Can we have healthy Democratic primaries?

Seems like some folks in Iowa have the right idea. According to Sean Bagniewski, the chair of the Polk County Democratic Party:

“All of our Democrats take the prospect of defeating Donald Trump so seriously that it’s almost like everybody is on the same team.”

NY Times, 3/8/19

That's how it ought to be. And it is not always how it is. I'm already seeing some pretty nasty exchanges on social media between partisans of particular candidates and people carrying grudges from 2016. More on the latter here if you want to delve into it.

The wise Martin Longman, (also known as Booman,) reminds us that Russian intervention in 2016 gave any enemy of our democratic process, foreign or domestic, a road map for how to persuade us to screw ourselves: just pick at the scabs we all carry from race, gender, and economic injustice. We're vulnerable because we come to the process injured and pissed off. With a little encouragement, we're all too likely to tear ourselves apart.

... the effort is underway and it is focused not only on creating hard feelings but on spreading damaging and, in many cases, completely fake information about the candidates. ... So far, the bulk of the disinformation campaign has been targeted at four Democrats: Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Beto O’Rourke.

... It’s hard to believe that as many as one in six of the tweets you see about a presidential candidate have been generated by a single troll farm, but it’s actually quite possible. Trying to combat this kind of behavior in real time is impossible, so it becomes a game of Whac-a-Mole.

Democratic voters will not be able to avoid being subjected to these kinds of aggressive influence operations. ... If you want to be a responsible citizen, you should resist this whole process. ... Refusing to personally participate isn’t going to make the problem go away. But you don’t want to be part of the problem. Every person who abstains from participating in these efforts to deceive and divide is lessening the impact these trolls will have on the process.

Let's not go there! For more on the extremely effective methods of Russian-sponsored trolls (and other hostile actors), see this from the Washington Post.

We need to accept that we are engaged in nothing less than political warfare, and as we approach the 2020 election, we need to be more clever than the trolls.

...Meanwhile the intra-Democratic Party group Indivisible is trying to educate its thousands of newly engaged political participants about what a healthy primary season is for and why it might help the #resistance dispose of Trump and the GOP in 2020. This video is an introduction:
More substantively, they are putting out advice on how to keep the contest positive. A lot of us who have been bumping around politic for a long time should listen up:

• Primaries are about issues. What issues are most important to the members of your group? You don’t have to negotiate or argue or get down to just your top 2—just make a list so everyone knows what you’re working towards. ... Spoiler alert: saving our democracy is at the top.

• Make some commitments together. This is really about how your group wants to engage, but we recommend that everyone agree to engage respectfully, without attacking candidates, and particularly without criticizing their supporters. We’re all going to need to work hard to elect the eventual nominee, so it’s best if we don’t make too many enemies in the meantime.

• Speaking of which: please, please, please agree you’ll all support the eventual nominee. We love primaries here at Indivisible, but the stakes are just too high for anyone to sit it out if their favorite candidate doesn’t get through. ...

...The sad truth is that I feel pretty sure that I'll want to write some similar post several more times between now and next spring. We've got to work together to keep the 2020 primary season healthy.