I'm one of the openly-liberal posters at RedState. It isn't easy. Too many folks bite my head off for no good reason. There are some reasonable and decent folks there (yes, there are) but that place seems to make presumably otherwise rational people act like they're out on patrol in Fallujah. I dunno. I've spent a fair bit of time there getting to know the folks, improving my debate skills, and learning from them (there are things we can learn from anyone, it's important to avoid an echo chamber). While I assure you, after these months, I'm not one micron closer to being a Republican I have learned one thing.
Pity.
Read on. You'll be better for having read it.
The place has devolved into a den of essentially three groups. The first, and smallest, is those who understand exactly where they stand. These folks apply reason and their wits to the problem. These are the guys who understand just how fucked their side is this year. They mostly get that this is more their fault than not. These people aren't posting much at RedState anymore. There isn't much point, and they know that. An intelligent realist knows where they are.
The second group, currently the largest, consists of your true-believers. These guys and gals are certain that their worldview and policy prescriptions are immutable truth. It doesn't matter how they got here, it doesn't matter how far their party has fallen or how badly they've fucked up! These guys NEED to win because the fate of our democracy hangs in the balance. These guys are sitting their hoping that someone, ANYONE, will find some kind of secret weapon, some tape, some interview, ANYTHING that can take down Obama. They're praying, literally and figuratively, for a miracle. They seem to get, at some level, that they're in deep shit. They don't want to believe it and they certainly won't SAY it (defeatism!), but it's there in the back of their mind. They're about to go over a cliff and they kinda know that, they just don't want to.
The third group scares the fuck out of me. These are the delusional types, and not in a harmless way like the second group. The third group consists of folks who compare Obama to Hitler (this happens often), who say he's in favor of murdering live and born babies, who believe he is a Muslim and/or a Stalinist. Yes, a Stalinist. Lord knows where they came up with that one. These are the folks who stay up late at night scouring the internet for the latest conspiracy theories. These people are crazy. They will believe anything (whereas the second group might actually draw the line somewhere, and the first won't give 'em the time of day), anything at ALL so long as it benefits their worldview.
RedState and FreeRepublic are not magical lands in some separate dimension with people you'll never meet. Real people post there, the sorts of folks you meet in real life. Some of them are good and decent folks you could have a beer with. Most of them believe things that would make you want to stick your head in a blender, but it's important to remember that the reverse is probably true. The difference? We're winning. We don't have to spend our time dreaming up crazy-ass rumors about the other guy. The stars have properly aligned and our standard-bearer is fighting like a man possessed. All is well.
Pity these people. They're drowning and most are too fucking desperate to get it! Half of them think that the polls are all wrong. Maybe the polls are (a distinct possibility), but to believe that the polls are wrong and that reality is far more beneficial to them? That's nuts! That's optimism taken to a level that borders on the deranged.
They seem to believe that the plural of "anecdote" is "data." It isn't. That, by the way, is a lesson we would do well to remember. No, we need to pity them and let me tell you why! We have been there, and fairly recently. We will lose again. Life will break our hearts and our heads, just you wait and see. We have to be able to deal with that like rational adults when it happens. If we ever wind up on the other side of these numbers we should deal with it appropriately.
I never want to see you guys spending your nights writing diaries about party identification weighting being wrong by EVERY FUCKING POLLSTER except for today's outlier, who shows a closer race. We need to keep a grip on reality because drinking the koolaid, as they have absolutely done, well, it's scary. I think a good deal less of these people for having watched them hope, pray, and justify how a 9/11 troofer like Philip Berg, someone they'd not have given the time of day last MONTH, how they're willing to believe that nutjob that Obama's not a citizen.
We've seen this before with Vince Foster and all that. Some folks will believe anything. There's always a few kooks. My worry? Some otherwise rational folks are taking this loss very badly. It seems damaging from my vantage point.
What do you guys see?