# The Tea Party movement's overall effect on the 2010 midterms **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 16, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916 "2010-09-16T00:50:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/121 "2010-09-27T23:12:07Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > > > Probably because it’s hard for leftists to get really, really mad when they see the Dems holding WH and Congress for the first time in so long. The last time something like the Tea Party happened on the left was in the 1960s and '70s – back then, they saw a lot to get mad about. > > Back then there was a backlash against the anti-war movement, the hippies, and the new left. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a backlash against the Tea Party movement. ☹ Yet. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/122 "2010-09-27T23:43:25Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > > > Probably because it’s hard for leftists to get really, really mad when they see the Dems holding WH and Congress for the first time in so long. The last time something like the Tea Party happened on the left was in the 1960s and '70s – back then, they saw a lot to get mad about. > > Back then there was a backlash against the anti-war movement, the hippies, and the new left. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a backlash against the Tea Party movement. ☹ My pet theory is that part of it is sour grapes. A lot of lefties, that might be the counterpart to the Tea Party, are upset that the Tea Party is getting such incredible press now, when they got theirs during the '60s. In the '60s, the establishment didn’t support or court them, and now, the establishment is actively trying to woo the vocal minority, and getting massive amounts of attention for it. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/123 "2010-09-27T23:47:18Z")
> [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > My pet theory is that part of it is sour grapes. A lot of lefties, that might be the counterpart to the Tea Party, are upset that the Tea Party is getting such incredible press now, when they got theirs during the '60s. In the '60s, the establishment didn’t support or court them, and now, the establishment is actively trying to woo the vocal minority, and getting massive amounts of attention for it. Damn Baby Boomers…they already had their 15 minutes! Who gets two 15 minutes?! ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/124 "2010-09-30T12:23:18Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > > [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > > > My pet theory is that part of it is sour grapes. A lot of lefties, that might be the counterpart to the Tea Party, are upset that the Tea Party is getting such incredible press now, when they got theirs during the '60s. In the '60s, the establishment didn’t support or court them, and now, the establishment is actively trying to woo the vocal minority, and getting massive amounts of attention for it. > > Damn Baby Boomers…they already had their 15 minutes! Who gets two 15 minutes?! That’s what I’m saying. In any case, their activism has atrophied a touch\*. Activism is like a muscle: if you don’t use it, you lose it, and you have to use it on a regular basis to keep it strong. There’s a lot of the Old Guard that are used to doing things the Old Way here where I live, and there’s also the establishment getting in the way of activists, too. \*Obvious overstatement. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/125 "2010-09-30T13:38:29Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > > [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > > > My pet theory is that part of it is sour grapes. A lot of lefties, that might be the counterpart to the Tea Party, are upset that the Tea Party is getting such incredible press now, when they got theirs during the '60s. In the '60s, the establishment didn’t support or court them, and now, the establishment is actively trying to woo the vocal minority, and getting massive amounts of attention for it. > > Damn Baby Boomers…they already had their 15 minutes! Who gets two 15 minutes?! Going by [Strauss and Howe’s generational-archetype scheme,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_(book)#List_of_Generations) and the [apparent age of most people attending the events,](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904?RS_show_page=0) I would say the TP movement’s generational base is partly in the Boomers, but mainly in the [Silent Generation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Generation) (would also be in the GI Generation, except that so few of those remain alive and capable of speech in this year of grace). > [@](#): > > Scanning the thousands of hopped-up faces in the crowd, I am immediately struck by two things. One is that there isn’t a single black person here. The other is the truly awesome quantity of medical hardware: Seemingly every third person in the place is sucking oxygen from a tank or propping their giant atrophied glutes on motorized wheelchair-scooters. As Palin launches into her Ronald Reagan impression — “Government’s not the solution! Government’s the problem!” — the person sitting next to me leans over and explains. > > “The scooters are because of Medicare,” he whispers helpfully. “They have these commercials down here: ‘You won’t even have to pay for your scooter! Medicare will pay!’ Practically everyone in Kentucky has one.” > > A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can’t imagine it. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2010, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/126 "2010-10-02T15:21:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > > [@Chefguy](#): > > > > In the respect that both parties engage in blocking legislation as a matter of political idealogy rather than on the basis of whether it may be good for the country. Everybody with a brain is angry at these tactics, regardless of who uses them. > > And we can’t reasonably ask the Pubs to stop voting by political alignment, even when they do so in some conflict with their individual ideologies. That is simply party discipline in action, and party discipline is something of which the American political system/culture has never had **enough.