The radical wing of American politics has always been about self-righteousness: from the opposition of Yankee smugglers to British tariffs, to the abolitionism of slave-free Northerners, to the temperance of teetotalers and support for redistributive taxation from trustafarians. The left never feels better than when it's making grand gestures with other people's money. (Suciô is not attacking these causes - merely observing that their main supporters were not the ones picking up the tab.)
