Evil Kirk / Palin 2012

The incoherent conservative tantrum since the election--culminating most recently in the Tea Parties--seemed really familiar to me somehow, but I couldn't place it. This post by Matt Yglesias helped me remember, although it describes the outermost ring of Planet Wingnut:

[T]he militia crowd exhibits much more the attitudes one would expect from a coup leader—-a Franco or a Pinochet who’s actually appealing to the concepts of patriotism and nationalism as justification for violent revolution.

I suppose there are some different ways of characterizing the asymmetry, but the underlying issue seems to be that rule by conservatives is integral to the right’s conception of the United States of America. This is part of the rhetoric of the “heartland” and “real America”—a period of political victory by a coalition grounded in the coasts and Greater Chicago is a period in which America has ceased to be herself.

And then it hit me! Of course it's nothing to do with taxes or freedom, it's the wail of a suddenly deposed Evil Kirk.

Update: Fixed the year in the title -- oooooooooops!