Happy birthday, Daily Kos! 22 years young!
Twenty-two years ago, a frustrated and angry me sat down to a computer screen—a Bondi blue iMac (remember those?)—and wrote my first blog post on Daily Kos. I still had a day job, so instead of using my real name, I opted for my army nickname, “Kos,” to mask my playing hooky during work hours. Don’t worry, I still got my work done. And when I finally came clean to my boss a year later, he told me it was okay as long as no one else found out. I still love that guy.
I’ve lived a lifetime in those 22 years: got married, settled down, had two amazing kids, got divorced, started over, saw my first child follow my lead by serving his country in uniform (his Army nickname is “Frenchie,” don’t ask me why), and my daughter will soon be a high school senior. I know so many of you remember my kids from their very beginning. For a lot of you, it’s been a shared journey.
And during that entire time, Daily Kos grew from a blog post that makes me cringe today (it’s down below), and this site and its community grew and flourished, becoming a second home for so many.
For some community members living in red parts of the country, it became a lifeline to sanity before social media filled that role, connecting fierce liberals to others like them around the country. For others, it became a place to organize fellow travelers around Howard Dean, or Wesley Clark, or Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton. For others, it might’ve been all that and a place to talk about pooties or gardening or the latest great book they had read.
Below the fold, I’ll share stories from some of the best writers who’ve made Daily Kos what it is—from Barack Obama, back when he was just a senator; from Elizabeth Warren, when we were working hard to send her to the Senate; from Nate Silver, when he was only known as poblano; and from the writers who started out in the comments—like Devilstower and Meteor Blades, mcjoan and Angry Mouse—and became front pagers and then staff. Join me on this walk down memory lane, as we mark yet another year in this crazy story that is Daily Kos.