JAMES TARANTO: The New Face of Prejudice: A focus group turns into a smear campaign.

The unsurprising part–the part Wilkinson finds “shocking”–is that some of them, specifically the Tea Party and evangelical Republicans, speak in rather harsh terms about the president. If Wilkinson actually finds this shocking, he must be about 17 years old, which is to say too young to remember how liberals (including elite ones in academia, arts, entertainment and journalism) spoke contemporaneously of President Bush.

According to Wilkinson, the Tea Party and evangelical Republicans’ “default position” toward Obama “is essentially abject terror.” In truth, some of the examples he cites are actually quite anodyne: “What is he really thinking?” asks one “Tea Party Man.” Another simply says: “Background.” An “Evangelical Woman” says, “His motives behind his actions,” which would be a tautology if it were a complete sentence. An “Evangelical Man” says: “He wants to fundamentally change the country.” If our theory is right, Wilkinson isn’t old enough to remember that Obama himself said the same thing.

Admittedly, some of the comments are on the truculent side. Each of these is from an “Evangelical Man”: “Not a US citizen. Supports Terrorists.” “I don’t believe he’s a Christian. He’s a tyrant.” “He supports everything that is against Christianity.”

Then again, isn’t it possible that the Evangelical Men are on to something? Obama did, after all, describe as his “spiritual mentor” a so-called pastor whose most famous pronouncement was “God damn America!” That would seem to indicate a theological understanding that is at odds with that of most Christians, especially American Christians. . . .

There must be a word for somebody who does what Stan Greenberg did here, which is to smear and attempt to marginalize a whole group of people, without evidence and based on the color of their skin.

Ideally, it should be a word that carries as much sting as “racist.”

Feeling superior to flyover people is a key tenet of modern liberalism. It’s just gotten more vicious.