There was much to mock about this past weekend's Tea Party convention: the low turnout, Tom Tancredo's repulsive immigrant bashing, a conspiracy-drenched documentary claiming the financial crisis was deliberately engineered by radical 1960s ideologues bent on bringing down capitalism, and, of course, Sarah Palin's keynote lite.
But it would be a huge mistake to dismiss the movement that led to the event.
Yes, some of the Tea Party movement is ugly. Yes, some of the Tea Party movement is race-based. Yes, some of the Tea Party movement is being bankrolled by conservative political groups -- and all of it promoted by Fox News. But focusing only on those elements obscures the fact that some of what's fueling the movement is based on a completely legitimate anger directed at Washington and the political establishment of both parties.
Think of the Tea Party movement as a boil alerting us to the infection lurking under the skin of the body politic.
In his recent piece about the Tea Parties, The New Yorker's Ben McGrath wrote:
If there was a central theme to the proceedings, it was probably best expressed in the refrain 'Can you hear us now?', conveying a long-standing grievance that the political class in Washington is unresponsive to the needs and worries of ordinary Americans. Republicans and Democrats alike were targets of derision.
Though this weekend's event had a decidedly conservative bent, it was interesting to watch how during the Q&A session after her speech, both Palin and Judson Phillips, the chief organizer of the convention, proudly informed the crowd that neither of their spouses vote Republican.
And thanks to the botched bank bailout, anti-government rhetoric -- a conservative hallmark since Ronald Reagan branded government the problem, not the solution -- has moved beyond the ideological right.
Indeed, at times in her speech, Palin sounded like the second coming of Huey Long. "While people on Main Street look for jobs, people on Wall Street -- they're collecting billions and billions in your bailout bonuses," she said. "And everyday Americans are wondering: Where are the consequences? They helped to get us into this worst economic situation since the Great Depression. Where are the consequences?"
I was within an inch of singing along: "Yeah, where are the consequences!? You tell 'em, Sarah!"
I've written about how the middle class is teetering on the brink of collapse. And the bleak indicators just keep piling up: a new study found that one in eight Americans received emergency food aid last year -- up almost 50 percent from 2005. The numbers are even worse for kids: one in five. That's 14 million children facing hunger. In America.
Can you hear them now?
Tim Geithner doesn't seem to. There he was again this weekend, on ABC's This Week, assuring us that "the economy is now growing again," and "we're seeing some encouraging signs of healing."
At the same time, on NBC's Meet the Press, his predecessor Hank Paulson was equally upbeat: "I have great confidence that we have touched a dynamic private sector in this country that they're eventually going to begin creating jobs." And a little later, he let us know that the deficit is "by far the most serious long-term challenge we, as a nation, face. All these other issues... are minor compared to that."
These other issues he was referring to were jobs and the epidemic of foreclosures. Minor, eh?
Can you hear them now?
Is there anything worse, when you're struggling and mad as hell, than being told to chill out? Geithner's latest tone-deaf pep talk, and Paulson's faith that "ultimately" there will be jobs, certainly aren't going to assuage the anxiety and anger middle-class Americans are feeling.
"Discontent with the present and apprehension about the future have become the background noise of our politics," writes Tim Rutten in the LA Times, "yet both sides of the congressional aisle seem deaf to the din."
He then goes on to quote historian Ian Kershaw: "There are times -- they mark the danger point for a political system -- when politicians can no longer communicate, when they stop understanding the language of the people they are supposed to be representing."
Maybe that explains the lackadaisical, going-through-the-motions response of the White House to the rising chorus of middle-class anger, and the prediction among many economists that, in the end, there will be no substantial financial reform.
Calling the administration's latest proposals "superficial," Simon Johnson laments: "There will be no serious attempt to cut financial institutions down to a size at which they could be allowed to fail. With their incentive structure intact -- they get the upside and regular folk get the downside -- Big Finance is ready to roll into the next great global boom-bust cycle."
In fact, for Wall Street, the next boom appears to have already started. Our "recovery" might be "jobless," but it's certainly not bonusless. And, no, poor Lloyd Blankfein getting a bonus of "only" $9 million this year won't diffuse the populist outrage. And comments like this from compensation consultant Mark Borges don't help: "It's almost as if he's taking a bullet for everyone else."
How brave of him. I'm sure we'd have no trouble finding someone among the 16.5 million unemployed and underemployed willing to take that gold-plated bullet.
