At first, I said the same thing myself. But if Jon Stewart — whom I, of course, worship as the human incarnation of objective reality — says the Left is as crazy as the Right, there must be more to the story. I did some research, and what I found has turned my world completely upside down.
You’ll want to be sitting down for this, preferably with a stiff drink close at hand.

I started my research with the Tea Party, the obvious extremists on the Right. Who is its liberal twin?

I immediately dismissed the Coffee Party as too small and much too sane. Next, I considered the congregation of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the folks building an Islamic Center near Ground Zero.

Such upstanding citizens as House Minority Leader John Boehner have suggested building the center would be equivalent to Florida Pastor Terry Jones burning a Quran. Rauf’s congregation still doesn’t fit the bill, in part because they’re not extremist and also because Boehner is an idiot.

Then I hit on something: The Tea Party is comprised of mostly middle-class and rich Americans. To find their symmetrical opposite on the Left, I needed to follow the money. Once I made that fateful decision, there was no turning back. I have been down the rabbit hole and nothing ever will be the same.

Yes, the radical leftist equivalent to the Tea Party is poor people.

A disparate group with a wide range of extreme ideologies, the Poor Party has matched the Tea Party move for move in today’s radicalism chess match. They caused quite a stir at town hall meetings last summer — literally, as janitors stirring cleaning solutions instead of
seeking solutions through civil dialogue.

(You don’t get that from the mainstream liberal media, who pretend to support the Poor Party while secretly wishing it would just go away).

Like the Tea Party, the Poor Party stages massive rallies for its supporters — at soup kitchens and homeless shelters. There, people say such ridiculous things as “hurry up, I have to get to my third job” and “I hope my kid isn’t smoking crack while I wait here in line.”

Like the Tea Party, the Poor Party is racist (why do they have so few white people?), and attracts lunatics of all kinds (who can’t afford to pay for mental health care). And like the Tea Party, the Poor Party packs heat — mostly because in the inner city, it’s unwise not to.

There’s just one unsolved riddle. Unlike the Tea Partiers, Poor Party members are not very active voters. Year after year, voter turnout among the poor is lower than other comparable demographics.

It’s almost as if poor people are so consumed with the struggle to survive in America that they’re too busy to vote. Which is odd, because that’s the way Jon Stewart described the people he wants at his rally.

If I didn’t know better, I might think Stewart’s “moderates” take justice and prosperity for granted, treating politics like a game in which all opinions should be treated equally.

I might think they’re “too busy” for our political discourse only because of fantasy football, Silicon Valley’s toys, reality television, celebrity gossip, video games and the kind of social isolation that blinds individuals to what goes on around them.

Thankfully, I do know better. Thank God for normal people like Stewart.

Joel Reinstein is a State News guest columnist. Reach him at reinste5@msu.edu.