A curious piece at The Atlantic reflects exactly how strange the liberal mindset is, even when it is trying to be honest with itself.

The Czar does not normally read The Atlantic, and assumes you do not either. No need to click that link—the Czar will summarize. In a piece entitled “The Democratic Party’s Eternal Search for a Villain in the Obama Age,” author David A. Graham makes a startling admission:

Look at the last three elections where Democrats triumphed: 2006, 2008, and 2012. In 2006, Democrats won running against George W. Bush, using his unpopularity to take over the House and Senate. Two years later, Barack Obama grabbed the White House in large part by campaigning against Bush’s foreign policy (the war in Iraq, and his handling of the war in Afghanistan) and economic policy, and insisting a John McCain Administration would be more of the same. In 2012, Obama triumphed while blasting Mitt Romney, doing everything he could to paint his opponent as an insensitive plutocrat out of touch with voters.

In short, Democrats had a clear villain in all three races. Now, this is an intentionally oversimplified account; factors like the economy are generally far more important than messaging….But politicians and parties like to have unifying themes to center their campaign, and they like to have a villain to run against.

The Czar finds this startling not because it is true, but because someone on the Left is willing to admit it.

The Left normally triumphs itself as pragmatic and beyond dogma: the Left is the Good, and therefore anything not allied with the Left at the moment is horrifyingly evil. Villains are not necessary, the usual thinking goes, because anything not Left is the Bad.

Here, however, author Graham reveals that any reasonable person knows this isn’t the case: both parties will run against a person if they can, and the Left is a little stymied because the Republicans have not been nice enough to give them an easy target. And they kinda don’t know what to do.

But a couple of Lefty assumptions still come out in the piece. First, the nature of campaigning is quite different. Graham should take an honest, closed-door look at the last several presidential campaigns. Demonization occurs largely on the Left, while rationalization occurs largely on the Right. Bush, Romney, McCain—all racist, evil, plutocrat homophobes. Mitt Romney gang barbered a queer while not paying taxes and strapping dogs to the roof of his car. Bush is a drunk, dithering idiot who paid his way out of real national service while single-handedly forcing kids to renounce evolution. McCain called Obama “that one” because he has a bunch of global warming homes in ultra-racist Arizona. Evil, stupid, and racist.

You didn’t see this sort of “villainization” on the Right. No question a lot of whackjob supporters promoted birtherist attacks on Obama, but the only serious political candidate who whipped him for it was Hillary Clinton. The only comments about him being little more than an articulate, non-Negro sounding coffee-fetcher were all from Democrat politicians. The Right attacked him for his policies: his attention deficit disorder on the economy, his non-existent, comic-book-driven foreign policy, his hostility toward the military, and his absenteeism. By the way, even the mainstream media is conceding these points…well, really, all of them…have some obvious foundation in the truth. The only right-wing attacks that are wrong are…well, really, all the ones that came from Democrats when he was running against Hillary Clinton.

Here is Graham’s second unforced error:

Ask most political observers what the Republican Party’s most pressing problem is and they’re likely to tell you it’s disorganization and factionalism; with George W. Bush out of favor among the party and the population as a whole, it’s unclear who speaks for the GOP. In the longer term, the party faces a demographic quandary—made worse by the fact that no leader seems able to marshal the party and move it toward a solution.

But the fact that there’s no clear Republican leader causes problems for Democrats, too—at least in midterm years.

There is an unrelenting Leftist supposition that because they have a leader, the Right must have a leader. Contrary to Mr. Graham’s interpretation here, this came up in 2011, as well. Republicans were allegedly getting their marching orders from either Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, or Newt Gingrich. Wrong, and talked about this fallacy in 2012. In 2010, they were all getting their marching orders from Palin and Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. In 2008, from Bush, Cheney, and so on.

What boggles the pro-fascist mentality of the Left is that folks on the right actually are incredibly diverse and generally think for themselves. We may find certain speakers entertaining, and especially quotable, but overall put little stock in them. A smarter liberal might find a conservative anywhere and ask if the conservative likes his or her current GOP front-runners. Expect an earful of vitriol.

The reason it is so hard for the Left to identify the bad guy leader on the Right is because we rarely, if ever, have one. Mitt Romney may have been the candidate run by the Republicans, but voting turnout shows how little the Right supported his choice. We didn’t need him.

Because we don’t require leaders, we tend to distrust them. There is an inherent suspicion of anyone pushing authority, which is why Republicans rarely become Democrats, conservatives rarely cross over into liberalism, and Right wingers almost never adopt Leftism.

Nearly all liberals have this erroneous conceit that they are a mirror image of conservatism: good vs. bad, left vs. right, progressive vs. backward. The reality is that Leftism is a counter-culture to the Right, which is why it is smaller in numbers, incompatible with many of its own beliefs (champions of the little guy vs. abortion, hate religion but love Islam, conformity vs. pro-gay culture, et cetera), and ultimately needs leadership. The Right believes that people need to be responsible for themselves, and therefore do not need centralized leadership.

We don’t need a visionary: we have the vision. it’s individual liberty. So while Mr. Graham is refreshingly intelligent to realize the Left sorta demonizes people and the Koch Brothers are the new, ineffective targets of liberal wrath, he misses the point that liberals will never be correct about who our big boss is, any more than the Queen Ant can figure out who runs the flock of birds that attacks the nest every couple of days.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.