Douthat: Is Big Labor the Left's Tea Party?
Ross Douthat writes in the New York Times:
Speaking of the Tea Party, I enjoyed this Will Wilkinson post analogizing the ongoing public-sector union rallies in Wisconsin to the right-wing protests of the last two years. And I especially enjoyed his follow-up defending the analogy:
… Reading the comments, the comparison seems to have pleased no one. But I’m especially interested in the reaction from the left. The tea-party movement, you see, is an “astroturf” movement, financed by billionaire puppetmasters, fueled by hatred, agitating for rank injustice. The labour movement, on the other hand, is the real deal: a bottom-up coalition of working Americans courageously standing up against the thuggery of bought-and-paid-for Republicans and their shamelessly insatiable plutocrat bosses.
This zanily Manichean way of characterising the situation I think rather confirms my suspicion that the equivalence I drew is sound. 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.
It’s remarkable how hard it is for people to admit this truth.
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