The Left, Online and Outraged

Liberal Blogger Finds an Outlet and a Community

David Finkel of The Washington Post brings us this article about the hate-filled Angry Left blogsphere and one Maryscott O'Connor. Ms. O'Connor apparently is filled with rage from morning till night as a result of Bush Derangement Syndrome, which is on full display at the blog MyLeftWing. This article has gotten a lot of coverage on the conservative side of the blogsphere and that is perhaps because the Post is not known for its conservative leanings.

But the portrait which this article paints is, I think, pretty accurate. All you have to do to see The Angry Left on display is to go to the biggest and most popular lefty blogs to get a taste of where they stand. Sites like the Daily Kos, Democratic Underground and IndyMedia are pretty typical of what one can read on the left side of the Blogsphere. And it has been pointed out elsewhere that there tend to be some clear differences between conservative bloggers and their lefty counterparts.

For one thing I think the focus is different for each side of the blogsphere. Conservatives blogs, as a rule, tend to focus on policy issues, such as terrorism and the economy, and on the bias of the mainstream media. Lefty blogs, on the other hand, tend to focus on the evils of all things Republican with an emphasis on finding new and interesting ways to call conservatives "fascists, evil, the Bush Crime Family, paid hacks, Nazis" and all sorts of other terms, as we read in this article. And while this sort of spewing may provide an emotional outlet for the leftists who write these kinds of things, they do not constitute much of an argument to those with a hunger for serious thinking and debate.

Indeed, as Hugh Hewitt points out, this kind of blogging by those on the left is poisoning the Democratic party with a style of rhetoric which many Americans find repellent and which is quite unlikely to win them many elections either now or in the future. Rather, as the Democratic party moves farther and farther to the left, they will be seen as more and more out of touch with the average voter. And that does not bode well for the future of the Democratic party.