ADVICE TO THE PEOPLE RUNNING MANY OF AMERICA’S INSTITUTIONS: Your Decision To Cave To Internet Weirdos And/Or Your Youngest And Most Annoying Staffers Is Unlikely To Age Well.

Last night I got drinks with a friend, let’s call him “Jon,” who is pretty well-connected in politics. He’s had a successful career working for a bunch of politicians, several of whom you have heard of. That’s why, in addition to being a very good guy, he is a fun person to get drinks with. These folks always have stories.

Jon and I both felt, circa 2016, that the whole “man, these college students sure are crazy” thing was overblown. Seven years or so later, there we were, catching up and shaking our heads at just how wrong we’d been. The craziness absolutely spread into liberal institutions and caused countless meltdowns, as documented most comprehensively by Ryan Grim in The Intercept. From 2016 or so on, Jon saw things get worse and worse in progressive politics, and I saw things get worse and worse in mainstream (that is, progressive) journalism, and the similarities. . . weren’t subtle.

My friend told me that some politicians (including, again, ones you’ve heard of) are now “extremely frustrated and sick of their mostly younger and more radical staffers feeling entitled to dictate the terms of their policy positions and then slam them on social media if they didn’t capitulate,” as he summed things up in a follow-up text message. These politicians are being less and less shy about expressing their views about these staffers in various ways. This, he thinks, is a sign of a pendulum swinging back toward relative normalcy after a period of major fervor.

But in some places, the pendulum isn’t quite there yet.

We tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen.