If you're a Democrat worried about tidings of a right-wing resurgence, never fear--The Wall Street Journal's Thomas Frank has a plan. Here it is: the Obama adaministration should "sell lots of gold." This plan, he argues, would simultaneously solve the deficit problem and bankrupt the American far-right. Here's Frank's reasoning behind the suggestion to "put Fort Knox on eBay":

The other day, as I watched the zillionth commercial for gold investments flicker by on Fox News, I thought to myself: What would happen to the American right if the price of gold suddenly tanked? ... Gold has long been the obsessive investment choice of a certain species of antigovernment crank. Its allure is especially strong for the disaster cohort ... Were the administration to get started on the great gold dump, however, we'd come to a different judgment day very quickly. When the massively inflated price of that metal collapsed, it would probably take with it a hefty chunk of the portfolios of tea-party types, survivalists, Birchers, dittoheads, Objectivists and almost every imaginable species of secular end-timer.

One "tea-party type" that might be affected would be Glenn Beck, shown here explaining his metallurgical fervor.

Though Frank thinks trashing gold would be apt revenge on Republicans who rallied to "Defund the Left," he doubts the administration will take his strategy. The scheme, alas, would be too damaging to hedge funds.

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Heather Horn