For the record, I was not one of these people.
I tend to believe that mainstream political opinions and those expressed here on Free Republic are often quite different.
All of us (all sides of the political spectrum) tend to gravitate to those sources of news and discussion that cause us the least angst. That angst exists because the stakes are so high and the political divisions are so broad.
That said, how are you defining 'mainstream political opinions'? Also, should every effort and every position be determined on the basis of its political costs - or do we follow our principles for those things that are most important to us?
“For the record, I was not one of these people.
I tend to believe that mainstream political opinions and those expressed here on Free Republic are often quite different.”
Nor I, and as to the second point sites like this can be every much the conservative echo chamber full of hopium and whistling-past-the-graveyard that places such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. are for liberals.
An example that comes to mind is when one of the supposedly respected conservative prognosticators posted on here in the summer of 2020 about something ridiculous like a “69-point enthusiasm gap” which compared enthusiasm FOR Trump to enthusiasm FOR Biden.
That, along with some other factors which were said to be important but turned out to be insignificant (like “college students not being present to vote on campuses due to COVID”) were to foreshadow a major Red Wave.
But even if that 69% number was accurate in its limited context, it was meaningless. The correct question for prospective Biden voters was NOT “How excited are you to vote FOR Joe Biden?”, it should have been “How excited are you to vote AGAINST Donald Trump?” Anyone truly interested in making an accurate prediction should have known that.
Goodbye 69-point advantage, and hello negative numbers.
It was always going to be close, although everyone who made any predictions about 2020 no matter how ludicrous (”Trump really won California and New York! And Massachusetts!) can always claim they were right because they believe they WOULD have been right had massive fraud not occurred.
Massive or at least well-targeted fraud DID occur in PA, AZ, GA, MI, WI, NV, etc., but not enough to make ludicrous wishes (”Trump won California!) become reality if it had not.