Wow. Atrios shuts down all comments and disappears for the weekend, saying his much-read blog is starting to annoy him. (I’m feeling the same way, but I’m only determined to post more.)

I guess you have to understand what some of the liberal super-bloggers have been through. Atrios’ site raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for candidates he was supporting, like Joe Hoeffel in Pennsylvania. And Daily Kos raised more than half a million dollars for 15 congressional candidates. All of them, including Hoeffel, lost. To have all that work, all that effort and sacrifice erased literally overnight — I can see why they’d be shell-shocked.

An opinion piece in the LA Times by radio host Frank Pastore:

Christians, in politics as in evangelism, are not against people or the world. But we are against false ideas that hold good people captive. On Tuesday, this nation rejected liberalism, primarily because liberalism has been taken captive by the left. Since 1968, the left has taken millions captive, and we must help those Democrats who truly want to be free to actually break free of this evil ideology.

In the weeks and months to come, we will hear the voices of well-meaning people beseeching the victor to compromise with the vanquished. This would be a mistake. Conservatives must not compromise with the left. Good people holding false ideas are won over only if we defeat what is false with the truth.

The left must be defeated in the realm of ideas, just as it was on Tuesday at the ballot box. The left hates the ballot box and loves its courtrooms, which is why it hopes to continue to advance its agenda through the courts. This must end.

The left bewitches with its potions and elixirs, served daily in its strongholds of academe, Hollywood and old media. It vomits upon the morals, values and traditions we hold sacred: God, family and country. As we learned Tuesday, it is clear the left holds the majority of Americans, the majority of us, in contempt

And bush is beholden to these people and their beliefs; he owes them some big favors. I don’t want to think about it. I want to go away for a few years so I don’t have to watch.

Link via Kevin Drum.

UPDATE: There is an absolutely great article at Slate by novelist Jane Smiley on this topic — what we’re up against. She is devastating. Sample:

The reason the Democrats have lost five of the last seven presidential elections is simple: A generation ago, the big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, decided to make use of the religious right in their class war against the middle class and against the regulations that were protecting those whom they considered to be their rightful prey—workers and consumers. The architects of this strategy knew perfectly well that they were exploiting, among other unsavory qualities, a long American habit of virulent racism, but they did it anyway, and we see the outcome now—Cheney is the capitalist arm and Bush is the religious arm. They know no boundaries or rules. They are predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant. Lots of Americans like and admire them because lots of Americans, even those who don’t share those same qualities, don’t know which end is up. Can the Democrats appeal to such voters? Do they want to? The Republicans have sold their souls for power. Must everyone?

Progressives have only one course of action now: React quickly to every outrage—red state types love to cheat and intimidate, so we have to assume the worst and call them on it every time. We have to give them more to think about than they can handle—to always appeal to reason and common sense, and the law, even when they can’t understand it and don’t respond. They cannot be allowed to keep any secrets. Tens of millions of people didn’t vote—they are watching, too, and have to be shown that we are ready and willing to fight, and that the battle is worth fighting. And in addition, we have to remember that threats to democracy from the right always collapse. Whatever their short-term appeal, they are borne of hubris and hatred, and will destroy their purveyors in the end.

Yes. Time for us to become more shrill and more outspoken than ever — when called for. Silence equals death, especially in this environment, when the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

One of the big complaints I hear from readers is that I’m too opinionated on US domestic issues, too partisan. “You’re great when you write about China, but you’re totally partisan when you write about Bush.”

Well, the bad news is, I believe I’m mediocre when I write about China and at my best when I write about the US. That’s because my knowledge of China is sketchy and relatively recent. I’ve been studying US politics since I could read, and am much more informed about the intricacies of US law and history than I am of China’s.

In each case, I write what I see, through my own filters. If I am opinionated and partisan about bush, then I’m certainly just as opinionated about China. I think the real issue is that these readers want me to be partisan in the same way that they are. I’m afraid they’ll be disappointed; I’m not toning down my criticisms of bush — unless he gives me reason to.

Yes, I’m partisan as hell, but I also try to be open minded. I’ll praise China if I think it’s merited. I’ll endorse a war led by Bush if I think it’s justified. But this is a blog, not a public information service funded by tax dollars. It’s supposed to be opinionated. So I don’t understand the complaints that I’m opinionated. These same readers love Conrad, who’s certainly as partisan as I am. Would he be any fun to read if he weren’t opinionated? Of course not. In fact, it’s those opinions that make him so readable.

So please, just try to accept it: I am a liberal and I find bush a menace to this country and the world and I say so, like thousands of other liberal bloggers. Instapundit loves bush and hates Kerry and he believes the Swift Boat Liars and he says so, and that’s his right. It’s what blogs are supposed to be. I realize I will never, ever convince you to join my side, but I’m not trying to (though it would be nice). I have no illusions — some readers hate my politics and come here to fight, others relate to my politics and come here to agree. But to tell me to stop being partisan about bush — forget about it. I am watching my country go to hell in a proverbial handbasket, and the last thing I’m going to do is go mute.

