They’ve used the insult so much it lost its power.
Here’s a partial list of the hundreds of conservatives who have been labeled “wingnut” by Salon.com alone: Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Justice Antonin Scalia, columnist Jonah Goldberg, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (and his predecessor Eric Cantor), the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Chris Christie.
Note: This is from the New York Post in 2014, so the list is probably longer for that one insult AND much longer if you used another insult saying conservatives are crazy.
Yea, I used tog et called wingnut a log. Now with the Hellery campaign it’s all gotten lumped into the racist bucket (how can it be racism if we’re the same race?!)