LOCAL WOMAN WINS INTERNATIONAL CONCERN TROLLING COMPETITION.

There ought to be a political journalism equivalent of the Bulwer-Lytton Award, if only so Megan McArdle can at last have something to decorate her mantlepiece:

This past weekend, I found myself in the British borough of Luton, pondering a British exit from the European Union. “How did you find yourself in Luton?” you will ask, and I will reply, “That is a long story, and alas, a very dull one, so let’s just proceed upon the assumption that I was indeed in Luton for good and sufficient reasons.” And why was I pondering Brexit? Because the penultimate chapter of this dull story involved many hours spent in a horrible third-tier European airport with middle-class Britons heading home from their holidays.

Christ in heaven. The thinking's just as ugly as the writing: McArdle talked to these "middle-class Britons" (presumably all white, smoking Players, and 'aving a cuppa) and they weren't really racist at all, she assures us, just suffering from "what is often called compassion fatigue" over having to have their buildings cleaned and tea served by foreigners. Now, McArdle herself isn't bothered, you understand -- she's a woman of the world! -- but she understands why these poor white Britons might feel alienated by all those foreign voices and all that curry:

As an American, this did not strike me as odd; this is what our cities have been like for centuries, particularly on the coasts. One group of immigrants moves in, creates an enclave, then gets rich, assimilates and moves out, making way for the next group that will throw a little of their food, their language and their customs into our vast melting pot. But this is not normal in most of the world. Nor is it necessarily welcome...

So it’s not that my food was bad -- it was all quite good -- or that there was anything wrong with the immigrants serving and eating it. They all looked like quite nice people. But it was all very different from traditional British food, traditional British people. And no matter how hard we try to argue that it doesn’t matter, it does -- politically, if in no other way. Especially when things aren’t going all that well for the natives.

Son of a bitch -- she's found a way to outsource bigotry! Whatever the Koch Brothers are paying her, it's not enough.