One trait seems to mark most die-hard conservatives: anger. They're furious fit-pitchers. And they seem to have come out of the chute that way, not starting life as good-natured, easygoing types who saw the light, but as rhetorical flame-throwers from diaperhood. Was Ann Coulter ever good-natured?

Of course I mean conservative superstars Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, but they've spawned a mass of imitators and Internet bloggers who sound just as angry and mean-spirited as their national counterparts.

Examples of their corrosive invective abound, so I won't repeat any here. Rather, I'm curious about why they seem so consistently apoplectic, so willing to demonize everyone who doesn't toe their line.

In effect, they make reasoned debate all but impossible, reducing argument to juvenile button-pushing.

Over the last few weeks several issues have brought this to the fore.

Most disturbing is the nutcase who attacked and killed members of a Unitarian church service in Tennessee because he "hated liberals," blaming them for all his troubles. That's virulent anger, and not all that different in kind from the anger that seems to animate hard-right superstars.

This election seems to be bringing them out more, thanks to the vastly different attitudes and ethnicities of the candidates, and the anonymity of the blogosphere, which encourages tantrum throwing. In effect their anger has become more obvious and more palpable.

But why are they so angry? Three reasons.

First, reality no longer supports their worldview. Conservatives believe in hierarchies, top to bottom. God's up at the top, followed by white males (for conservative Catholics, the pope, bishops and cardinals), followed by women, minorities and the lower classes in general. It's a medieval worldview, and for generations it informed politics worldwide.

That worldview has been fading for decades, and this presidential election seems poised to finish it for good. McCain, incidentally, represents that point of view, and Obama represents its alternative. So this election is shaping up to be an epic struggle between a hierarchical, medieval worldview and an interdependent, egalitarian worldview. And here's the hard part for those righties: Even if McCain wins, his worldview is all but finished. No wonder they're upset.

Second, their "conservative" leadership. Righties helped elect a full-bore conservative government who took charge for four years. In that time, almost nothing happened that made sense from their perspective. Government grew ever larger without taxes being raised to pay for it, and now China, no less, owns much of our debt. That's not a liberal or conservative policy, it's just dumb. And their conservative leader made it happen, fearing the "T" word more than the "D" word.

Then there's the Iraqi war, which seems to have been started under false pretenses, coupled with corruption and scandal that's beginning to make the Clinton administration look positively angelic. Dittoheads and Coulterites have to turn red at that. To whom can they turn for role models and heroes, or even just leadership? They profess to hate McCain too, so they've painted themselves into a corner.

Finally, the hard right knows what they're against:.liberals/progressives, big government, gays who want to get married, gun control advocates, diversity lovers, pro-immigrant amnesty seekers, equal opportunity pushers, atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, professors and intellectuals. Just using any of these phrases or terms will call forth vitriol and ridicule borne of anger.

But what do they stand for? Small government, wholesome entertainment, man-woman marriage, America always? Yet these seem unreachable, indefinable, or no longer relevant. Damn, that's maddening, eh, cons?

In fact, the hard right conservative ideology deserves oblivion, and we might start by shortening "conservative" to the name it seems to have earned: Cons.

Their movement seems to have come and gone. Only angry cons remain.

May they someday rest in peace.

q

I'll announce the winners of the political limerick contest next month. Last-minute entries are welcome. Send them to me in care of the Courier, P.O. Box 540, Waterloo.