Remember when angry public demonstrations amounted to “the politics of the jackboot,” a dire stormcloud of brownshirtery in which “an angry minority” of white people was “engaging in intimidation backed by the threat of violence”? Well, now that the protesters in question are more anti-capitalist than anti-government spending, such threats are a good thing. At least according to the partisan mind of Jonathan Chait:

“The larger role of the protests, should they continue, ought to be to reestablish the terms of the political debate. Historically, liberalism best succeeds when compared against a radical alternative. In the thirties and sixties, fear of extremism and mob violence made business elites eager to accept liberal compromise designed to preserve the system. Since 2009, the question of how to respond to the economy has been framed as a debate between meliorative liberalism and vicious reaction. In this climate, Wall Street has been howling about Obama’s mild verbal scolding of the industry, his plans to impose some measure of regulation upon it, and ever-so-slightly raise the tax levels of the very rich.

“The protests can usefully re-center the debate. When Wall Street CEOs are expressing even tepid fear for their personal safety, terms like ‘class warfare’ might start to be reserved for more stringent measures than the return of Clinton-era tax rates.”