It’s been about three years since the Tea Party first emerged on the scene, and the air of invincibility the far right has had in the last few years is finally starting to show some cracks. Now, before any conservatives have a stroke over that sentence, let’s look at the current political climate. Mitt Romney is the heavy favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination. Bachmann’s out, Cain’s out, Newt doesn’t have a shot, and Rick Santorum, is, well, just Google it. But weren’t those candidates the ones with at least some measure of Tea Party support? You’d think that such a passionate, organic, and widespread movement could get behind a candidate without Romney’s money and still have a shot to win. The question is easily answered, though, when you realize that the Tea Party is not quite all its often cracked up to be on Fox News.
To illustrate this point, look at this headline from Saturday’s New York Times: “Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot.” Long story short, the article explains that many localities have had trouble working with environmental consultants because far right conservatives think many environmental protection measures are part of a plot by the United Nations to bring about a “one world order.” Why do they think this? Well, in 1992 the UN General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution called Agenda 21 that encouraged countries to save resources and conserve open areas by focusing development on parts of the country that already have a lot of people. To many people, this makes a lot of sense. Everyone likes national parks and pristine natural areas. I don’t really think there’re too many people who would support a giant cross country suburb. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the Tea Party! Activists have been going around to planning and zoning commissions, protesting bike lanes and smart meters for appliances. Tea Party activists even made Gov. Paul LePage (R-Maine), a Tea Party favorite, halt a plan to decongest Route 1. Why would anyone oppose such a seemingly benign and bipartisan plan to make the morning commute easier? Because it’s a UN conspiracy! I wish that was a joke, but that’s exactly the reason these people gave.
Obviously, these guys are pretty passionate. They are willing to take a stand for something they believe in, and I respect that. But I can’t respect the fact that their politics are outright delusional. A person can’t go around accusing local planning and zoning officials of being the vanguard force of a UN take over. It’s not true, and it never will be true. If you don’t want to build more roads because you don’t think we have money to do so, then just say that. These absurd lies don’t help anyone.
The Tea Party gained most of its luster because it was seen as a ground-up movement that reflected genuine anger at the political and economic situation of the time. Never mind that the president they were protesting was not responsible for much of what the Tea Party found so odious, or that his policies had not yet had much time to make any sort of impact, positive or negative. The extreme elements of the Republican Party have tried time and again to pass themselves off as defenders of the American way of life who speak for all true American patriots. There have been movements such as the John Birch Society, the militias, and the Sovereign Citizens that have all tried to radically alter the state. The Tea Party is the latest dying manifestation of an ideology that distrusts minorities, Northerners, liberals, and the rest of the world and which wants to eliminate the welfare state as tribute to its corporate overlords.
The Tea Party says it stands for individual achievement and small government. What that actually means is the Tea Party idolizes the rich and demonizes the poor. Yet they are the first to accuse liberals of class warfare! What must be understood is that no one in America ever does anything on their own. I don’t care how often people say they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps and succeeded without government help; it simply doesn’t happen. Everyone uses roads, schools, hospitals, 911 operators, fire fighters, and police officers. These are all good things! Raising Mitt Romney’s taxes to 20% or 25%, or even higher, is not going to destroy this country’s liberties. In fact, it might actually be enough to hire some good civics teachers for once. Maybe they will be able to teach our children what “non-binding resolutions” are, and how the UN is not actually going to take over the world. I’m sorry, Tea Party, you’re just plain wrong.
Well said! This could well be the first chapter in the necessary tale of how a group of rabble rousers tried to use fear and lies to stampede the American public, to preserve a way of life that was never the Pollyana reality they’d like us to believe. Working title? “The Tea Party’s New Clothes.” They’re naked, they’re busted, and it’s time more people started pointing that out.
Seth, you just keep telling yourself that. Our numbers are growing, and more people are coming to accept out ideas. It will take awhile, but it will happen.
Wishing doesn’t make something so. All of the most recent polls show that the Tea Party is in decline. It may have begun as a grassroots organization but it quickly succumbed to a RW corporatist takeover by the likes of Boehner, Armey, Russo, the Koch Bros, etc. I admired that the TP was angry about the 2008 Wall Street Bailout but noticed that when financial reform in the form of Dodd/Frank was crafted, they were nowhere on the scene. Could it have been because the corporatists didn’t need them, so they organized no events that would have supported the passage of Dodd/Frank? I think so. It was this failure of the TP to act on D/F that allowed me to see that if the corporatists didn’t send the buses and plan the events, the tea partiers would be no shows, even on issues that they claimed as their raison d’etre.
The Tea Party may not have a favorite amongst the GOP nominees, but to make it look like they’re a spent force is just misleading. They will turn out in droves, once Romney picks a more conservative VP. It’s always the calm before the storm.
“Not all what it’s cracked out to be”? You do realize they gave the Democrats the biggest hiding in 70 years in the midterms, don’t you?
The pot-smoking college crowd can pretend it knows best. But those of us with something you don’t have – jobs – know better than to believe an opinion that passes itself off as fact.
The Tea Party hasn’t fizzled out like those Occupy defecators.
Well Mr. Nigrosh, your flaming liberal tendencies are on full display once again. How interesting that your strong thesis is followed by a striking example of effective political action by Tea Party activists. I think you might follow a less biased path by considering the impact of the other movements you mentioned, e.g. John Birch. Their importance were as political actors reflecting larger and lasting historical and social changes. Tea party activists impact on our society will be determined over at least a generation. In a short time, they have inserted their agenda into the Republican party discussion, brought the business of the US Congress to a near halt (last summer) and moved the political focus of Washington toward center right. To take one example, Obama is out with a tax reform proposal. A shift in political focus that would not have occurred without the 2010 congressional election results and the emergence of the “Tea Party” as an important political actor.
We’ll be watching your development from our perch in suburban Mansfield. Here’s to hoping that you don’t become fixed on one political point of view as I did three decades ago as the nation marched toward a very different drummer. I am afraid it’s still a center right country.
Robert and Diane (still liberalish)