Ross Douthat pens another excellent column in yesterday’s New York Times. He observes that “obsessing about the paranoia of the masses is often a way for American elites to gloss over their own, entirely nonsymbolic failures.” For example, “Today, establishment liberals would much rather fret about the insanity of the Republican base than reckon with the unpopularity of Barack Obama’s domestic program.”
For a good example, see this recent episode of Bloggingheads.tv, featuring Michelle Goldberg (The Daily Beast) and Sally Steenland (Center for American Progress) talking each other into ever-higher levels of paranoia against the American people, based on gross misinterpretations of the Tea Party movement.