Damn you, Governor Polish. /r/neoliberal storms /r/metaNL to overturn the not-ban of local poster and Colorado Governor Jared Polis
Historical context (real life): Jared Polis is famous for being the term-limited governor of Colorado and a Democrat. Prior to his career in politics he was a successful businessman, and has been described as libertarian-leaning.
Historical context (the internet): Jared Polis is also famous for posting on /r/neoliberal. Previously, he has been very popular on the sub (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). It really cannot be overstated how much of a "mascot" Polis has been for the sub. Back in 2023, users proudly proclaimed that it was their feedback that got Polis to support sanctuary cities.
Recent context (both): the first cracks started to show early during the second Trump administration.
Jared Polio (Strike 1): When the White House appointed RFK Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Polis tweeted, "I’m excited by the news that the President-Elect will appoint @RobertKennedyJr to @HHSGov. He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA. I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health... He will face strong special interest opposition on these, but I look forward to partnering with him to truly make America healthy again and I hope that we can finally make progress on these important issues." to which RFK Jr. replied, "thank you Governor Polish," which since became an automod response. /r/neoliberal is many things, but pro-RFK Jr. is not one of them. In a thread titled simply, oh boy... users react very negatively to the tweet, with many pinging the governor's personal account and one user calling it "r/neoliberal's 911" (read the whole post, everyone's dying inside). One user got so frustrated, they went to /r/metaNL, the subreddit where users discuss moderation policies and appeal their bans (often thereby justifying them in the process), and requested the Polis flair be removed from the subreddit, to which response was mixed and a mod stickied a response stating simply "No."
Jared Pol-ICE (Strike 2): As a pro-immigration subreddit, /r/neoliberal is vehemently anti-ICE. Last year, an article highlighting a whistleblower report about Polis ordering lists of undocumented immigrants to be turned over to ICE made a splash (and not in a good way). The top comment reads, "Mods should ban Governor polis if this is true. I’m disappointed. [frowny face emoji]". The saga continued as a federal judge blocked Polis's move, leading one of the sub's moderators go wonder, "What the actual fuck is wrong with Jared Polis?". But Polis persisted, despite users making their feelings quite known (1, 2, 3). In the statements Polis posted to the subreddit (1, 2] about the ICE shootings in which agents killed two Americans in Minneapolis earlier this year, the users were just about as pissed at him as they are at ICE. A couple /r/metaNL threads popped up this time requesting Polis be banned from the subreddit (1, 2, both of which again with mixed response and no moderator reply on the first, but two in the second (1, 2).
Jan-red Pol-sixth (I tried, okay; Strike 3): Tina Peters is a little old lady who, to hear her tell the tale, did nothing wrong and was simply trying to get to the bottom of what really happened in the 2020 election. According to the FBI, she gave unauthorized access to voting machines to a QAnon conspiracist, who stored and copied data from the machines which was then publicized on the internet. Following this, she was sentenced to 9 years in prison for the security breach, attempting to overturn the election, and her insistence that she did nothing wrong. How does Jared Polis fit into this? Well, Tina Peters received a federal pardon from Trump, but she was convicted in a Colorado state court and sentenced to state prison, where Trump has no authority... but Jared does. In early January, a user posted an interview in which Polis said he the sentence was "harsh," to which the top response is "I'm gonna become the joker". At some point, the automod response is changed to, "damn you, Governor Polish." In March, Polis once again teased clemency for Peters and users are once again, pissed off and demand he be banned. On metaNL, one user wonders if the mods would even ban Trump from posting in the sub.
On Friday afternoon/evening, Polis commutted Peters's sentence and /r/neoliberal is mad.
> This place used to be his biggest fan club
> It’s time to ban Jared Polis from this sub
> How can he possibly explain this?
Users also head to /r/metaNL, suggesting that subverting democracy be disallowed, informing the moderators of their payscale, and, once again, requesting Polis be banned. This last thread has accumulated enough upvotes in the last ~20 hours to land it in the top 3 upvoted metaNL posts in the last year.
> Mod response: Again, we will ban him when he breaks one of our rules (Fuck him though fr) (sitting at -19), to which another mod replies, "Please check slack"
The moderator slack is locked down as the rabble seeks to influence the mods vote on fate of the posting privileges of Governor Polis. Will the posters breach the modslack? Will Polis be banned? Or will we just repeat this cycle in another few months when Polis is in the new again?