One would think that someone posting on a website called “redstate.org” wouldn’t write with all the pretension of some effete Ivy League elitist, of the sort that the Virgin Ben and his brethren so lustily disdain. But one would be wrong. Here’s “trevino,” writing about “bewildered Democrats” and their excuses for losing the election:
Bush won, and won convincingly, because the Democrats could not match his rapport or clarity with the American people. But good luck getting them to accept that. As with four years past, and as with Cleland Martyr, they’ll settle on a Dolchstosslegende soon enough. It’s their way. But this shouldn’t be it.
Next thing you know, “trevino” will lapse into high school French — and then, perhaps, it’s au revoir from Red State Nation.
The Bull Moose has some advice for those wallowing in the Blue State Blues: Stop seeming so disdainful of religious people. “The Moose can attest that nothing motivated religious conservatives more than their perception that liberal elites have contempt for their faith. Once, a Washington Post writer characterized them as ‘poor, uneducated and easy to command.’ That quote alone was a inestimable recruiting tool.” (Take it away, Amy Sullivan!)
To transition from one front in the culture war to another: Andrew Sullivan passes along two disheartening emails, one from “a 16-year-old gay kid in Michigan” whose life “just got a hell of a lot worse,” and another from someone pointing out that all eleven states which had the issue on the ballot voted to ban gay marriage, which we’ll quote here:
I think this sends a very clear message — true Americans do not like your kind of homosexual deviants in our country, and we will not tolerate your radical pro-gay agenda trying to force our children to adopt your homosexual lifestyle. You should be EXTREMELY GRATEFUL that we even let you write a very public and influential blog, instead of suppressing your treasonous views (as I would prefer).
Emily at The Universal Review has decided to grade our post-election future, and she gives it a definitive “not good.” If we’re going to have the scariness, she argues, we should also be entitled to the cool stuff. “Where is my robot car?” she wonders. “Where is my flying skateboard? Where is my government-mandated daily happy pill? Instead all we have is the totalitarian regime part. Can we at least have the cool silvery costumes?”
Finally, a quick tour around the liberal blogosphere: The Political Animal wants liberals to “quit whining about George Bush’s ‘mandate.'” “It may be a narrow one, but of course he has a mandate,” he writes. (Nick Confessore doesn’t buy it.) Matt Yglesias is pondering the plusses and minuses of dividing the top portion of North America into the “United States of Canada” and “Jesusland.” (Don’t tell Bull Moose.) And Sarah Wildman links to the cover of the U.K.’s Daily Mirror, which asks: “How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?”
It’s good to see the harsh divisiveness of the campaign fading so quickly.
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.