People finally take note of conservative fantasy syndrome

by: Eric B.

Sun Sep 30, 2012 at 10:21:27 AM EDT

Teh Demas writes a column that is, above all else, a fine bellweather for what the punditocracy is talking about from a vaguely reality-based frame. She's not a policy wonk. She'll probably tell you that climate change is real and not a communist plot, for instance, but she won't tell you about positive feedbacks like lost albedo or thawed permafrost. Above all else, she's essentially a standard issue crusader against extremism, both right and left. People call her a political liberal, but she calls herself an independent. I'm inclined to side with her, even though lots of her critics will point to columns like this and wrongly conclude that it's evidence that they're right. And, by the way, the fact that they'll do this (and are doing so in the comments, so this isn't a hypothetical), is evidence that she's got a point.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that Mitt Romney was losing Michigan. I was wrong.

You see, I made the mistake of looking at polls.

What follows is actually what is now a pretty safe broadside at conservatives who, seeing polls that show Willard Romney self-emolating, have decided that the polls are the problem and not the candidate. This has been fodder for basically everyone the last week.

Only a couple of people have noted that it's not anything especially true, I'm speaking of 2006, when Karl Rove said that polls were all wrong, and then lost the House of Representatives. I'm also speaking of 1998, when Republicans insisted that polling that showed that the American people had no interest in impeaching Bill Clinton were doctored, a product of liberal bias. I the day after Election Day, by the way. I was driving around Midland, listening to a clearly shell-shocked Rush Limbaugh talk about how they hadn't actually lost anything ... and then the Senate quickly and quietly brought the proceedings to an end.

Truth be told, this blog centers around one central reality of our politics today, which is that the Republican Party for a very long time -- and its conservative base -- have had a very loose association with reality. When reality conflicts with ideology, they make up their own reality and rather than arguing over solutions, you have to argue over facts. This year's presidential polls aren't a new development. They're just the latest iteration of a reality that has been growing within conservative circles.

It's been a running point on this blog that if people provide factless, conspiracy-oriented commentary on one issue that it's a valid question to ask why it would be any different on everything else they have to say. That is, if conservatives think that if the polls show their candidate tanking -- a candidate who most of them hated six months ago -- are weighted by a partisan desire to see a Democrat win, then can they really be on to something when they say that climate change is a communist plot to take away your freedom. And, if they say that presidential polls that disagree with internal biases are phony and that climate change is a communist plot, can you really believe them when they say that tax cuts for the rich cause prosperity to trickle down to everyone else. And, if they say that presidential polls that disagree with internal biases are phony and that climate change is a communist plot and that tax cuts for the rich cause prosperity to trickle down to everyone else are real, can you believe them when they say that Saddam Hussein has unconvential weapons which he plans to hand to terrorists to destroy the Quad Cities? And, if they say that presidential polls that disagree with internal biases are phony and that climate change is a communist plot  and that tax cuts for the rich causes prosperity to trickle down to everyone else and that Saddam Hussein has unconventional weapons he plans to turn over to terrorists to destroy the Quad Cities, can you believe them when they say that Terri Schiavo's nerve tissue will regenerate itself and just as you're about to terminate her life support that she's going to wake up and dance a jig to thank Jesus for life? Or that the financial crisis of 2008 was caused by a law passed under Jimmy Carter in the late 70s? Or that Sarah Palin was highly qualified to be president? Or that Barack Obama was born in Kenya? Or, that health care reform was going to lead to death panels that were going to sentence the elderly and infirm to an undeserved grave? Or that when credit agencies lower the nation's credit rating, it's not because one party created a near-financial crisis by holding the payment of bills? The point is that conservatives refusing to believe presidential polls is no less batshit crazy than it was that they believed that Bill Clinton handing over the Panama Canal to the Panamanians (as was dictated by a treaty) meant in reality handing it over to secret Chinese agents. The difference is that we should be less suprised that they refuse to believe in polls, because they've literally spent a decade and a half inventing their own realities when the one most of us live in conflicted with their ideology.