** Better the Dems should learn some. Maybe then they won’t be outvoted 40-60 in the Senate 😛 ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/127 "2010-10-04T15:02:24Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The real question is why there hasn’t been a ‘tea party’ forming on the left. The absence of a mass movement on the left is a depressing fact about contemporary American politics. During the Great Depression we had the labor movement. This was to the left of Franklin Roosevelt, but it supported him, and pulled him to the left. Currently millions of Americans face long term unemployment. The message of the Tea Party movement is that the government should do nothing to help them: it opposes unemployment compensation; it opposes stimulus packages; it certainly opposes efforts by the government to hire the unemployed directly. During the War in Vietnam there was a backlash against the anti war movement, the new left, and the hippie movement. I keep hoping there will be a backlash against the Tea Party movement, but so far it does not seem like there is one. I think the Tea Party movement is evil. If it prevails the unemployed are going to start dying. :mad::eek: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/128 "2010-10-04T15:42:02Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > I think the Tea Party movement is evil. If it prevails the unemployed are going to start dying. :mad::eek: I would attack the unemployed, first by shelling their homes, and then, when they run out into the street, mowing them down with machine-gun fire. And then, releasing the vultures. I realize these views are unpopular, but I have never courted popularity. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/129 "2010-10-04T18:52:29Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > During the War in Vietnam there was a backlash against the anti war movement, the new left, and the hippie movement. I keep hoping there will be a backlash against the Tea Party movement, but so far it does not seem like there is one. The Tea Party has come nowhere close to doing the damage to this country that the anti-war movement, the new left, and the hippie movement have. There isn’t the slightest comparison between the two. > [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > I think the Tea Party movement is evil. If it prevails the unemployed are going to start dying. :mad::eek: Of course you think this. People like you think that anytime conservatives get their way people are going to start dying. And in the meantime you completely ignore - and deny if confronted with - the deaths and human misery caused by drugs, drive-by shootings and gangland acitivity, and criminals released over and over again because of liberal concerns over overcrowding and a resentment of and reaction to what it regards as the punitive attitudes of the right when it comes to sentencing. Millions of people have died in this country over the last forty years as a direct result of liberal permissiveness and policies, and millions more have been and are condemned to lives of deprivation and crime due to having been raised in the huge number of single-parent homes which are also a direct result of the new left and the hippie movement. It was the conservative element in this country that embraced drug use as though drugs were manna from heaven; it wasn’t the conservatives in this country who created the revolving-door prison system we have now; and it wasn’t conservatives in this country who decided that you didn’t need “a piece of paper to legitimize your love” while at the same time encouraging bed-hopping. Millions more people have died or had their lives ruined as a direct result of liberals making things “better” in this country over the last forty years than ever have as a result of conservative beliefs, which are generally in direct opposition to each of these. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/130 "2010-10-04T19:12:48Z")
Is there a second verse to **Starving Artist** ’s same old (OOOOOLD) song or are they all the same as the first? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/131 "2010-10-04T19:16:09Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It was the conservative element in this country that embraced drug use as though drugs were manna from heaven . . . Yes, it was – not as something to use personally, but as something to use politically, and with a bottomless cynicism no murderous drug baron could match. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/132 "2010-10-04T19:21:34Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > The Tea Party has come nowhere close to doing the damage to this country that the anti-war movement, the new left, and the hippie movement have. There isn’t the slightest comparison between the two. According to its adherents, the Tea Party has been around, what, a year or two? Give it time, give it time… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/133 "2010-10-04T19:31:28Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It was the conservative element in this country that embraced drug use as though drugs were manna from heaven… _Dammit!_ :dubious: 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/134 "2010-10-04T19:33:54Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The Villages in Florida is an enormous community of senior citizens. It is a hotbed of conservatives and they welcomed Palin this year. I have spent time there and was surprised how tea bagger, ultra conservative they are. [See this thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=579317)😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/135 "2010-10-04T19:36:26Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > The Tea Party has come nowhere close to doing the damage to this country that the anti-war movement, the new left, and the hippie movement have. 