Yet another attempted demonization of the Tea Party and all it stands for has been written by Ed Kilgore at The New Republic. As I read these things that lefties post every few days (and expect a lot more as the election gets closer), the thing that strikes me is how much they are obsessed with being part of the in crowd.
Kilgore says the Tea Party has given visibility to people who until recently were, he says, just the “fringiest” of the right-wing fringe. Here’s what he says about Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina (emphasis added):
One classic example of this type is South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, who was considered such a crank in the Senate that he was often stuck eating lunch alone as recently as 2008.
Apparently, this is to Kilgore the most horrible thing that can happen to a person. It must have brought flashbacks to high school for the poor guy. It seems not to have occurred to him that some people with convictions are shunned by others who don’t have them. And people of great character don’t change those convictions just to become more “popular.”
As with most people who are right, meaning correct, not conservative (though they are pretty much the same thing), as time goes by people begin to want to sit with you in the lunchroom. These are the people who are trying to get out in front of the parade and call themselves leaders, not people like DeMint, who happily endured social shunning by lesser individuals, and who now find themselves leading a movement.
