<u+201c>it<u+2019>s surreal in nyc,<u+201d> tweeted katy tur of nbc wednesday evening. <u+201c>people are walking around like zombies with thousand yard stares.<u+201d> she was referring to street demonstrators, who she said numbered in the thousands, who marched up manhattan to express their displeasure with president-elect trump at his eponymous fifth avenue tower. the anti-trump zombie apocalypse was not contained to new york. <u+201c><u+00a0><u+2018>not my president,<u+2019> protesters chanted in rallies coast to coast,<u+201d> cnn reports. <u+201c>tens of thousands filled the streets in at least 25 us cities overnight<u+2014>with demonstrations outside trump<u+2019>s properties across the country.<u+201d> (<u+201c>not my president<u+201d> was widely considered a racist slogan when barack obama was an able-bodied duck.) <u+201c>most protesters were peaceful,<u+201d> the network adds, but <u+201c>some turned violent.<u+201d> in oakland, calif., they <u+201c>hurled molotov cocktails, rocks and fireworks at police,<u+201d> wounding three officers. <u+201c>trash fires smoldered on a highway, and a downtown business was set ablaze. by thursday morning, emergency workers extinguished about 40 fires.<u+201d> follow james on twitter evidently trump foes are jealous of the poorly educated. cnn: <u+201c>a few miles away [from oakland] at berkeley high school, about 1,500 students walked out of classes wednesday<u+2014>one of numerous high school walkouts that occurred nationwide after the election.<u+201d> des moines, iowa is the origin of the 1969 tinker case, in which the u.s. supreme court held that free expression doesn<u+2019>t end <u+201c>at the schoolhouse gate.<u+201d> hundreds of high-school students there ditched class, the des moines register reports. in richmond, va., local station wwbt-tv reports a zombie physically attacked one of its reporters: mediaite reports, with video from cnn, that a woman in los angeles <u+201c>called for violence and death as a means to enact political change<u+201d>: cnn cites other disturbances in chicago and the district of columbia. in seattle, kiro-tv reports, zombies <u+201c>set fires, blocked traffic and threw bottles.<u+201d> in st. paul, minn., they <u+201c>marched for more than five hours, .<u+00a0>.<u+00a0>. disrupting traffic and shutting down stretches of the green line light rail for four hours.<u+201d> even in london, a group styling itself stand up to racism gathered outside the u.s. embassy carrying printed posters depicting <u+201c>trump dressed as a nazi, featuring a hitler moustache.<u+201d> as glenn reynolds might say: <u+201c>they told me if i voted for donald trump, there would be riots in the streets. and they were right!<u+201d> though it<u+2019>s worth noting that all of the aforementioned locations except des moines and london are in states that trump did not carry<u+2014>an irony a bit less amusing to those of us who live in these places. the postelection zombie apocalypse reminds us of a tv show we discovered during the summer, a 13-episode cbs series called <u+201c> braindead .<u+201d> the premise is that antlike insects from space have infested washington<u+2019>s cherry blossoms, whence they crawl into people<u+2019>s ears and consume half their brains. some of the victims<u+2019> heads literally explode, but most just become addled, their political passions (left or right) intensifying while thoughtfulness slips away. hillary clinton and especially trump as themselves play supporting roles through campaign footage. <u+201c>braindead<u+201d> is not a great program. the storylines are silly and the acting is so-so, except for the hilarious tony shalhoub, who plays a bug-bitten right-wing republican senator from maryland (hey, it<u+2019>s a fantasy). even so, the zany absurdity appealed enough to us to make it a guilty pleasure. we laughed out loud many more times than once. and today finds us thinking that <u+201c>braindead<u+201d> may have been shrewder than we gave it credit for as an allegory for political polarization. at midday wednesday, in one of the great and longstanding rituals of american democracy, mrs. clinton delivered a gracious concession. that was followed by an almost equally gracious rose garden address from president obama. it was a lovely end to the nastiest campaign in recent history. then, after dark, the zombies came out into the streets. the reaction of commentators on both sides has been instructive. it seems like only days ago (because it was) that the left was issuing dire warnings of civil unrest if trump supporters failed to accept the inevitable outcome of the election. that<u+2019>s exactly what happened when the outcome was the evitable one instead, only with the roles reversed. and suddenly those who had warned of civil unrest were celebrating it. <u+201c>the tepid, credulous statements from dem elected officials (even [bernie] sanders & [elizabeth] warren) vs the passion in the streets last night is striking,<u+201d> matt yglesias of the young-adult site vox complained on twitter. dan mclaughlin , a writer for national review, observed in response: <u+201c>just days ago, these folks were lecturing us on need for political leaders to calm the waters, not stoke the crowd.