"And what are they frightened and angry about?"

Normal stuff, losing their job, their retirement money, not being able to make ends meet. Also I think losing their faith in their government scares them. That whole dance the state legislature did to take away Mitt Romney's ability to appoint somebody to that senate seat and then changing that back when they had a Democrat in office horrified a lot of people in Massachusetts. The local politicians here basically said to the people that voted them in "F-You if you don't like it! Who are you to question us!", people here are mostly deep blue Democrats but they are not stupid or ignorant and yeah, there is a sense, and a righteous one at that, that elected officials that think they can rig the game (and right out in the open!) should be punished. You need to understand that the Democrats built this backlash themselves. You can try to blame the voters but the fact is the Democrats blew this thing on their own, it was their seat to lose and they did all they could to lose it.

"Go a little behind that statement and it has everything to do with people being willfully ignorant, selfish, and stupid: happy to align themselves with corporate fascists like Glenn Beck and Rupert Murdoch, to trade their abilities for critical thinking or curiosity about 'bigger pictures' for a sense of self-righteous indignation and revenge."

Um, not in Massachusetts to any great extent. I don't think you would find a lot of Glenn Beck fans here or people that would have any praise for Rupert Murdoch. I'd also wager a guess that we have a pretty high percentage of voters that actually practice critical thinking and have a deep well of curiosity. This is an educated state Ed and I think they were looking at the bigger picture here in their own state and perhaps letting those in DC know that "Change" can come anywhere at anytime. Also I think many of the people that voted for Brown clearly understood this guy has to run for reelection in 2012 so his term will be short and if they don't like what he does...out he goes fairly quickly. I listened to a lot of Democrats here really in deep despair over their inability to support Coakley and their disgust with what happened with her campaign. When people asked me about it I said over and over I can't support either one of these candidates. I won't support the kind of trash politics the Democrats brought to this race and I did not buy Scott Brown as the "Great guy that lives next door to you and drives his old truck" thing. Other people kept saying how much they liked him when they met him though. It reminded me of Bill Clinton in a way, a guy that seemed like a slime when he was running for president but when he got people in a room or up close to him he charmed the pants off them. Brown was a natural candidate, a natural in front of people, and Coakley exhibited no clue she had to win over voters. I think they ran a soft campaign up until the debate because they just thought there was no way she could lose. Shame on them.

"These tea-partiers have no 'better ideas': they have no ideas at all."

In this state Ed, "Tea Party" still refers to something else. There was however a Tea Party candidate and here he is:

http://joekennedyforsenate.com/

He got I think about 25,000 votes and that number is probably pretty accurate as to how many people in this state buy into that Tea Party crap. So, yeah, amongst our deep blue populace of 6.5 million there are some 25,000 noisy nuts that call talk radio to rant, act like morons, and sit at home cheering the Glenn Beck show. Let's not try to say Massachusetts has suddenly become Alabama.

"They hate Obama just because he's Obama. They hated Clinton (both Clintons) and they still hate Jimmy Carter."

All of those guys won this state when they ran, Ed. You are not going to find a lot of "hate" for them here. In fact, they are pretty well loved around these parts. Not that I think "loving" a politician is a great idea either, I sort of think they should be observed and tolerated if they seem to be doing a decent job. Loving them seems insane but that's just me I guess.

Mostly Ed, I think you seem a little angry but I think your anger, like a lot of anger, is misdirected at voters you believe to be "ignorant" because that suits a general theory about our country but in this case the truth (with a big T) is the Democrats blew it...you should be mad at them.