The post-election story about how Romney and Ryan were "shell-shocked" as returns came in showing an Obama victory is scary enough in itself and makes the overall fact that these men did as well as they did scarier than ever.
It shows that this rampant Republican sense of entitlement to their own facts, their denial of any truth that is inconvenient for their ideology, is not some harmless little quirk of character -- it is a menace to the body politic. The idea that anyone as out of touch with reality, as willing to consider only the sources of information that cater to his idea of the world could have had any significant power is frightening.
There was a lot of talk in the Romney campaign about finding a Republican Nate Silver, on the premise that Silver's models showing an Obama edge were deliberately skewed for partisan purposes. Silver promptly said that he might well be the Republican Nate Silver himself -- if the polls and his models ever showed an edge for that party.
Silver deals with reality. The Republicans apparently don't. The joke making the rounds before the election -- a caricature of George Washington saying "I cannot tell a lie," of Richard Nixon saying "I cannot tell the truth," and of Mitt Romney saying, "I cannot tell the difference" -- is not so funny in retrospect.
Romney and Ryan were not dissembling. They are not just pathological liars -- they are psychologically disconnected from reality. And they got 48% of the vote.
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