New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is best known for his economic analysis and his advocacy for broadly left-wing policies. But in his time as a public thinker, he’s also become a trenchant critic of the right wing, and in a new column Monday, he skewered the conservative impulse to be outraged about the most trivial and absurd perceived affronts.
As Exhibit A, Krugman pointed to the following bizarre outburst from Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who has been one of President Donald Trump’s most vigorous protectors:
Devin Nunes✔@DevinNunes
At restaurant tonight waitress asks if we want straws. Says she has to ask now in fear of “THE STRAW POLICE”. Welcome to Socialism in California!
“If this seems like a weird aberration — he wasn’t even denied a straw, just asked if he wanted one — you need to realize that rage explosions over seemingly silly things are extremely common on the right,” wrote Krugman. “By all accounts, the biggest applause line at the Conservative Political Action Conference — eliciting chants of ‘U-S-A, U-S-A!’ — was the claim that Democrats are coming for your hamburgers, just like Stalin.”
View the complete March 12 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.