Anyway, it’s a hard week and it’ll take me and nearly 50 percent of the country a while to fully recover from the shock. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t ready to pick up the fight and press forward. We have to organize now more than ever before, because come 2008 the country is going to be even more of a basket case than it is now. I hate to even think about it — our environment, our tax system, our jobless, our Supreme Court. So as far as shrub goes, this blog won’t be getting any kinder or gentler. Take it or leave it.

In a post back in February, one smart blogger had it figured out.

It all reminds me of a line from a famous, or rather infamous, memo Pat Buchanan, then a White House staffer, wrote for Richard Nixon in, I believe, 1972 when their idea of the moment was what they called ‘positive polarization’.

At the end of this confidential strategy memo laying out various ideas about how to create social unrest over racial issues and confrontations with the judiciary, Buchanan wrote (and you can find this passage on p. 185 of Jonathan Schell’s wonderful Time of Illusion): “In conclusion, this is a potential throw of the dice that could bring the media on our heads, and cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half.”

And there you have it. Tear the country apart. And once it’s broken, our chunk will be bigger.

The party of inclusion, indeed. All the talk now about unity and reaching out are pure BS. You can’t get the genie back into the bottle, and you can’t put Humpty Dumpty back together. It’ll be fascinating to watch the coming political drama unfold, because the US is now in uncharted territory. We really are two countries now, split right down the middle, the result of a very intentional strategy to divide us along moral/religious lines. It worked, but it’s the saddest, most terrible thing I’ve ever seen happen to America. You have 48 percent of the people shell-shocked and comatose, fearful that reason and the liberal ideals upon which this country was founded are no longer cherished, and are in fact despised by the no-longer-silent majority.

Now this is really interesting. It’s a chart demonstrating quite dramatically that the lower the average IQ of a state’s population, the more likely it was to vote for bush. Read the description of the methodology at the end. While I can’t say if this would hold up to detailed scrutiny, it’s certainly eye-opening.

If you don’t read Maureen Dowd’s column today, it’s your loss. She can drive me crazy sometimes, but today she’s deadly serious and absolutely great. Please, just go there.

There’s always more than one way to look at things. I savored these bullets, which drive home just how broad the president’s new mandate really is.

— This is the largest number of people who have ever voted AGAINST a president

— 1% more than 50% is not a mandate but a bare, thin, majority.

— At 80% approval after 9-11 and guaranteed a landslide election by prognosticators 2 years ago, only half the country supports him

— A president who leads a divided country owes it to all Americans to lead fairly or have his party face the consequences begining in 2006. No one else is here to blame

— Assuming Bush gets New Mexico and Iowa, he will have gotten the lowest percentage of electoral votes (54%) of any incumbent running for reelection since Wilson. If those two states should swing Kerry’s way (NM might), it’ll be even lower.

— He will have won with the lowest percentage of the popular vote (51%) of any incumbent running for reelection since Truman (well, technically since Clinton, but he also ran against Perot, who was a more significant 3rd-party candidate than Thurmond and Wallace were in ’48)

— He will have won by the lowest margin of the popular vote (3.5M) of any incumbent running for reelection since Truman (2.1M, and back then only 50M voted).

Of course, shrub behaved as though he beat Gore by a huge landslide in 2000. I’m afraid now he’s going to think he’s lord emperor, if not god himself.

Update: A picture’s worth 1,000 words, so here’s a pie chart showing bush’s massive victory.

Graphic via Pandagon.

And that’s from a member country in the “Coalition of the Willing”!

Did you know gay marriage is an evil that compares to slavery? From CNN:

COOPER: But Democrats argue look, John Kerry doesn’t support gay marriage. I mean he doesn’t want a constitutional amendment about it, but he didn’t support gay marriage. Why is it that the Republicans have been able to benefit from that whereas the Democrats did not? Is it simply the question of the constitutional — the federal amendment?

FALWELL: Well, nobody believes John Kerry on that because his voting record, pro choice, his voting record on the family issues, does — belies his statement. And the fact that he would not support a federal marriage amendment, it equates in our minds as someone 150 years ago saying I’m personally opposed to slavery, but if my neighbor wants to own one or two that’s OK. We don’t buy that.

While we’re on the topic…. I’ve received several emails from indignant Christians who misunderstand my posts about the importance of Evangelical Christianity to bush’s campaign strategy and victory. I have nothing against Christianity, and my own home is decorated with many paintings of Christian saints, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, etc. (I live with a Catholic.) All I am against is any kind of fundamentalist mentality that generates intolerance, that scoffs at science and that insists on imposing its own values on others. The quote up above by Jerry Falwell underscores my deep distrust of the Evangelical mentality when it comes to political issues. Gay marriage — two people swearing their love to one another — as vile and evil as slavery?? WTF?

Link via Atrios.