Sociologists have speculated endlessly on the adolescense of US culture, the way in which the teen market drives so many consumer product and entertainment choices. It's not really all that weird, then, to notice how politics follows that pattern as well, as Mr. Duncan elocutes here:

Watching the bobblehead coverage of the Alito hearings - and, frankly, just about everything else they cover - one comes away think that to them it just doesn't really matter. Court decisions don't matter. Policy doesn't matter. None of this stuff matters. It's just a game played between rival high school football teams and they're just happy to go to the homecoming dance.

Except, I would add, when something does happen, like fanatics blowing up buildings, at which point the highschoolers freak out and run to the Daddy State to tell them what to do and keep them safe.

And then toss in a Daddy State that's willing to manipulate their fear -- the DC craze for survival kits, anyone? -- and voila!