The following is from the mind of a loon: “[T]he influence of big money on Democrats has at least eroded a bit, now that Wall Street, furious over regulations and modest tax hikes, has deserted the party en masse. The result is a level of political polarization not seen since the Civil War.”

First the obvious: if Democrats have abandoned Wall Street as a bucks-for-influence ATM, apparently Hillary Clinton—barring a meltdown, the almost-certain presidential nominee of her Party—hasn’t received the message, as she’s embarking on a campaign attempting to raise $2.5 billion. And I doubt that sum will be comprised of donations from kids foregoing their school lunch money to put a woman in the White House.

More significantly, it defies belief that Krugman, who is 62—unless plagued by an unfortunate early onset of dementia—doesn’t remember the 1968 election, just to name one campaign that makes next year’s look mild by comparison. Talk about “political polarization”: not only were major cities torn apart by riots, a country stunned by the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, and the violence at the Chicago Democratic convention, but there was George Wallace capitalizing on the racist vote of the South (and helping Richard Nixon), while Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey screwed by LBJ and hog-tied by the latter’s disastrous Vietnam policies. It was a country divided by the “silent majority” in one corner and the young activist “longhairs” in another.