According to CBS News, the Romneybots were “shellshocked” by their election loss. Karl Rove melted down in front of Fox News’s cameras and refused to believe it. All across the country, true believers totally lost it. None of them could handle the outcome: Obama won.

To the rest of us, it wasn’t much of a surprise, and for many not even a particularly big deal: the pollsters had predicted a toss-up that could go either way. It went Obama’s way. Shrug. OK, whatever. No shock, no awe, no freakouts to be found amongst the majority of Americans. So why, then, were so many Repubs and other right-wingers blindsided by the results?

Answer: they live in a bubble; watch only the news that fits their views; read only the polls that give them results matching their views; associate only with others who share their views; listen only to those radio screechers that reinforce their views; and viciously attack anyone with whom they disagree, driving them away so that contrarian views do not injure their quivering, delicate earlobes. Pretty soon, the bubble dwellers find themselves living in a filtered environment that continuously reinforces and strengthens their existing preconceptions.

When Romney’s team didn’t like the poll numbers they were seeing, they chose to believe “internal” polls that made them feel all warm and fuzzy.

When the Teabaggers were presented with proof that Obama really really really wasborn in the U.S., they refused to believe it. And still do.

When Speaker Boehner lost members of his caucus, including some of the biggest extremist loons of the lot, he chose to ignore the fact that Congressional Democratic candidates, overall, got more total votes than Congressional “Republican” candidates (it was only due to gerrymandered districts that he held onto his majority).  No, by golly, he has a mandate to continue his mission of obstruction, or so he thinks.

Ron Johnson blamed his party’s election losses on “an ignorant electorate”. This is perhaps the most instructive example of all: anyone who does not agree with his view of reality is wrong, plain and simple. The fact that he might not be 100% correct at all times and on all subjects doesn’t seem to enter his head.

And so on. These people don’t live on Planet Reality with the rest of us. They live (or at least  think they do) in a wonderful fantasy world, a parallel universe in which anything  in which they fervently  believe is a priori true and thus real, good, Godly and right. So when inconvenient reality intrudes upon their own private Eden, they have no idea what to do or how to cope.

And we wonder why Obama can’t get them to come to the table? They don’t even see the table, and they don’t want to. Until they get bitch-slapped by some big ugly facts a few more times, they are unlikely to come join us here in the real world; and until they get real, they won’t hear us telling them the truths that they do not want to hear.

And until they can hear what they don’t want to hear, there is no possibility of mutual respect and understanding, cooperation, or indeed of any constructive work getting done.

Mr. B & C