A CNN article about Democrats joining the Tea Party and a post on a libertarian blog praising their goals (and arguing the crazies are a small focused on minority) made me think of this topic.
Right now, the Tea Party is seen by conservatives as a strong, viable venture, and liberals as a bunch of insane racists trying to foment armed revolution. What I would like to do is try to sort out (and separate) its beliefs versus its goals versus its tactics. Which one makes them seem crazy to liberals? If you eliminated the “craziness” in that part, would liberals see them in the same way? Is there any part that would be considered by most people as “mainstream,” regardless of their political orientation?
Or is all this useless, because it’s such a diverse group of folks? If so, how can we even talk about them as a unified political movement?
I think it’s a diverse, leaderless group that is still too early in the formation process to pin down. It started out as a protest against TARP, but seems to have morphed into an anti-Democrat, anti-Washington, anti-Incumbent movement. They’re more anti- than pro-, and so it’s hard to determine what it is they actually want, other than something they don’t have or fear that they might get from the folks in Wash DC.
I once read a quote that was by some young revolutionary types in Japan, where someone asked them what they were hoping to accomplish. It went something like: “I don’t need to know how to make the world a better place. If I destroy what is certainly wrong, someone will have to build something in its place, and that may be better.”
Dunno, I’d view it more as a self-realization of ones own idiocy. They’re forcing people who are smarter than them to do something smart that fixes whatever is making them unhappy. That is equivalent to a temper tantrum, but the phrasing is less dismissive of it as a tactic. After all, what exactly is someone who has no understanding of politics or economics, nor any chance of ever gaining that practical ability, supposed to do if they find themselves suffering?
Few of these people are actually retarded, they’re just willfully ignorant. There’s a difference. I suppose it’s too much to ask that they actually educate themselves. Few, if any, of the Tea Party protestors seem to know that Obama has actually CUT taxes for most americans.
Well if the smart people of the world need to be forced to do something, most likely that’s because the smart people think that everything is alright as it is.
While I’m sure that the IQ of most members of Congress is above average, I don’t think Congress is stacked with geniuses. A person doesn’t have to be intelligent to get elected.
Those of you who think they are crazy racists might want to consider something:
The leaders on your side have a vested interest in marginalizing the tea party movement as much as possible. They’re going way out of their way to try to find examples of ‘craziness’ or anything that can be construed as racism, and then they’re playing that up as if it’s the very face of the movement. They have no interest whatsoever in talking to rational, educated people in the movement, or in showing pictures on their blogs of average people demonstrating.
Some of the tactics they’ve used have been very blatant. For example, the Congressional Black Caucus marching through the tea party crowds. You might notice that there was no security detail following them - apparently they weren’t really worried for their safety. However, there were several people following them with video cameras, trying to catch any racial epithet or attack or anything else on video. In the end, they claimed that one of them was spat on, and that the word ‘nigger’ was hurled at them 15 times. But funny, with all those cameras and microphones following them hoping to catch such a thing, nothing of the sort has made it into the media. The ‘spitting’ was obviously an obnoxious guy just yelling at them, and probably some spittle flew out of his mouth.
And yet, it didn’t take long for this march to be portrayed as an example of the virulent racism of the Tea Parties, and you guys buy it hook, line, and sinker.
Are there some racists in the tea party movement? Undoubtedly. Just as there are racists in the Democrat party. There may even be whole chapters made up of racists. There are no leaders, no gatekeepers, no arbiters of intellectual purity in the movement. Therefore, anyone can call themselves a ‘tea party’ group. There’s no doubt enough of them that the Democrats can find a sign or two to photograph and smear all over the lefty blogs.
But if the Democrats keep this up, they run the risk of serious blowback, because the Tea Party movement is becoming too big and too diverse for these kinds of marginalization attacks to work. According to this poll. 17% of Americans now consider themselves members of the tea party movement. Only slightly more than half say they’re Republicans. 28% say they’re independent, and fully 13% claim to be Democrats.
With a group this diverse and large, probably half of America knows someone in the Tea Party movement. And the majority of Americans claim to be sympathetic to their goals. So if you continue calling them extremist bigots, you’re going to start alienating a lot of people. The smarter Democrats are figuring this out, and are starting to claim some sympathy with their goals and claiming to feel their pain. That’s what Clinton would do.
What else was interesting about that poll? The most interesting thing is that the party seems pretty much indifferent to any issues other than the economy and jobs. National defense only polls at 6% within the Tea Party movement - the same as the public at large. Social Security is only at 4%. Health care at 14%. They’re no more concerned with illegal immigration than is the public at large. The two main issues they care about are the deficit and the size of government and its effect on job creation.
The conclusion of the poll:
So, they want jobs, but they think the best way to create jobs is to cut taxes for businesses and get the government out of their hair. They’re no more concerned about the deficit as the public at large, but they are concerned about the growth of government and the increasing amount of control its exerting. They don’t believe the stimulus worked as advertised, and they think TARP funds wound up lining the pockets of those in bed with government. 83% of them think the country is on the wrong track, but only 57% of them approve of Republicans, and only 15% of them strongly favor Republicans.
In short, this isn’t a southern redneck movement. It’s not driven by racism. It’s not a bunch of social conservatives. What the movement has done is pull from every party those people who believe in limited government. That includes conservative Democrats as well as Republicans, and it also includes most independents - Obama has lost almost all of them. Keep insulting these people, and you’ll never get them back.
Liberals make fun of TPers because they say ignorant, silly, and just plain racist things. But underneath the deserved ridicule there is a legitimate beef. They’re mostly working class, God fearing Americans. They think they’ve done things the right way, the way you’re supposed to, but the American dream isn’t working for them. Wages have stagnated or declined for the last 30 years. And seeing a bunch of rich bankers bailed out for the umpteenth time pushed them over the edge. That people power could’ve been harnessed by the Dems given a saavy enough campaign if set in advance, but they missed the boat.
I’m not saying it’d be realistic, just because the Dems (nor the Reps) are actual parties in a functioning democracy. But theoretically.
What makes them seem crazy? The fact that they didn’t care about the constitution or deficits until a democrat was in the white house.
Another thing is that many are on welfare. Medicare, social security and/or unemployment insurance are not uncommon among the tea party members while they rail against socialism and welfare.
Another is how histrionic the movement is. They act like minor legislative bills are the same thing as totalitarianism. They can’t tell the difference between Hitler & Stalin. They feel a democratic election is the same thing as a dictatorship.
That article you posted said 96% were GOP or leaned GOP with 4% being democrat. That is not diverse.
The main belief seems to be that democrats are bad. Like I said, these people weren’t protesting when Bush was in office.
The goals they have seem to revolve around destroying socialism for everyone else, but keeping their own. Ask a tea party member about giving up their social security and medicare payments.
Their tactics are also absurd. Histrionic comparisons to Stalinism seem like they will backfire for most independent voters.
I don’t think they could have; America’s worship of the rich and unrestrained capitalism is too ingrained, especially among the very right wingers you are talking about.
They don’t want to hear that the system is unfair and defective by its nature; they want to believe that some hated group or person is rigging the system against the “God fearing Americans”. They don’t want to hear that working hard has gained them nothing because the system is designed to benefit those rich bankers and not the common people; they want to hear that the welfare queens, the blacks, the Jews, the whatevers are stealing their rightful prosperity. They want to believe that someday they will be rich too; they don’t want to hear that the odds are that they will never be rich no matter what they do. And they certainly don’t want to hear that the solution to any problem this country has involves helping people; that’s socialism, and utterly, intrinsically evil. Unless, of course they are already benefiting from it (get the government’s hands off my Medicare!)