Political Twitter fell all over itself mocking this article blaming Al Franken for the rise of Donald Trump. But I don't think the mockery is quite merited. Stripped of its provocative framing, the underlying argument is fairly standard — and, in a way, much more revealing.

The piece, by Josh Kraushaar, doesn't actually blame Franken for the rise of Trump. It blames Obamacare. Franken only figures in because Obamacare couldn't have passed without 60 Democrats in the Senate and Franken was the last (and most famous) Democrat elected to the Senate before its passage. The article could also have been titled "How Barbara Mikulski paved the way for Donald Trump."...

To say this more simply, grassroots conservatives weren't fated to panic over Obamacare. They were told to panic over Obamacare. And their leaders told them that for good reason.

Republicans persuaded their base that something terrible was happening to the country and promised that if they won the 2010 election they could undo the damage Obama had done. The strategy worked. Republicans won the 2010 election, and they won it in a big way. But then they couldn't undo what Obama had done. And their base was too scared to simply accept that.