The current identity-politics hysteria was launched about a year ago (conveniently enough for the Obama reelection campaign) with the news that an angelic black baby named Trayvon Martin had been gunned down by white racist George Zimmerman.

In the latest brouhaha, Oberlin, a (very) liberal arts college outside of Cleveland, immediately shut down all classes Monday to hold a frenzied, Cultural Revolution-style rally against the rising tide of racism because one student claimed to have spied a one-man Ku Klux Klan rally on campus in the wee hours of the morning.

The past year reminds me of a similar frenzy in the early 1990s that Bill Clinton rode to the White House. Do you remember the “Year of the Woman,” in which Clinton (of all people) ran as the nemesis of bosses who make passes at the women who work for them? No? Well, since nobody else seems to remember the recent past, it’s worth mentioning how these manias seem to start up in conjunction with Democratic presidential campaigns, then sputter on for years.