goes by the
username "Skinner" while on the boards and handles most of the issues relating to the forums. The other two administrators, "EarlG" (of Washington, D.C.) and "elad" (of Portland, OR), handle the articles and technical issues, respectively.
Democratic Underground has been criticized for
censorship directed against both the political left and the right. From the left, critics have alleged that administrators and moderators unfairly ban ("tombstone") or
censor posters who consider themselves to be to the political
left of
John Kerry, the
2004 Democratic nominee for the US presidency, and claim that DU is not truly
liberal or
progressive, but rather
centrist, and adheres too strongly to the politics of the centrist
Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). However, forum administrators and most users support
same-sex marriage,
abortion rights and
universal healthcare, which would put them squarely to the left of the DLC. Additionally,
Joseph Lieberman, a hallmark of the DLC, is routinely attacked by users and administrators. One group of these critics were affiliated with the
People for Change forums founded by
Howard Dean supporters who felt alienated from Democratic Underground during the primary season, and many of them had been banned or were later banned from the Democratic Underground forums. Other DU members claim that the moderators of the
Israel-Palestinian forums enforce an anti-
Palestinian bias.
The administrators have directed the moderators to remove any attempts by members to discuss the site on the site and this is routinely done, occasionally resulting in the banning of members. Controversy has also arisen over allegations that the owners of Democratic Underground often favor their largest cash contributors during debates in the message forums. Critics point to the dominance of several member block constituencies that appear to wield undue influence on the direction DU's moderators take in resolving member disputes.
Other critics, including supporters of
right-wing politics, charge that there is
irony in claiming to stand for progressive and liberal ideals while enforcing arbitrary limitations on ideological diversity and freedom of speech.
Citing unusual comments
Discussions at DU sometimes lead to surprising contributions and unusual comments. One example of this was the dialog about the
2004 tsunami disaster, in which a few posts explored the possibility of "earthquake weapons". The posts were reported by
The New York Times and
Fox News. The DU administrators deleted these posts and the threads were locked. They officially disavowed what they called "kooky tsunami conspiracy theories". They added, "One wonders why the author [of the
Times article] did not spend five minutes over at
Free Republic and instead write an article about how conservatives think the tsunami was some sort of retribution from God, or how Muslims deserved it." [
6]
*
Fitzmas*
Free Republic - Conservative rival of DU.
*
Democratic Underground homepage**
DU Forums**
Demopedia**
Campaign UndergroundOther
*
Conservative Underground - Conservative message board with one section devoted to criticism of DU.
*
Neutral Underground - Message board for progressive and conservative discussion for both sides on a level playing field.
*
Liberal Underground - Liberal message board which monitors DU; allows conservatives to post.
*
DUmmie FUnnies - Blog which criticizes DU and its forum activities.
