Ronald Reagan lets Nancy Pelosi know how he feels about Obamcare.

Reagan clip from ”The Killers” (1964) via Ace of Spades HQ.

Paul Krugman writes in his column (titled ironically, as Hot Air pointed out, “Paranoia Runs Deep”) for the New York Times:

The state of mind visible at recent right-wing demonstrations is nothing new. Back in 1964 the historian Richard Hofstadter published an essay titled, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” which reads as if it were based on today’s headlines: Americans on the far right, he wrote, feel that “America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion.” Sound familiar?

But while the paranoid style isn’t new, its role within the G.O.P. is.

When Hofstadter wrote, the right wing felt dispossessed because it was rejected by both major parties. That changed with the rise of Ronald Reagan: Republican politicians began to win elections in part by catering to the passions of the angry right.

Ronald Reagan has been called all manner of things– an “amiable dunce” dispensing dumb slogans, a shallow-thinking supply-sider indifferent to the poor, etc.– but this one I have not heard.

Paul Krugman thinks Ronald Reagan represents the ascendance of an angry right? What planet has Paul Krugman been living on for the last 30+ years, and why doesn’t he write for their paper instead?

UPDATE: Watch these videos and judge for yourself whether they represent the “angry right.”
UPDATE: (SINCERITY ALERT!): I can barely watch the second video without getting goosebumps and/or choking up.