😕 But, those things have done no damage to this country. The Sexual Revolution and the Feminist Revolution were long overdue. Drug abuse is nothing you can blame on any “movement.” The hippies mostly, eventually, rejoined mainstream society and got conventional jobs – the remainder of them who still live like hippies are no social revolutionaries, and no threat to anything in any other way. And for Og’s and “Bob”'s, sake, what “damage” did the **anti-war** movement ever do?! They didn’t even manage to stop the war! (Nixon/Ford ended it in their own time for their own reasons long after the movement had peaked.) People sometimes call holdover hippies “fossils” – but are they any more fossilized than persons who still obsess with them as enemies, in this day and age? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/136 "2010-10-04T19:54:58Z")
As for the [New Left,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_left) if you look closely you’ll see it was the sort of “leftist” movement that America’s corporate power structure could well abide, as it emphasized cultural issues, not economic, and posed no real threat to their power or assets. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/137 "2010-10-05T18:16:54Z")
[New survey finds the Tea Party is religious-right, not Libertarian.](http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/10/05/tea-party-is-much-like-the-religious-right-only-moreso-surve/) > [@](#): > > The common view that the Tea Party movement is a rebellious, libertarian threat not only to the Republican establishment but also to traditional Christian conservatives is upended by a new survey that shows a broad overlap between the religious right and voters who identify with the Tea Party. > > For example, nearly half (47 percent) of Americans who consider themselves members of the Tea Party movement also consider themselves part of the “Christian conservative movement,” and among the more than 8 in 10 Tea Partiers who identify as Christian, nearly 6 in 10 (57 percent) also consider themselves part of the Christian conservative movement. > > The biennial American Values Survey, released in Washington on Tuesday, was conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and shows that two-thirds of Tea Partiers say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, while 45 percent say there should be no legal recognition for same-sex relationships. That is hardly the profile of a libertarian fringe and more closely reflects the Republican base. > > On the other hand, just 11 percent of Americans identify with the Tea Party movement, as opposed to 22 percent who identify with the conservative Christian movement. So the Tea Party is perhaps not as large as it is vocal and visible in the media. Its political influence, however, is out of proportion to the raw numbers because Tea Partiers are angry and mobilizing for a November vote that many other groups are sitting out. I would say that adds **immense weight** to the “generationally time-limited” theory. Which factor does not, however, diminish any impact the TP movement may have on the coming midterms. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/138 "2010-10-05T18:32:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > > [@jayjay](#): > > > > Damn Baby Boomers…they already had their 15 minutes! Who gets two 15 minutes?! > > Going by [Strauss and Howe’s generational-archetype scheme,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_(book)#List_of_Generations) and the [apparent age of most people attending the events,](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904?RS_show_page=0) I would say the TP movement’s generational base is partly in the Boomers, but mainly in the [Silent Generation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Generation) (would also be in the GI Generation, except that so few of those remain alive and capable of speech in this year of grace). > > > [@](#): > > > > Scanning the thousands of hopped-up faces in the crowd, I am immediately struck by two things. One is that there isn’t a single black person here. The other is the truly awesome quantity of medical hardware: Seemingly every third person in the place is sucking oxygen from a tank or propping their giant atrophied glutes on motorized wheelchair-scooters. As Palin launches into her Ronald Reagan impression — “Government’s not the solution! Government’s the problem!” — the person sitting next to me leans over and explains. > > > > “The scooters are because of Medicare,” he whispers helpfully. “They have these commercials down here: ‘You won’t even have to pay for your scooter! Medicare will pay!’ Practically everyone in Kentucky has one.” > > > > A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can’t imagine it. I’m saying that from the ground, though, in the trenches of the fun business of politics and activism. We’ll be fine here, but in other places, it may be messy until people wake up. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/139 "2010-10-20T14:33:36Z")
So, does anybody have any fresh thoughts on this as eday draws nearer? What will be the Tea Party’s overall effect on the midterms? Will the GOP do better or worse than if the TP did not exist? On the one hand you have the “enthusiasm gap,” OTOH you have TP no-hopers like O’Donnell spoiling the GOP’s shot at seats it had a good chance of picking up this year. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/140 "2010-10-20T15:19:11Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The Villages in Florida is an enormous community of senior citizens. It is a hotbed of conservatives and they welcomed Palin this year. I have spent time there and was surprised how tea bagger, ultra conservative they are. Fun fact: The Villages has the highest incidence of herpes of any community in Florida. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916.md?page=8)