| It's almost certainly multi-faceted, but I don't think it's just "conservatives discovering the internet," or at least anymore than it was 4 years ago. Two things that I think contribute heavily to the phenomenon you're seeing: 1) We've had 8 years of a democratic president. People were similarly fed up with conservatism at the end of GWB's presidency. If things haven't been going well for you for the past 8 years (and for most Americans, they haven't been going great), it's easy and common to blame the president for those troubles. And by extension, the president's party and theoretical political ideologies. It's much easier to have strong feelings after such a long time with one political party in charge (theoretically). 2) I'd wager a large sum that most of those comments come from white males who earn at or less than the median income, who previously may not have felt that strong of a political ideology or at least not enough to comment on an internet forum. Much of the current liberal discourse in America is focused around historically oppressed groups, e.g. black Americans, or people who don't fit into classic gender identities. This comes at the expense of ignoring (or in some extreme instances, trivializing) the struggles of the working class or middle class who may not necessarily fall into one of those historically oppressed groups. I think it's easy to imagine that if you're a white, poor male you might not feel like American liberalism in its current state really cares about you or your problems. Not that I think Republicans really care about their problems either, but at least they pay them lip service. |