Being Crazy is Exhausting

Sounds like town hall mobs are starting to get outrage fatigue.

The Hill:

A healthcare forum hosted by Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) attracted only a single protester outside a D.C.-area recreation center on Tuesday night -- and fairly minimal opposition inside.

A capacity crowd of 300 people filled the Plum Gar Recreation Center to hear the first-term congresswoman speak for 30 minutes and then take 19 questions over another hour. But unlike other members of Congress who have held far more contentious forums this month, Edwards faced a far more supportive audience.

Although the 19 questions were split almost evenly between those who supported reform and those who opposed it, heckling was fairly minimal and the audience was largely supportive, applauding enthusiastically and often shouting down critics. Many were students from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore -- who came dressed in their white lab coats. One Montgomery County police officer staffing the event privately joked that the forum was “a love-fest.”

One of the signs spotted in the crowd read, "Public library, public road, public school, public transit, public parks. Public option -- Not So Scary." The report called it a "typical poster."

And the sole protester was typical as well:

The lone sign-hoisting protester at the door to Tuesday’s forum was Paul Mendez, 52, a self-employed writer-researcher from Silver Spring. Mendez was passing out fliers alleging the bill would fund healthcare to illegal immigrants. He said he believes Democrats who have pledged not to fund such healthcare are lying because the bill’s protections against it are so weak.

“There’s a lot in H.B. 3200 that I would support, but that’s a deal-breaker,” he said, referring to a House version of health reform.

That's good, because his "dealbreaker" isn't in there.

The wingnuts are more like two year-olds than anything else. You just let them have their little tantrum for a while and they'll tucker themselves out and go to sleep. The kind of momentum they went into this month with can't be sustained indefinitely -- especially when every talking point they come up with is eventually shown to be false. After running up against the brick wall of fact a couple two-three times, you're going to start wondering what it is exactly that you're supposed to be so angry about. Or, if you don't wise up, you're going to start directing your anger at the media for contradicting those talking points.

Either way, those crowds at the townhalls are going to thin out and that momentum is going to slow. People can only keep banging their heads against a wall for so long before they get tired of it.