But if there’s a straight line of conservative opinion leading from anti-Zionism and banker-hatred to the back nine at Desert Horizons, it has eluded me for decades now. Every now and then, I tweet some horrific picture from North Korea or the Soviet Union along with the words: “This is Communism.” Inevitably, I get replies from various and sundry progressives, sometimes relatively well-known ones, demanding: “What about the sins of capitalism, huh? Huh? What about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire?” It always puzzles me that they feel defensive about the crimes of the Soviet model they claim to forswear. I do not feel any similar need to deflect the avalanche of richly deserved condemnation that is coming down on that lowlife kook who shot up the Jewish centers in Kansas City. I’m for free markets, American exceptionalism, and getting a job. Not a lot of crossover with the Klan in that Venn diagram.

In addition to its questionable political characterization, Mr. Bergen’s piece also engages in some daft accounting: It may very well be the case, as he argues, that Klan nuts and other white supremacists longing for the happy days when they ran the Democratic party have killed more Americans than have jihadis since 9/11, which is to say: Yes, they commit the most terrorism, just so long as we do not count the really, really significant acts of terrorism. By the same token, the $10 baggie of weed I sold to a buddy in college makes me the biggest narco-trafficker in North America, except for all the other ones. I await my narcocorrido.