It's primarily an ego thing.
If Trump wins again now in a rematch and gets a 2nd non-consecutive term while their guy dies forever remembered as a 1 term loser (Let's be real: Biden's body, mind or both ain't making it to 2028), that's arguably more humiliating than if Trump had just won 2 times in a row, and they know it.
I don’t think it’s an “oh no I’m owned” thing, more that they need to feel like the country is being sensible. Like, yeah, ain’t got shit to do with actual policy passed. That’s the irony, the people who fret the loudest about the dire fallout that’s going to happen if Trump gets a second term are the ones least likely to suffer material consequences. For them, Team Blue winning is a totem of normalcy, a manifestation of their underlying assumption that the country doesn’t want anything to significantly change.
Yeah, I think it's this. They want a well-spoken guy in a suit calmly explaining things, they want the news to say this guy's policies are good, they want the occasional fiery speech but only in moderation and when the news says its for an important crisis. The policies don't matter in the slightest.
How do they feel about getting "owned" and laughed at by funny leftists? We do that to em every day near enough.
A lot of Libs subconsciously recognize the truth: Leftists are smarter than Libs. It drives them far more nuts that chuds whom they've effectively relegated to dipshit status rekt their Yasss Kween in 2016 and will continue to from here out given society's current trajectory.
I think "smarter" is the wrong word to use here. Libs use that like an inherent trait, their "team" has the trait of "smart" and the "bad guy team" therefore does not. They need to feel smarter than others, as a way to reinforce their worldview without actual evidence. So when we show knowledge that they lack it feels like a personal attack against them (which is why they freak out when we share a source that contradicts their nonsense.)
They want to be the "smartest person in the room" at all times, not realising that if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
This requires a bit of analysis. Reasons like this may influence individuals, but it's not likely to have an effect en masse.
Consider the basest implicit assertion a liberal has in their head. The state of affairs, which happens to be the capitalist model, is natural. This paints how they view history as well, but that's a different topic. Suffice it to say, history is over, and the best that can be done now is incrementally getting better until some ideal system, at which point we're the federation from Star Trek.
Imagine that mindset, if this is the system, is it not natural to seek improvement, even the slowest, most incremental kind? You may realise this is horseshit, that even in the short term their differences are practically random noise, but that realisation requires breaking from that initial assertion. How can a system be viable, let alone good, if it trends towards two choices that are equally terrible? Well, as it turns out the trend towards monopolisation usn't limited to capital ownership when capital looms over society.
You'd think, Obamacare and Romneycare being the same thing, or democrats not fighting to fill the SC, or Biden doing fuckall to fight so-called red states passing anti-LGBTQ, anti-women laws etc. You'd think being fooled by basically the same lie that's incredible to begin with and turns out to be a lie remarkably quickly would inspire some sense of credulity. Lack of analysis tools means this information doesn't register as it should and capitalist media ensures the information doesn't remain in memory long enough to recognise a pattern.
If the fatal contradictions of system of governance fall in a forest, and the only people who hear it are dirty commies, is there even a contradiction?