WASHINGTON — It is called the Taranto Principle, and it is now
being employed by the Kultursmogists to blanket the
country in a preposterosity: namely that the Tea Partyers and the
Occupy Wall Street crowd have much in common. So go ahead, loyal
Democrats, and take up the Occupiers’ anger. Giving presidential
voice to the Occupiers’ complaints will be a sure winner for
President Barack Obama in 2012.
Somehow, I think not. According to the Taranto Principle,
first identified by the distinguished Wall Street Journal
writer James Taranto, the mainstream media concocts false truths
that actually encourage Liberal Democrats to extravagance: thus Al
Gore hyperventilating over Global Warming, Jean-François Kerry
presenting himself as a Vietnam War hero, and Barack Obama awash in
red ink and promising more. Operating in accord with the Principle,
the Liberal Democrats abandon themselves to a riot of fantasies far
removed from the American consensus, and the result is catastrophe
for them and much amusement for the rest of us.
Right now all the polluters of the Kultursmog are
engaged in spreading the vast delusion that a handful of cranks are
at one with the law-abiding, Constitution-loving, Tea Partiers. The
cranks are often referred to as members of Krugman’s Army —
Krugman being the delusional columnist at the New York
Times whom I always read to satisfy my appetite for misplaced
indignation and delightful incoherence. Other writers from the
Times and its assorted allies throughout the mainstream
media have been laboring almost heroically to spread this
myth.
Their effort was given comprehensive voice in an amazing
front-page effort by the Washington Post on Sunday. There
journalist Mark Fisher — he could not have acted alone — wrote:
“Although many organizers of the two populist efforts view their
counterparts from the other end of the spectrum as misguided or
even evil, attitudes among the rank and file of the tea party and
Occupy Wall Street are often much more accepting and flexible. They
start out with different views about the role of government, but in
interviews and online discussions they repeatedly share many of the
same frustrations, as well as a classically American passion for
fixing the system.” The piece went on for thousands of words. It
was a colossal effort at misinformation. Democrats who take it
seriously will soon sound like hippies in 1968 and be overwhelmed
by the voters in 2012.
The Occupy Wall Street misfits are actually in the
minority even along Zuccotti Park, where my agents found them
outnumbered by tourists and police. The same is true in Washington,
D.C.’s McPherson Square. Yet you need not take my word for it.
Consider the polling done by Douglas Schoen, a pollster who served
President Bill Clinton and is doubtless still a loyal Democrat. He
polled the Zuccotti Park patriots and found “the movement doesn’t
represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse.
Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate
that believes in radical redistribution of the wealth, civil
disobedience, and, in some instances, violence.” As for Americans
in general, they are not so high on the folks in the park. A USA
Today/Gallup poll taken between October 15 and 16 found 22 percent
approved of the movement’s goals, 15 percent disapproved, and 63
percent said they did not know enough about the movement to make a
judgment.
That does not sound like the Occupiers are making a lot of
headway with the average American. But they are making headway with
Liberal Democrats. White House adviser David Plouffe says “the
protests you’re seeing are the same conversations people are having
in living rooms and kitchens across America…. People are frustrated
by an economy that does not reward hard work and responsibility,
where Wall Street and Main Street don’t seem to play by the same
set of rules.” And the brightest president in American history has
said, “I think people are frustrated. And the protesters are giving
voice to a more broad based frustration about how our financial
system works.” Once again the Taranto Principle is
vindicated.
