JOSH BARRO: Stop Letting Histrionic Children Drive Our Politics. “I cannot believe this emotionally incontinent young person and his friends are driving a national news cycle. Perhaps I am just especially used to people saying nasty things to me online,3 but I can’t even believe they were able to drive a shift to virtual classes at Columbia. I think these protests could have been 90% less disruptive if the protesters’ detractors had reacted with less fear and more disdain, working harder to ignore these people as they preen about their “liberated zones,” which aren’t even very large. These protesters are the sort of people who are terrified of bananas and banana vapor, and some of them aren’t even lying when they say the reason they wear masks outside is that they’re afraid of COVID. Letting them scare you away gives them too much credit; brushing them off is a sign of maturity and should be encouraged.”

Alinsky’s Rule 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”