Baldilocks nails it
An excellent observation from Baldilocks:
Losers find it almost impossible to act like winners even when they win.
Since Obama’s victory, troll visits to right-wing blogs are up, dropping comments that show all the class of second graders in the schoolyard singing “Nah nah nah boo boo, stick your head in doo doo.”
You’d think they’d be happy to have won, with no need to waste time and energy on such entertainment. But it you’d think that, you’d think wrong. For a certain segment of the Obamaphile population (and I have no idea how large it is), the feeling of triumph goes hand in hand with the desire to spit on others in their overwhelming delight at their own victory. Not an admirable impulse to be sure, but an ancient one. By their fruits ye shall know them.
What Baldilocks has nailed, is sensing the existence of a particular behavior from a certain ‘type’ of people within the general population. Witness the comments on liberal blogs 4 years ago (or between evangelicals and athiests on conservative blogs for that matter). This kind of crap is non-partisan.
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
Abraham Lincoln
Being from the South, I was never raised to be a huge Lincoln fan – but I have to admit he was right on the money with that statement.
Those in power now will be judged by how they conduct themselves. I don’t recall this same asinine behaviour on the right after either of the Bush victories.
Should these mental midgets continue to conduct themselves in this manner it will only contribute to the long term undermining of their Messiah as the casual observers yet to enter the minimum voting age or re-enter the voting booth in 2 years are turned off from such idiocy.
Perhaps the right should encourage such lunacy of the fringe left.
In response to the election results, an Australian friend told me that he expected we’d be in for a lot of “vulgar triumphalism” from the Democrats, similar to what they have witnessed in Australia after the Labour party’s victory in the last election.
Hey! How did Proposition 8 get into this discussion? And … speakin’ of Proposition 8 (ba-da-bing!) did they have to use THAT number?
“Hey! How did Proposition 8 get into this discussion?”
Well, since it is nowhere in Neo’s post, the linked Balidilock’s post, any of the comments there, or in any of the comments preceding yours, I’ll have to guess because you introduced it.
…
It’s the latest mutation of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Where Bush could do no right, Obama can do no wrong.
I’ve noticed over at PJM and a few other weblogs much of the jejeune vitriol and taunting seems to be coming from Leftist trolls overseas, not that we don’t see evidence of it coming from within the country.
Some are clearly Communists and anarchists out for a ride through the neighborhood, tossing molotov cocktails at homes along the way.
I must admit, while I should ignore them they get under my skin, particularly the foreigners. It was OUR election and it is OUR country they are crapping on. And I have to give them my two cents’ worth.
If you really want to see “deranged”, just wait til their Beloved Leader really steps into it on any number of subjects and screws up royally.
They’ll fall all over themselves in an effort to shift blame, attack the opposition, explain away the mistake, or try to convince the world that everybody else is wrong because we just KNOW The One can’t be mistaken….
I wonder if there’s a connection between this “SoreWinnerman” behavior and the cult of victimhood? Victims never have to learn how to win graciously.
Maybe they are not so certain what their victory will really mean to them. Have to keep reminding themselves that life is wonderful. I remember the same from the Labour people in 1997 and thereafter. The trouble was that they never quite got what they thought they wanted and have hated the victorious leader – Tony Blair – ever since.
I skim some left side blogs. You’d think they would be focusing on what Barack is going to do – yet they are not, b/c NO ONE KNOWS WHAT BARACK IS GOING TO DO! Even his supporters don’t know what he is going to do!
But they are excited, and they want to write about something, so they focus on the horrible Repubs, just as they always have. My favorite comment: The Senate minority has never obstructed and used the filibuster as often as Repubs are going to use it. Scandalous!
Being in the minority is great fun.
My answer to these trolls is right here:
http://americandigest.org/sidelines/archives/2008/11/_other_variatio.html
It is increasingly becoming standard fare in some segments of society. This attitude is rife among sports fans.
I am not a Sociologist so I am only guessing, (well that is what they are doing, but I admit it), but I believe a lot of this comes from the entertainment media. The “in your face” genre has been standard fare for years now. The internet exacerbates the problem, as does the news media’s love affair with un-named sources. Nothing like anonymity to bring out the tiger in a mild-mannered pissant who harbors a lot of hostility.
There, if anyone wants counseling via email, speak up and I will tell you where to send the check.
Good to see that you’re familiar with all Internet traditions.
Dang I thought I was the resident troll. Have I been replaced?
Peter the Alaskan Kid: you could never be replaced :-).
Obama was elected on an urban tideswell of “Yes We Can”. The youth vote was less important than the people who have never before cared enough about this country to even bother to register to vote turning out in droves for this man because they felt “their time has come”.
Like Karl Marx all those years ago, Obama’s appeal to the have not’s, those content with not improving their own lot in life; those who feel disenfranchised, and the most liberal leaning among us was stronger than the right imagined. The psychology of his campaign was brilliant, manipulating fears and concerns while making them feel powerful and excited to change history.
Except that their time has always been here, they just didn’t care to do anything about til now.
Now they get their payoff in the new Dept of Urban…whatever, and the miriad opportunties he is going to give our youth and seniors to go out and work for them.
Read Alexander Tyler’s time line for a Democracy. We are at step seven…really scary.
Baldilocks took the words out of my mouth. Less than a week before the election I put a bumper sticker on my car, “Regular Joes for McCain/Palin.” I park in underground parking in a high rise. The morning *after* the election I went to my car to find that the bumper sticker had been slit with a knife (or some sharp tool) and the right side of the sticker ripped off completely, the left hanging loose. Fortunately, this wasn’t a complete vandal – they left the car alone.
My exact thought was: sore winners. Pathetic, but also a bit scary that someone would violate, even in that relatively minor way.
“My exact thought was: sore winners. Pathetic, but also a bit scary that someone would violate, even in that relatively minor way.”
Observed and noticed. As you (and Baldilocks) said, these are supposed to be the winners.
What the hell kind of insecure twerp behaves that way in victory?
Rachel Lucas also predicted a generous amount of liberal “ass waving”.
Ah,but these people are not winners-they are embittered losers,who happened to vote for a winning candidate.
My own opinion is that people who screw up their own lives should not have the power to screw up colective decisions,and if you can’t support your self with a job in the private sector you shouldn’t have the franchise.
My description of many of the rabble that voted for Oobonga is that many are parasites and cowards. Parasites, because they are fine with the idea of redistribution and The State having final say in these matters. Cowards, because they don’t want to fight the Islamic savages who are roused from their three centuries of somnolence since they were turned back at the Gates of Vienna in 1683. And most of the wusses need not worry about having to fight period, since our military is all-volunteer. These kids and their grandparents from the Sixties believe WE are the baddies in this fight, not the Islamic savages.
I regard them with contempt.
My sister told me of a comment on “winning” by some person named Cyrus to the effect that ~ if you win, you win twice if you then conquer yourself.
She also mentioned an Onion headline, ~ Obama Wins, Many Supporters Discover They Have No Life!
No shock here. These are the same adult adolescents, Code Pink, Not in our name, Move On, etc. that savaged a president and divided a country for eight years.
They have returned to their glory days when they caused the defeat of the US in Vietnam. The election of Obama is the capstone of the 60’s radicals return to their central defining moment.
Why would we now expect them to act like adults?
Judith:
I took my sticker off myself the morning after. I had already been risking vandalism for a month and a half, and besides, I didn’t want to be one of those Kerry/Edwards losers that kept their bumper stickers on for four freakin’ years.
Rickl, maybe they just didn’t know how to take it off. Have some consideration for your fellow man, neh.
This goes back to ancient times when winning didn’t mean anything unless you could execute the family of the defeated. Then and only then were you safe in your victory.
Talk to the Iranian counter-revolutionary guards for an example of why they are still around.
Every demagogue in memory always made his main appeal to the sore losers. And sore loser is a life-long occupation. Obama is a classical demagogue, so why should we be surprised by the defining trait of his supporters?
If they could, they’d practice “ecrasez l’infame”. I take their jumping up and down and pointing to their behinds in the spirit they intend.
Liberals hate reality. By that I mean they are uncomfortable and alienated in the world as it exists. They constantly strive for “change” in the hope that some policy, some politician, some magic nostrum will cure their unhappiness. But since that unhappiness is internal, nothing ever satisfies.
If Obama is ineffective, they will continue to support him in his endless battle against “how things are.” Their hatred and alienation will support him.
If he’s successful expect his most fervent supporters to turn on him. If he actually does bring about all the change that he’s promised — it won’t be enough. They’ll call him a sellout and a hypocrite and an Uncle Tom, and they’ll find some new messiah, someone even more outside the mainstream.
No surprise at all. Of course they were going to act this way.
This goes back to the 2000 election and the classless and venomous vitriol directed at Bush, right out of the gate. They personified the definition of “sore Losers.” The just could not and would not accept the outcome.
They could not shake their almost religious belief that Bush had “stolen” Florida and therefore “stole” the election, and that the “duly elected” candidate had been denied the presidency due to a ‘right wing’ supreme court which “appointed” Bush.
