WATCHING election returns with liberals is like watching the Iraqi information minister give a press conference as the Americans move closer to Baghdad -- denial, followed by irrational outbursts. For them, watching a Republican victory unfold is like watching the world disintegrate before their eyes. Perhaps this is because the world that liberals pull down over their eyes is not the real one.
On college campuses, liberal political conversations rarely involve any dissenting opinion. They close themselves into a maligning MoveOn mentality, reinforcing and hardening their own opinions while dismissing those people with whom they disagree.
Many liberals live in a walled-off world where the ideological opponent is derided rather than debated. These liberals don't try to disprove rational reasons for voting for Republicans. They refuse to acknowledge that any reason might exist, save pure evil or stupidity.
The evil candidate, liberals think, couldn't possibly get a majority of the vote. If he does, then either a majority of the people in the world are stupid/evil, or the whole world comes crashing down. Maybe this is the reason for the millions of nervous breakdowns taking place on college campuses across the nation Tuesday evening.
Anyone taking an objective look at politics over the last decade could see America drifting further into the red column for one reason: The Republicans' ability to connect with the average American. Half a century ago, this was the role of the Democratic Party, as Republicans were the party of northeastern elitists. Today, the parties have swapped cultural constituencies, with Democrats the party of wealthy northeast liberals and academics, and Republicans the party of the average working family.
As America has drifted right, the Democratic Party has moved further from the mainstream and into the grip of loony leftists like Howard Dean and Michael Moore. When one considers the slide to the left with the party's inability to connect with the average American, it becomes easy to see what led to Tuesday's fatal defeat.
Democrats fail to realize that the path down which they're currently being led by the likes of Michael Moore is the exact path that will lead to the obliteration of their party -- if that hasn't already happened.
Consider Tom Daschle. Daschle won his first Senate race due largely to his ability to connect with regular South Dakotans. However, after years closed up in Washington doing nothing but obstructing the president's agenda, he forgot he was from a state that went 60 percent for Bush. Whoops.
Daschle tried to make up lost ground by taking a cultural conservative stance, criticizing John Kerry and running ads of him standing with President Bush. But it was too late -- he was already gone.
To be sure, Tuesday's vote was a solid repudiation of liberalism. Kerry should have won, given a shaky economy and an unpopular war. But America clearly cannot stomach cultural liberalism.
Bush not only won the popular vote by millions of votes, he received more votes than any presidential candidate in history, including Reagan. Bush also has the distinction of being the first president to win a majority of the vote since 1988. In addition, Republicans made unprecedented gains in the Senate, controlling 55 seats.
Democrats are in the danger zone -- reduced to mere protest as Republicans govern the country. Republicans, once the party of protest, have become a governing majority, and are poised to take initiative on everything from tax reform to social security restructuring.
The Democrats can get back into the game, but not by standing on the sidelines complaining and obstructing.
Democrats have to look as if they have new ideas of their own, and not the same, tired pandering and class war that they've peddled for decades.
Also, Democrats can no longer rely on a shaky coalition of fringe interest groups to push liberals over the top. They won't be able to pull America over the cliff of cultural liberalism no matter how they try.
If Democrats are to have any chance of moving back into the majority, they will have to mirror America's cultural trends rather than agitate against them.
Before any of that can happen, though, the Democrats must first abandon Michael Moore, George Soros and MoveOn.org. They have to throw away the conspiratorial garbage, engage real Americans and move back into the real world -- where the real voters live.
Herb Ladley is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.
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