It's ironic: Democrats have been waiting 30 years for a populist movement to counter the Reagan Revolution. And now that it has, Democrats find themselves the targets of that movement, caught in flagrante delicto with the big banks -- and more in thrall to the deficit hysteria sweeping Washington instead of fighting for an aggressive, comprehensive plan to rescue the middle class.
"Washington now has its priorities all wrong," writes Paul Krugman, "all the talk is about how to shave a few billion dollars off government spending, while there's hardly any willingness to tackle mass unemployment. Policy is headed in the wrong direction -- and millions of Americans will pay the price."
And more and more of them, frustrated and convinced that their leaders don't have any empathy for their situation, will increasingly turn to movements like the Tea Parties.
Will our leaders -- finally -- hear them now?
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
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You know what would shake up the status quo in Washington to its very foundations? If the Tea Party people align with the progressives and independents, the small farmers with the labor unions, the man on the street with the academics, and start marching against the big banks and the Fed and for job creation.
This culminated with an overwhelmingly of Dems (plus a minority of Reps) supporting TARP in October 2008 ... thereby cementing that implicit deal into an explicit one.
TARP was the last straw, the tipping point, from which the Tea Party sprang.
But make no mistake, there were many many people already plenty steamed about things that had gone on for decades under both parties.
Commit yourself to voting for someone other then a D or R in November.
While a majority of Americans are on Obama's left on many important issues (health care, wars, taxing the wealthy and corps, bailing out main street, etc ..) and elected him with a strong mandate for reforms, Obama is selling them down river to corporate interests and the right wing who did their utmost to redistribute wealth upward and drown government in a bathtub now plays the role of the people's savior barely a year after the results of their policies became obvious for everyone to see. This is a farce, and we'll all pay dearly for it.
I say the majority of American's are on Obama's right. I offer a link to several polls just on health care. (note: the daily kos is not included but everyone from Rasmussen left is.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html
Poll after poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly support programs like SS, Medicare, that Americans overwhelmingly want to repeal the Bush tax cuts for incomes greater than 250K, etc ... Americans support progressive populist policies.
Of course, maybe you agree with how Washington is doing business. Maybe you agree spending money we don't have, bailing out failed corporations and growing government is the right path.??
History shows all those things are great for countries. Oh wait...no it doesn't. History shows all those items are bad for countries.
They stayed home in drove at the electon and are actively working to get him out of the Senate right now .
A minority of Reps did.
At the vote on continuation of TARP, no Republicans voted Yay. Zero.
Who is the party of BIG Business now? Big business LOVES Big Government. They support anyone, Dem or Rep who supports Big Government.
Lobbying is at al all time high since the Dems took control of Congress. Who is the party of Big Business now?
Wouldn't it be a good thing for us to have more political parties here in the US? I think it's wonderful to have a Tea Bagger party to represent the concerns of those folks. And shouldn't we also have a parties for the environmentalists, the centrists, the liberal Christians, etc.?
Is there any benefit at all to a Two-Party system? Maybe something about big tents and a shared feeling of national identity? I'd say not if it leads a big sense of singe-axis antagonistic polarity.
Let's have a set of coalitions and power-sharing like in all the other civilized countries. Welcome Tea baggers! I wish you luck and I hope I defeat you in every contest!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=315309469637&ref=ts
The teabaggers on the other hand, ape the tired old repug lines of no regulation, lower or no taxes and as little government as possible.
It's the lack of any real government oversight that helped create this mess and allowed Bush for 8 yrs to max-out the country's credit card!
Progressive answers are the ONLY way out of this mess, not retreaded republicanisms.
http://pdamerica.org/articles/misc/2009-11-13-12-49-50-misc.php
Define "financial reform"? You mean propping up banks that are giving out loans willy-nilly to people who cannot afford their houses, knowing they will be bailed out by the American people when they fail? Oh wait, that is still the system, right? Have progressives decided to return us to a time when house ownership was no longer a "right" but rather something earned?
I agree Bush overspent while in the Whitehouse, why do you think that Conservatives were outraged? Do you also agree that President Obama spent more in 1 year than Bush did in 8?
Or will you ignore that fact? How do you intend to not spend our children into poverty via "high taxes and increased govt"? (You said these words, not I)
Please explain, I am on the edge of my seat waiting for you to unpaint yourself out of a corner.
If we are to return to reasonable and effective politics and governance then this "movement" can and must be sent to the margins where it belongs. Those of us who are rational must not allow the teabag crowd to gain ownership of the few reasonable concerns they claim.