Even after several of the major news media outlets ended up taking the time and effort to fund a detailed recount of the Florida votes (done in the EXACT SAME METHOD AND MANNER the Gore camp wanted it done) which showed that BUSH DID INDEED WIN FLORIDA, and therefore, in hindsight the correct result WAS reached, and Bush WAS “legitimately” elected….it made no difference. They ignored it. The “truth” in their minds was already set in stone. They were not interested in the least, in the actual facts. And they have been (with about a 3 week “pause” following 9-11) suffering from BDS rage ever since.
The sore losers suffering from their righteous indignation these 8 years, have just been waiting for their moment of glory to gloat and get in your face, and be…..as classless and sore winners as they were sore losers.
My wife said a couple nights before the election: “If Obama wins, McCain will give a graceful concession speech, with the losing side will quietly concede. Peace will rein across the land. And we’ll all get on with our lives. On the other hand, if there is just a 2-3 percent switch, and McCain wins, there will be riots, lawsuits demanding recounts, accusations of election fraud and “disenfranchisment” , and America will be proclaimed a Racist KKK nation.” We would have seen a temper tantrum and a rage-filled hysteria hissy fit of historic proportions.
“I took my sticker off myself the morning after. I had already been risking vandalism for a month and a half, and besides, I didn’t want to be one of those Kerry/Edwards losers that kept their bumper stickers on for four freakin’ years.”
In Houston, the day after the 2000 election, I found myself behind a car with a bumper sticker saying
“George Bush Lost! Get Over It!
(P.S., I didn’t vote for his daddy either)”
The day after the 2004 election, I saw the same sticker on another car, and wondered if it was the same driver.
And don’t get me started on the 2000 Florida recount.
I’ll point out that the infamous “Butterfly ballot” seems to have been used without problems in Chicago and was designed by a democrat.
And, that most of the disputed precincts in Florida were managed by democrats.
For those of us who were old enough to start voting back in the 70’s, and remember a different political age – where you could agree to disagree with your neighbor about politics without it becoming a bitter anger-filled hatred sort of thing……sometimes I think Al Gore and his conduct in refusing to EVER gracefully concede defeat formed the basis for, or at least encouraged, the age of political bitterness, BDS, and and venom which arose following the 2000 election and which has been with us ever since. To me, Gore himself was the inspiration for all the “he’s not MY president” bumper stickers and BDS attitudes.
I’m NOT saying he should not have asked for a recount. I’m talking about his classless and pentualant attitude and conduct throughout the recount process, and also after it was all over. I know it is a lot of blame to lay at the feet of just one man, but think about it. Not once did he ever truly acknowledge that Bush won or say anything statesmanlike, such as “I fully accept the outcome and I now encourage ALL Americans to rally and come together and unite around our new President Elect…..” etc, in the manner losers of presidential elections are SUPPOSED to act (like McCain acted). And stick with that message. To the contrary, he ENCOURAGED a continuation of this “selected not elected” bullshit long after it was over.
He served as the Sore Loser Role Model for every American who voted for him instead of for Bush.
Gore’s manner, his conduct, his demeanor, and his words (or lack thereof) represent a shameful and disgraceful chapter in American history. IMO. And helped usher in, or at least legitimatize and validae, an era where the politician on the other side of the aisle is not simply “wrong,”…..he is EVIL – and he and those who support him can be bitterly HATED.
Thank you, Al Gore.
talk about bad losers
The thing about that election – seems to me – is that neither candidate was particularly well-liked. Gore was wooden and uninspiring. Bush was, well, Republican, and hadn’t inspired either. People felt 50/50. And the election came down exactly that way. 50/50. Certainly a recount was warranted. Incredibly, the election was closer than some local elections, proof that every vote does indeed count.
Then, Gore began the histrionics – trying to disallow military votes, trying to count only the heavily democratic counties… and i agree with you SouthernJames, from that time forward, the political climate has been poisonous.
With all the cries an concerns about vote tampering and stolen elections, one would think there would be outrage over the ACORN stuff this time, but no. They see it as vengeance.
And so we all pay the price.
And now, they want us to bow in submission, and applaud them for their coup.
Face it: there is no fair play here, no attempt to see things from the other guy’s perspective. The Democrats believe that their ugly, eight-year temper-tantrum was entirely justified. At the same time, they believe that any negative reaction to Obama’s victory is completely unjustified and irrational. They see no contradiction, now that they’ve won, in asking everyone to be nice and cooperate. This even though we know a McCain victory would have led to four more years of god-awfulness on their part. It’s a really one-sided perspective.
I’ve often compared our behavior to that of monkeys. I take it back: monkeys are better at getting along than we are. They have ways of dealing with victory and defeat, rituals that preserve social harmony despite unequal outcomes. We have lost all that. Compared to monkeys, we (and especially Democrats) are…crass.
While this is a true statement, those of us with longer memories remember the thing when G.W. Bush was elected in 2000, albeit on the right.
Careful there where you throw the stones.