<u+201d> mclaughlin has been a consistent nevertrump voice (and, we should add, one of the more thoughtful ones). our sense from the twitter reaction to last night<u+2019>s disturbances is that he and yglesias are typical: liberals are hypocritically cheering on the protests against the election outcome, and conservatives<u+2014>pro-trump, reluctantly pro-trump and nevertrump<u+2014>are united in deploring both the zombies<u+2019> behavior and the liberals<u+2019> hypocrisy. zombification has had the effect of heightening the familiar polarization, just as in <u+201c>braindead.<u+201d> or, to put it another way, it<u+2019>s encouraging party unity on both sides. two columnists in one! why do bad things always happen to him? <u+201c>trump<u+2019>s joy is obama<u+2019>s pain: barack faces destruction of legacy by the donald<u+2019>s presidency<u+2019><u+2014>headline, daily mail website (london), nov.<u+00a0>9 worst appeals to authority <u+201c>they voted for [trump] despite the fact that he had two newspaper endorsements to clinton<u+2019>s 57, among the nation<u+2019>s 100 largest newspapers. .<u+00a0>.<u+00a0>. white voters weren<u+2019>t swayed when 63 of his statements that the washington post fact-checked were deemed false.<u+201d><u+2014>jen<u+00e9>e desmond-harris, vox, nov.<u+00a0>9 out on a limb we blame george w. bush <u+201c>former r.e.m frontman michael stipe blames alec baldwin, snl for trump<u+2019>s surge<u+201d><u+2014>headline, nationalreview.com, nov.<u+00a0>9 what would we do without experts? <u+201c>exclusive: experts question if clinton foundation will survive<u+201d><u+2014>headline, daily caller, nov.<u+00a0>9 hypothesis and proof<u+2014>i hypothesis and proof<u+2014>ii hypothesis and proof<u+2014>iii hypothesis and disproof who would write the history in that scenario? <u+201c>will trump go down in history as the man who pulled the plug on a livable climate?<u+201d><u+2014>headline, thinkprogress.org, nov.<u+00a0>9 make that 10 to serve man <u+201c>the democratic party establishment is finished<u+201d><u+2014>headline, slate, nov.<u+00a0>9 fog in channel, continent cut off <u+201c>more than 40 harvard alumni win seats in 115th congress<u+201d><u+2014>headline, harvard crimson, nov.<u+00a0>8 hey, kids! what time is it? <u+201c>trump wins<u+2014>time to end the republican civil war<u+201d><u+2014>headline, pjmedia, nov.<u+00a0>9 answer to questions nobody is asking <u+201c>why huffpost<u+2019>s [sic] presidential forecast didn<u+2019>t see a donald trump win coming<u+201d><u+2014>headline, puffington host, nov.<u+00a0>10 question and answer<u+2014>i question and answer<u+2014>ii question and answer<u+2014>iii question and answer<u+2014>iv question and answer<u+2014>v it<u+2019>s always in the last place you look <u+201c>trump<u+2019>s voters were <u+2018>hidden<u+2019> in plain sight<u+201d><u+2014>headline, new york post, nov.<u+00a0>9 bottom story of the day <u+201c>miley cyrus crushed by hillary<u+2019>s loss: <u+2018>donald, i accept you as president<u+2019><u+00a0><u+201d><u+2014>headline, tmz.com, nov.<u+00a0>9 knope? yep! <u+201c>as a critic, i<u+2019>ve spent years writing about the kind of world that pop culture tells us is possible, especially when it comes to visions of social change,<u+201d> writes the washington post<u+2019>s alyssa rosenberg: sad! but wait. one of rosenberg<u+2019>s examples is <u+201c>parks and recreation,<u+201d> in which amy poehler played an annoying earnest official rising in the ranks of municipal government in a fictitious indiana town: how is this an elegy rather than a portent when mike pence will soon be a heartbeat away? follow @jamestaranto on twitter. join fans of best of the web today on facebook. subscribe to the best of the web email with one click. (carol muller helps compile best of the web. thanks to leonard schwarz, derek nickleson, michael segal, tony lima, eric jensen, tom dziubek, paul wood, daniel lepanto, mark zoeller, mark debord, tom tierney, todd janus, michele schiesser, richard belzer, john gaylord, will stewart, david gomel, andrew williams, mike lavender, steve thompson, mark nicholas, rod pennington, dan schwartz, debbie wells, yisroel markov, michael ruehle, miguel rakiewicz, ethel fenig, mara gold, ben johnson, dorothy dimock and wes van fleet. if you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com , and please include the url.)
zombie apocalypse - wsj
james taranto