Will Wilkinson continues to insist that the Tea Party and the leftist protestors in Wisconsin have a lot in common:
Michelle Malkin, a zanily Manichean right-winger, is delighting in the chore of cataloguing the many scandalous rhetorical sins against propriety committed by the pro-union crowds in Madison. Ms Malkin's ridiculous point is that the pro-union rabble is guilty of the racism, sexism and homophobia of which the courageous tea-party movement has been falsely accused. My point is that when folks get angry, they get stupid, and stupidity knows no party or clique. Progressives should not meet this truism so defensively. I know we want to believe the best of our comrades. And I know that loudly congratulating one's team for its superior intellect and virtue is a critical part of keeping a bubble of enthusiasm aloft and rising. So we adults can speak in whispers, if we must. But it's a plain fact that the fuel-mixture of potent populism includes generous helpings of stupidity and self-regard. Democrats got flattened last fall by a fired-up, pie-eyed right. They should welcome an equivalent efflorescence of inchoate rage from the left.
"Zanily Manichean". Brilliant.