Acquiring a Taste for Fears

In a column headlined "Paranoid About Paranoia," Ross Douthat suggests that

obsessing about the paranoia of the masses is often a way for American elites to gloss over their own, entirely nonsymbolic failures. In the Bush era attacking the conspiracy theories of the 'angry left' made it easier for conservatives to avert their eyes from the disaster the Iraq war had become. Today, establishment liberals would much rather fret about the insanity of the Republican base than reckon with the unpopularity of Barack Obama's domestic program.

Reason readers will not be surprised that I agree.