We can't imply blame towards conservatives or conservative web sites for the numbers dropping. When Obermeister took over in 2008 and the NSA/Snowden revelations came out, my guess is that it depressed comment activity for all conservatives across the board. I recall that Obie had an application form for working in his administration that demanded to know all screen names ever used and the applicant's entire posting history—every comment ever made online. Most of us on here regularly would need a Ryder truck if they were printed out. Then there was Janet Napolitano as head of Homeland Security, who put Christians, veterans and pro-lifers on terrorism watchlists.
Then there was news of keystrokes being remotely recorded, and conservative reporter Sheryl Atkisson's reports of her computers turning themselves on and off at night for some time before the government raided her and removed them. And the announcements by Verizon and other Big Data companies that every word we ever type would be housed on servers, even the words we typed and erased and never sent. It's been a creeping intrusion.