Last Friday, when I wrote about the explosion of right-wing trolls along the progressive blogosphere, I was quickly amazed at the amount of trolls readers described. Moving beyond the benevolent trolls, blunt-force trolls and relapsing trolls I detailed, you came forward with the often annoying, often unintentionally hilarious pests we've come to know and love.
So it's time for a sequel!
America loves sequels. But why should we let Hollywood enjoy the monopoly on follow-ups? With that in mind, it's time we progressives again revel in the insult-slinging right-wing parasites that so frequently pollute liberal outlets.
As I said
Friday, just as there are myriad varieties of
Republican voters, there are myriad varieties of
Republican trolls. For the purposes of this follow-up, I'll add three more high-profile trolls to the list:
The consultant troll, the Matrix troll and the faith-based troll.Consultant trolls are hard to miss. Though Republicans themselves, they frequently visit the liberal blogosphere to offer Democrats free advice that we can either choose to accept or choose not to accept. If we
don't consent, however, they're there to remind us that our party, contrary to reality, will surely "continue to sink into irrelevance." They say this, mind you, as
their party slowly fades away. But when you've got an environmental policy like Republicans have, I suppose you can't see the forest
or the trees.
Typically, consultant trolls have an ideal Democrat in mind, most often a Fox News Democrat like
Joe Lieberman. This individual, to them, embodies everything the left should stand for. To that end, they warn liberals to keep progressive voices like Howard Dean and Russ Feingold quiet in favor of right-leaning, corporatist, pro-war Democrats-in-name-only. Consultant trolls also warn against saying things "average Americans" may find too liberal, instead advocating for brilliant strategies like adding anti-choice planks to our platform.
Thanks, but no thanks, guys.Taking things several annoying steps further are the Matrix trolls, the now-right-leaning folks who claim to have formerly been Democrats. Taking self-righteousness to new heights, Matrix trolls tell us they've "seen the light" and have now decided to vote Republican.
Why? Not because
they left the party. No, because the party left
them. And to that, I add:
Good riddance.Why did they become Republicans? Matrix trolls offer as many reasons as their arguments contain holes, but the most frequent refrain is that the Democratic Party became too "extreme" for them. In other words, the liberal party started to act like liberals. Matrix trolls are quick to proclaim as leaders of the party the
George Clooneys,
Michael Moores and
Cindy Sheehans of the world, as though speaking truth to power brands you as an extremist. But the Matrix trolls were swayed by people like Bill O'Reilly, so their powers of discernment weren't praiseworthy to begin with.
Moving on from the self-righteous to the
extremely self-righteous, we meet the faith-based trolls. Though I'm an
atheist myself, I have no problem with the faithful. But faith, like alcohol, must be used responsibly. And faith-based trolls have long forgotten how to know when to say when.
Faith-based trolls most often appear when someone has the audacity to criticize
bigots hiding behind their faith. They do, however, also pop up when they feel it necessary to lecture everyone on what is and isn't decent. Their patronizing, holier-than-though attitude reveals them to be the annoying
nuisance they really are. Not only are they praying for us, but they're also fond of telling us that, unless we accept the scripture as the absolute truth, we're headed to an eternity in a fiery hell. Rarely do these trolls offer anything but negativity, as they've discovered that it's far easier to be against something than for anything.
How Christlike!As support for Bush plummets, one thing is certain:
Trolls aren't going away. In fact, the lower the
Decider-in-Chief's approval gets, the more trolls we'll see. What else do you expect hurt, cornered animals to do? The problem, however, is that as more administration troubles come to light, trolls will be increasingly caught without legs to stand on. As the people who've spent so much time arguing with them, it's not going to be our job to help them back up. No, it'll be our job to kick them while they're down.
Repeatedly.
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