My post below on [Insert Name] Derangement Syndrome raised the question of which side had a worse case of the disease: The right or the left?
My sense is that on the blogosphere as a whole, as well as in the overall political discourse, it’s actually pretty evenly matched. Think of it as Newton’s law of political derangement: For every overreaction, there is an equal and opposite overreaction (somewhere). On this blog’s comment threads, however, I think the right clearly has a worse case: There are a handful of conservative VC commenters who reliably make the most absurd, over-the-top, derangement-syndrome comments possible.
Being right-of-center myself, I cringe when reading these comments: No doubt many who are not committed conservatives see them as confirmation that many conservatives are truly deranged. At the same time, I tend to think the reason the right wins the [IN]DS award here at the VC is that we’re a right-leaning leaning blog. While good posts will attract readers from across the spectrum, my sense is that the Deranged tend to hang out at blogs that are sympathetic to their views. I think that explains why although we occasionally have liberal members of the Deranged pay a visit and post a few comments, they usually don’t hang out in the comment forest for very long.