I've been paying careful attention to the recent influx of trolls (not so much here, where they tend to be 0-bombed into oblivion, but on Political Animal, Atrios, Pandragon, etc).
They started pouring out of the woodwork around the DNC, and all when ballistic at about the time the SBVT add came out. Part of it's the desperation of a people seeing their beloved leader below 45%. But there's something else to it as well.
Why? I've got a theory...not just about what's causing the anger, but why Bush is so beloved by many conservatives, despite not being very conservative....
I've been paying careful attention to the trolls language, and specifically the points they retreat to when pressed hard. And I've noticed that a certain topic pops up repeatedly: Socialism.
I kid you not. It's 2004, and what appears to be fueling the anger is fear of the Reds.
It explains the particular anger about Kerry and Vietnam. I've been a bit surprised at how many conservatives are still pissy about Vietnam (I had thought, stupidly it appears, that most of the US had come around to the "It was a bad idea" category). They're still chalking it up as a "failure of political will" and screaming about Hanoi Jane (and trying to tag Kerry with that label).
But it all boils down to communism. We lost Vietnam, we lost to the damn commies, because of people like Kerry coming back and "poisoning the electorate" with talk of War Crimes. And then this Massachusetts liberal pops up, with his protectionism and minimum wages and safety nets....darn near socialism.
But push one of the rabid Swifty trolls, and you'll find it's not hard to get him to rant about Marxist influence on schools, or how the left is socialist.
And there's a hell of a lot more of them than I thought. Maybe they just have Cold War PTSD, or they never moved their brains past McCarthy....
But regardless, the implication is clear: They'll hound Kerry like they hounded Clinton. Worse, probably. They considered Clinton an enemy, but Kerry....Kerry's a traitor to them.
Don't expect the vitriol to die down. Don't expect the attacks to die down. Too many conservatives still fear the Reds, and Kerry's just a socialist to them.