I don't see the numbers adding up to fit your reasoning. Trump's approvals are pretty much where they were on election night 2016. So why did the "down-ballot" candidate underperform in Ohio-12? You can't say the reason is Trump's fall in the polls. Because that fall hasn't happened. 

Don't get me wrong, I do hope the Democrats win. I just don't see this campaign strategy working. It's the same strategy as Hillary and without a charismatic lead this time. 

When we discuss what happened or might happen at dagbog in relation to trollish behavior we're both speaking out of ignorance. Or perhaps you have inside information. I doubt that any troll stopped, slowed down, or left dagblog simply because he was ignored by the posting dagbloggers. I suspect if the moderators posted all the private e-mail discussions they've had about and with those who violate the TOS we'd see a different story emerge. I suspect that private discussion is much longer than any of us would guess.

eta: I once made a small complaint to Wolraich. Not only did he immediately respond but Maiello and Dr Cleveland weighed in. I was overwhelmed. I consider myself an unimportant bit player here. I almost never blog or submit articles In The News. I'm not the most prolific commentator. If they're going to spend that much time on my trivial gripe I'm pretty sure they spend or at least have spent a lot more time on more problematic posters here.

Back in the early days of the internet before Facebook became dominant, when there was still a MySpace, before twitter and instagram Google set aside space on it's server and wrote software to create Google Groups. Anyone could create a discussion group on any topic. The person starting the group "owned" it and they or anyone they authorized could moderate in any way, shape, or form they wanted. Because of Rainbow Family of Living Light philosophy the person who set up Alt.gathering.rainbow did no moderation. By google's metrics, which they posted publicly, Alt.gathering.rainbow was one of or perhaps the largest most active of all google groups. Larger and much more active than dagblog.

After several years of active use several trolls descended on the group. At first some of us tried to shame them, troll back, plead and beg, to no avail. Eventually we stopped responding to the trolls and attempted to discuss around them. They just increased their activity to every thread posting insults, off topic comments designed to offend, long pages of irrelevant copied data, etc. Slowly members stopped posting at all.

Now it's possible that if we had continued to ignore them and post around them they might have gotten bored and left. Suffice it to say that they had more staying power to troll then we had staying power to stick around and ignore them. We all abandoned the group one by one. 

There were attempts to set up different spaces but they never worked. No one wanted to set up a private site. If dagblog ended, as much as I like and value it, I wouldn't set up a new dagblog. Would you? I sent a small donation last time Wolraich asked and I'd send more if he asked but who here would invest the time and money to set up a dagblog replacement? A Rainbow Gathering page was set up on Facebook but Facebook isn't set up well for this type of discussion. For these and other reasons no replacement for Alt.gathering.rainbow was ever found.

Let me add another thought. Dagblog has also worked well - much like the café before it was shuttered - in large part because it has ventured beyond a narrow party-political focus. If you are talking only about the issues that divide you and not about outside human stuff, it impoverishes discourse and diminishes your ability to see the other parties as other than mere mouthpieces for policy positions that you either agree strongly with or oppose strongly.

I'm always a sucker for a cafe reference ... ;-)

I'm also constantly drawn in by the "human stuff"; largely because it defines and confirms us even as it differentiates us in ways that really matter - ways that make us more intimate with one another, perhaps less likely to strike out arbitrarily.  The differences are the core, really, when we consider who we are as people.  The ability to express, describe and reveal those differences is crucial to understanding not only where we differ, but where we connect.

I thought you were fluent in hex. Try https://cryptii.com/hex-to-text