It's very interesting to note that what the left dealt with this election cycle is nigh-identical to what the right did about 8 years ago. Different political stripes, same result, complete with an absolute clusterfuck for us to go and marvel at. Compare, if you will:
* The Tea Party was an astroturfed "Grassroots" campaign that was intended to push right-wing activism and encouraged the craziest, most bugfuck of individuals to emerge and start spraying Autism. The Regressive left is a heavily-financed well-oiled machine that was intended to push the stupid kind of socialism (Equality of Outcome) and encouraged the craziest, most bugfuck of individuals to to emerge and start spraying Autism.
* Both groups prescribed to an absolutely unsustainable "with us or against us" mentality that saw them get increasingly divorced from reality. The Tea Party brought us I HAVE THE RIGHT TO CARRY MY GUN EVERYWHERE and WHERE IS THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE, and the Regressives brought us 57 genders and Safe Spaces.
* Both groups took over their communities and then completely alienated everyone but themselves. Republicans went independent or even swapped party in droves because the Tea Party drove saner heads away in a suicidal bid for ideological purity. You eventually got to the point where they considered not-insane Republicans to be the equivalent of a Secret Communist Nazi Jew, and at this point they quickly became little more than living memes. The Regressives took over their communities in the exact same way, and, in the exact same fashion, chased saner heads out, until anyone who wanted a candidate that wasn't theirs was deemed a misogynist, islamophobe, and hatemonger.
* Both communities fucking loved to eat their own, and both were fucking repositories for lolcowdom. In fact, a number of Cows have showed up in both groups (Brianna Wu, for instance).
* Both groups got fucking rolled in the polls. The Tea Party was a fucking disaster, and we've all seen how great the Regressives are doing. Both groups were completely dick-punched by the loss and wound up quickly falling into despair and soonafter, circular firing squads.
* Same Atsimu shown after the election. Texas wanting to secede, California wanting to secede.
* The biggest difference between the two groups (political ideology aside) is that the Tea Party was top-down (crazy people already in office are the policymakers), and the Regressives are bottom-up (crazy people at the bottom push policy). Both groups, fittingly, got used by the existing establishment in different ways.[/spoiler]
This blew up in their face big time. It'll be very entertaining to see where things go from here.
