I know there is no central tea party organization to which all other tea partiers are loyal. It started as a reactionary movement to oppose Obama and the democrat takeover of the house and senate, and as a consequence had a serious dose of crazy injected into the ideology. Legitimate political positions about the size and scope of government, the tax rate, and immigration were drowned in a mind-boggling chorus of blind hate and petulant fury.
The tea party movement seems to be trying to become a legitimate political platform lately, though. Parts of the tea party are rejecting the most outrageously hostile/insane people in their midst and seem to be making an honest attempt to argue their positions rationally. I think the tea party movement is likely to end up being a lot more successful version of the libertarian movement, and I’m starting to doubt that tea partiers will be loyal Republicans forever, or even in the short (next election cycle) term.
Anyone else think we might be witnessing the birth of the first legitimate third party?
Actually I think it’s going to unify Republicans and Independents into a morphed Republican party that will be more like The Tea Party in everything except name. And it will also sweep in Dems who feel Obama is a little too far along the socialist spectrum. (No, I’m not saying he is a socialist, just that his policies are more socialistic than we’ve had in recent times.)
I agree with your first assessment but not your second. The tea party is the far right wing of the Republican Party. Their growing power will pull the center of the gravity of the Republicans to the right, shedding moderates in the process and making it easier for the Democrats to win elections.
Almost any policy would qualify as “more socialistic than we’ve had in recent times”. And as far as I know, most of the dissatisfaction from the Democratic side is due to him being too far right, not too far left.
Wait, even if it happened that way, how would the Tea Party be any more “legitimate” than any of the other third parties in American history, or any of those now in existence?
For that matter, why would any new party be necessary to represent the Tea Partiers? Their movement is a blend of paleoconservative nationalist-isolationist populism – that’s already represented by Pat Buchanan’s America First Party; and religious-social conservatism – that’s already represented by the Constitution Party; and libertarianism – there’s already the Libertarian Party; and White Nationalism – that’s represented by a large number of organizations (some of them, occasionally, actual political parties) on which the Southern Poverty Law Center keeps tabs.
None of those has ever been worth spit on a griddle electorally, and if they all merged, the new combined party wouldn’t be worth much more, it would just take votes away from the GOP. That’s not because American political culture is center-seeking, it is because our electoral systems are, and operates to freeze out minor parties left, right and center. If we had proportional representation,electoral fusion and instant-runoff voting, it would be different, but we don’t.
Agreed – Obama, like Clinton, mostly represents the right wing of the Democratic Party. Even those few Dems to the right of him aren’t going over to the GOP, let alone the Tea Party – the GOP already got all Dems so inclined decades ago, after Nixon’s Southern Strategy changed the nature of the American party system (making it, ultimately, more clearly a left-right ideological division than it had ever been before).
The biggest is that the Tea Party isn’t actually going to support their own agenda (cutting government programs), which will destroy their credibility. The Tea Party is heavily made up of elderly people who collect social security and medicare. And that fact hasn’t been lost on all people. So if the Tea Party does become more mainstream, they can talk all they want about ending government intervention and welfare but they are among the biggest recipients of it. Either they can give up their welfare (which they will not) or they can attack their own credibility. Many are on single payer government run health care (medicare) but then rail against Obama’s plan, which was far less liberal than medicare.
Their platform sounds great for sound bites, but people aren’t going to let it be implemented. Threaten to take away social security & medicare from members of the Tea Party members who are over 65, and see how long they last.
Another is that they are already just a branch of the GOP. Something like 80-90% are republicans or republican leaning independents. Its no different than the progressive liberal branch of the democratic party. Its not really going to break off IMO. I could be wrong though (the greens are largely people too liberal for the democratic party), but by and large I think most will vote for the ‘lesser of two evils’ which will be the GOP to them.
Another is that once they start destroying the GOP, I think the GOP will find a way to corral them. No idea how though. But in Nevada, I believe Reid was shown to be in serious trouble. Then Sharron Angle was elected in the primary, and she is so radical that Reid seems good by comparison. Picking Rubio over Crist may backfire, and Crist may end up winning with tons of democrat votes, which may push him to the left.
Also the party seems reactionary, as the dems lose seats and the economy improves I think their energy will die off.
What do you mean by “legitimate”? And what do you mean by “third party”?
As has been mentioned previously in this thread, the Tea Party is a fusion of various flavors of American conservatism. Furthermore, every Tea Party victory thus far has been in the Republican primaries, with the winner receiving the Republican nomination. Also, it’s not at all clear what the difference is between the Tea Party and most Republicans of recent vintage.
The main difference being, of course, that the parties you listed have not gained widespread appeal, and half have made no attempt to eject the craziness from their ranks. The tea party could certainly stumble, but in my opinion it’s heading toward being “for” a particular platform and is starting to lose the reactionary “anti-platform” they were born in.
Simply adding the conservative groups you mentioned together wouldn’t even begin to describe the CURRENT tea party, let alone the one that might evolve during the next election cycle.
No, I doubt that the Tea Party will become a separate political party. Most likely, it will become unofficially affiliated with the Republican thinking and strongly influence Republican thinking, just as various left-wing movements influenced the Democrats in the '60s and '70s.
To even think about being its own party the TP would have to become about an order of magnitude stronger. And if you think the establishment’s scared of the angry white men now…
How, exactly, has the Tea Party made any efforts to eject the crazy or assemble a “for” platform? You asserted that in the OP but gave no details or cites.
What? Why not? What ideas does the Tea Party represent, that are not already represented in one or the other of the groups I mentioned?
Without which influence the Republican hegemony of 1980 through 2008 would have been impossible. The Tea Party’s influence is going to do no good for the GOP’s long-term electoral prospects.
Don’t they first have to become an actual party? Are there any states where the “Tea Party” is registered, nominating a candidate and running him/her on the ballot against the Democrat and Republican nominees?
Until they do that, they can’t possibly be considered a legitimate party.
It’s easy to sit back and snipe at the people who actual have to run things when you don’t have to worry about the minutia . The minute a ‘Tea Party’ candidate wins an election and actually tries to implement the ‘platform’, you’ll see a cannabalistic feeding frenzy that would put sharks and piranhas to shame.
