two things happened to the left:
1. they bought into the mythology that the right stole the 2000 election. the country was very divided and bitter at the time, if you recall.
2. 9/11 exploded the ideals of the left, such as cultural relativism, moral relativism, the enoblement of the oppressed, and this has been replaced by a hatred of Bush focused on the Iraq war. What's really weird about the Iraq war, is how traditionally, the left has advocated liberating the oppressed, conservatives have been against it, so there's almost a weird roll reversal. I mean, you have feminists hating Bush, even though he's probably liberated more women in the past several years than possibly any figure in world history (I have no idea if this is true or an exaggeration (it probably is), so don't bother, hopefully you get the point).
