re: #474 Gus 802

It could be summed up as “if they’re against it we’re for it!”

Can’t ever underestimate the power of resentment (and ressentiment) to influence people’s voting behaviour. The GOP appears to have made the decision sometime in 2008 that they’d run on resentment and fear (xenophobia) and subsequent events have done nothing to change that- only encourage it.

I read a helluva lot of blogs from all over the spectrum. Visit any wingnut blog comment section and you’ll easily find a selection of comments like this:

“I love [doing X, voting for X] because it makes liberals heads explode”.
Sometimes it’s a statement about the future: “I will do X or vote for Y because it pisses off liberals.”

I don’t see that on the left. Oh, you can find as much rage and resentment as you like on the left, at any time, but you don’t get these statements about personal motivation where someone claims to do or vote for something solely because it will ‘make wingnut heads explode’. That just isn’t part of the mainstream of blog commentary on the left, it isn’t part of our particular mythos and pattern.

And I find it very strange and telling.