From John Avlon at The Daily Beast:
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The Wisconsin protests are proving that the era of unhinged politics is not over. If anything, the hyperpartisan hysteria seems to be catching, with Democratic lawmakers in Indiana running for the hills while a new round of union protests swamps the statehouse in Ohio.
It’s an unwelcome recurrence of politics being treated as apocalypse. Neither side is innocent, but on matters of both style and substance, the left is coming out of this debate looking worse.
We’ve certainly seen a full range of left-wing-nuttery at the protests, from the obligatory Nazi/Hitler comparisons on signs to Democratic elected officials getting into the overheated action. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) declared his solidarity with the mob, saying “every once in a while you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary,” while the esteemed Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) said, “There is an unbelievable parallel and a real connection that I can readily identify with the people in the streets of Cairo and Madison, Wisconsin.” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) just cut to the chase and called Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker a “dictator.”
To top off the ugliness, there has been a mini-Twitter rampage of kindly folks calling for Walker’s death. They’ve forgotten about Gabby Giffords pretty fast, and the outrage should be more widespread than it’s been to date. But too often, situational ethics is the operative mode in politics, causing partisans to excuse the inexcusable as long as it comes from their side. The attitude seems to be “they may be crazy, but they’re our crazies.”
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You can read John Avalon's entire post, "Wisconsin Protests: Rise of the Left Wingnuts," here.
1 comment:
This long Winter of taxpayer discontent is proving difficult for the left to weather. Spring holds for them little promise of improvement. State governments are facing budget shortfalls that require real spending cuts. Education and social services are usually the largest areas of spending... so they will be targeted for reductions. Not good for teachers. There is little sympathy for the unions. They are to closely identified and associated with political power. This will not end well for them.
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