One piece of conventional wisdom that started a few years ago is the idea that liberals dominate blogs. A few years ago this was true when the United States was living under the cruel dictatorship of President Bush. Progressives needed a place to post their laments about faux voter fraud, global warming, and the plight of the American homeless. Liberal blogs were a dime a dozen. Back in 2006 there were all kinds of theories as to why liberals were blogging.
One suggested reason is that more liberal blogs have comments and promote individual blogs, participation and more which bring more repeat and continuous traffic. Also, it is possible that progressive/liberal and anti-war blogs are read in countries other than the United States; this may not be as likely for the conservative ones. The other theory is that the party in opposition has more to complain about, strategize about and work on than the party in power. In that case, I will revisit this article if things change in November of 2008.
It seems clear which of the theories above is correct. Now that Obama is in the White House the blogosphere looks a lot different. Conservative blogs are now gaining more traffic. The National Review’s blog, The Corner, is now the second most popular political blog right behind the Cannibal Post (AKA Huffington Post). That’s no small feat considering the amount of money the Queen of Cannibalism spends on her site. Then there are progressives who feel that liberal blogs are superior because they’ve learned “to be reverent.” No, seriously.
Now compare that concept to the writing style of your favorite liberal bloggers. Notice the sense of awe and reverence? The respect they have of language and a turn of phrase to convey the inter-connectedness of life?
None of that exists in the rightwing blogosphere. I’ve read the so-called A-List conservative bloggers and their essays are rife with fear, stereotypes, and embittered presumptions.
This was written by em dash who earlier in her reverent post called the Bush Administration the “crooks, thieves, and miscreants inhabiting the White House.” That type of rhetoric is certainly presumptuous, bitter, and shallow, but I’ll leave it up to someone else to convey the inter-connectedness of life. As far as fear is concerned the left is just as guilty of using fear tactics as the right.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. – H. L. Mencken
Give us your overpopulation, health care sob stories, homeless rediscovery, DDT, and global warming nonsense. How did the President pass his pork filled stimulus bill? Of course, he used scare tactics. For someone like em dash who is high on intellectually superiority it’s amazing how naive she is when comes to simple politics. I guess that’s just another widely accepted stereotype on the left.
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