This article is pretty accurate. One of the big differences between liberals and conservatives can be summed up simply by looking at how they see moderates. Your average freeper knows what being a moderate or a centerist or independent is, they may disagree with them on some issues, but they can understand why that person feels that way.
Your average say DUer can't. To them, everyone is either a liberal or a conservative. They have a sense of animosity towards those in the middle, seeing them as either liberals who don't know it yet, or stupid. They can't understand that alot of the insults they hurl at conservatives, will also by defauly, apply to alot of those in the middle. Saying somone is selfish because they want a tax cut, hits not only your average conservative, it also insults alot of people in the middle.
The average conservative likes Bush, the average liberal hates him, but the average middle of the roader doesn't dislike Bush and probably likes him a little bit, but has alot of doubts about him in his decisions, they don't have any kind of personal grudge with him specifically. Your not going to get the votes of moderates if you act hostile to them, and lump them in with groups that they don't think they are part of, especially when you insult the group your lumping them in with.
Dems have totally gone off the deep end. They really do believe that they are mainstream. They think everyone hates Bush, except conservatives, and that if you like bush, you must be right wing. They can't comprehend somone disagreeing with them on any issue. To them, its personal and in a sense, its there religion. Your talking about a group of people that believed America as a whole was opposed to the war, and that the polls lied, that americans despise tax cuts, yet when republicans win office, its all part of a conspiracy.
There belief in these kooky conspiracy's keeps them from having to react to reality, it gives them an easy out to explain why lose, and retards them in trying to sell there agenda. Using kooky stories and personal hatred as a crutch is a good way to alienate people you need, playing the role of always being the victim makes others not want to join, since no one wants to be the victim. If you go to DU, you get the feeling they are either the only liberal they know, or have delusions that everywhere is berkley but something is wrong that republicans keep getting elected.
Leftists/Liberals/Democrats do not experience reality in the same way that Conservatives/Libertarians/Republicans do. I suspect that mental health plays a role in deciding which faction, wing or party to support politically. I see a propensity to engage in "magical thinking" much more frequently on one side than on the other. Brooks explains this better than I could ever hope to:
Americans and Europeans no longer share a common view of the world. Americans are from Mars, and Europeans are from Venus. The essential reason Americans and Europeans perceive reality differently, he argued, is that there is a power gap. Americans are much more powerful than Europeans, and Europeans are acutely aware of their powerlessness.
Something similar seems to be happening domestically between Republicans and Democrats. It's not just that members of the two parties disagree. It's that the disagreements have recently grown so deep that liberals and conservatives don't seem to perceive the same reality.
The Democrats share much of the world view of the European Tranzies. They do not process information, interpret data, and develop courses of action like Republicans. We share the same planet, but live in different worlds.
How long do we have before one side convinces itself that the other side is criminally insane and a clear and pesent danger to the world as we know it? How long do we have before one side demonizes the other sufficiently to kill it's opponents with equanimity, as a sort of distasteful but necessary civic duty little different from shooting a rabid skunk? How long do we have before one side decides the other is not only not fit to live, but must be exterminated immediately lest the world be destroyed? And while the inhabitants of the planet's sole remaining super power are engaged in this bloody work, what becomes of the rest of the world?