True, the whole “Tea Party” schtick has been pretty silly from the beginning.
As always, the answer is, we tried* laissez-faire* in the past, and it was pretty unpopular, and oh, yeah, apparently we ended up in a deep depression because we didn’t sustain much of a demand base. FDR didn’t start out wanting to spend lots of money, but he kept trying things until something worked and that’s what worked.
I’d be willing to cut some of the military budget though, we could build hospitals and pure research facilities without pretending they’re only there to win a world war.
The thing is, people organizing and voicing their opinions in an adult orderly grass roots sort of way has been treated despicably by people who defend another group who have been a complete embarrassment this country.
Well then you should have had your facts straight from the start.
And who would these consistent fiscal conservatives be, then? I know it’s convenient to disavow the taxcut-and-spend policies of the last 30 years, but it doesn’t exactly give me much faith in the GOP’s ability to pick candidates when so many of them abandon fiscal conservatism as soon as they get the keys to the office.
Who said this thread was about spending?
Things right now are not scary. Things right now are dismal. That will end if and when the jobless rate drops.
You’ve seen their signs and rallies. If they’re not kooks, they’re amibitious to play the part on TV.
Can we have some examples of how the Tea Party is forcing the Republican Party farther to the right?
It seems to me that the GOP has been working to move as far to the right fiscally as possible and still win elections. Becoming more socially conservative is a function of this. It gives non-wealthy Americans a reason to support them. Part of the movement has been to dumb down American politics to blunt the effectiveness of criticism of their policies. Another part has been to try to drive wedges between Americans in order to make Us vs Them rhetoric more potent. In my view then the “Tea Party” are the ultimate Republican voters: ignorant and xenophobic people who see the GOP as the last best hope against evil. They can be counted on to turn out in droves on Election Day.
The problem for GOP leaders is that these crusaders might be ignorant enough to swallow the Republican Kool-Aid but they aren’t dumb enough not to notice that the GOP doesn’t always follow through. It’s not that they are more conservative than other Republicans, they are just less tolerant of compromise. Take the debt ceiling debate. Republicans generally think tax increases are uniformly bad. But Tea Partiers take the dogma so seriously that GOP politicians had to consider their chances in a Republican primary if they had supported a deal with tax increases.
There is one single issue where I do think Tea Party activism has moved the GOP (and American politics as a whole) to the right. Immigration. Saint Reagan got an amnesty deal passed but that doesn’t seem likely these days. Since immigration is so unpopular around the nation the only way plans like that can be accomplished is if both major political parties agree to them so neither has to face the consequences on Election Day alone. But with the Tea Party GOP congresspeople can’t take the chance that they will even make it to November if they are caught on record supporting immigration.
So yeah, I’d like to see some examples of how the Tea Party is moving the GOP to the right.
If you’re going to use that dishonest term, you could at least spell it right.
Depends on what “opinions” they’re voicing. Just because they’re doing so in an “orderly” fashion doesn’t necessarily make their views legit.
The Tea Party is an embarrassment to this country, IntelliQ. The OWSers are not. You can tell by which one has inspired rolleyes abroad and which one has inspired copycats abroad.
I don’t see it as a good thing. The country works best when there are two credible political parties in operation. If the Republicans make themselves irrelevant by wandering too far off to the right, then the Democrats will have free reign to be irresponsible.
[shrug] Best-case scenario is a two-party system where the Republicans have crawled off to die, and the two parties are the Democrats and the Socialists. This could be the first step.
It would add a new twist to the DEMOCRATS ARE SOCIALISTS/COMMUNISTS!!! stuff.
Maybe he did. Continual goring charges and stampedes on the floor would get congressional spending sprees cut right quick !
Yeah, and a bunch more won. Surely you wouldn’t base an entire argument off of two Tea Party members who lost? That wouldn’t make much sense.
I’ll go out on a very short limb here and say none of this will happen.
1.) Let’s say a Tea Party candidate wins the nomination (is there even one?) Why would they lose horribly in the Presidential elections? Republicans aren’t going to vote for Obama and Democrats aren’t going to vote for the Republican nominee. That leaves moderates who-- generally-- are closer to Republicans than they are Democrats when it comes to economic issues. Yeah, Obama won them handily in 2008, but I strongly believe that was due moreso to the fact that Bush had been in office for 8 years prior.
2.) Obama could barely get anything done when the Democrats controlled the White House and the Senate. Why would this go around be any different?
I generally agree with the OP, but he should come back and explain why he thinks Jimmy Carter was a far-left president.
Having just read his biography, I can assure you…he was not.
Also, I liked the comment from some poster that it’s not so much that the Tea Partiers are more conservative than other Repubs, it’s that they are more dense when it comes to understanding that legislation and governing necessarily involves compromise.
You’re right. A true sign of adult seriousness and understanding of the issues is not organizing and putting your grievances up for discussion, nope. True brilliance is squatting in parks, pillaging, raping, sniffing your tent-neighbors feet, crapping on squad cars, urinating everywhere, killing a few people, hurting mom and pop shops, creating such a mess it costs millions in clean up and public service OT, oh yeah that’s a real sign of profundity and intellect.
You forgot to finish that with
Regards,
IntelliQ.
[shrug] Whatever it might be a sign of, it’s all sometimes a thing well worth doing.