Everyone seems to be treating the new faces of the conservative movement as wildly successful and influential. But the real story of the conservative movement in 2009 is that it has been a colossal failure where it counts: affecting policy.
Just this week, the Post's Dana Milbank based an entire column on the notion that Glenn Beck is more popular than the Pope -- both actually received a scant 2% in an open-ended Gallup poll asking what man you admire most, while the President led with 30%.
(I can play this game too: Barack Obama is 15 times more admired than the Pope!)
Milbank concludes, "by any measure, he's had a huge impact on the body politic." Any measure?
Were Beck and his minions able to stop the stimulus? Kill health care reform? Convince the leaders in Copenhagen that global warming really is hoax concocted by evil scientists? Accomplish any policy goal that he exhorted his followers to achieve?
What are Milbank's measures of success?
* Beck has "3 million a night" watching his show. Well, that's 1% of the country. Bravo.
* Beck's show helps drive book sales, hence he has "cultural impact." Actually, it takes a lot less than 3 million to make a best-seller list, so again, not exactly evidence that Beck "is America," as Milbank suggests.
* "He single-handedly brought down Obama adviser Van Jones over the official's far-left past." That's true. He forced out a member of Obama's administration to quit. But the green jobs agenda that Jones was working on remains on track. And Beck was unable to generate any momentum to force out other members of the Administration. So, so what?
* Finally, he credits Beck with being a "major promoter of the Tea Party movement." If attending large rallies amounts to "huge impact," I guess the folks from A.N.S.W.E.R are who really ruled the roost the last decade.
Today, the Times' David Brooks joins the hyping of the Tea Party movement, asserting: "The tea party movement is mostly famous for its flamboyant fringe. But it is now more popular than either major party. According to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 41 percent of Americans have a positive view of the tea party movement. Only 35 percent of Americans have a positive view of the Democrats and only 28 percent have a positive view of the Republican Party."
But that's a very flimsy comparison. There are plenty of people on the left mad at the Democratic Party for not being liberal enough, and people on the right mad at the Republicans for not being insane enough, driving down the parties' overall approval numbers, while the Teabaggers probably have consolidated a certain degree of support on the Right.
Furthermore, we don't even know how many people responding positively in the NBC/WSJ poll actually know what the "Tea Party" movement is really about. As Politifact noted, only 40% of Americans know who Glenn Beck is. The NBC/WSJ poll itself found 48% of people knew "very little" or "nothing at all" about the Tea Party movement, and poll's subsequent description of the movement was far milder than what you see at Tea Party events.
The Teabaggers make a lot of noise, sometimes with the inadvertent help of easily outraged liberals. But time and time again this year, they failed to actually alter the policies they were hysterical about. I'll detail further in a follow-up post later this week.
Originally posted at OurFuture.org
Follow Bill Scher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billscher
I know almost NOBODY who watches TV, and the few that do sure don't watch cable news.
I have this theory that the neo-cons dominate the airwaves because progressives read books, go to film festivals, study, get news online, visit museums and listen to NPR.
They likme to say that is because liberals are elite, which I disagree with, but take as a compliment.
Its a proven fact that anger creates a chemical stew in the brain that mimics to some extent, stimulants such as Methamphetamine, which in lays the ground work for anger addiction. Rush Limbaugh was the first peddler of this Right Wing Hate Meth and like good addicts, the right wing consumed it begging for more. The course of addiction is so advanced that the Right Wingers are now begging their media personalities to concoct fantastical lies to increase the euphoric rush of anger. And like in typical addict fashion, the levels of anger that used to achieve adequate arousal, such as "tax and spend" "soft on crime" now have to resort to "Obama is Hitler, Healthcare reform = Nazi death squads, Obama will let in all the muslim terrorists" in order to achieve the desirable effects. One only has to look at Glenn Becks histrionic outbursts to see the parallel to advanced stages of meth addiction.
The science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures.
: )
The last eight years, the teabaggers were for huge deficits with none of the cash being used for Americans. No improvements to infrastructure, education, employment, energy policy, health care etc. The new president, President Obama needs funding for issues to improve America, but the teabaggers are saying that Bush spent all the money so there is none left.
The other main issue with the teabaggers is the objection to Czars. Bush Czars were OK, however the Obama Czars seem to be a problem with the teabaggers.
That being said, I read a suggestion once that we let businesses know that we will not be back as long as they show only Fox news in their waiting areas. I was about to do that with my mechanic, but when I went in the next time, CNN was on. Maybe someone beat me to it.
Van Jones might have something to say about this!
It's "affecting policy", not "effecting policy." :)
see, the value of Beck, and Rush, and Levine, and Hannity, and Medved, and Savage, and Monica Crowley, and Laura Ingraham,and Dom Giordano and Dennis Miller, and Mike Gallagher, and William Bennett, and Dennis Prager , and Hugh Hewitt, and G Gorddon Liddy, and oh you get the picture...is that in an election year they are a daily drumbeat from 6:00AM-12 midnight on two or three stations in every market 5 days a week. In a year with a star like Obama in a Bush tired country, no GOPer was going to win...but watch what this monster does in midterms in moderate and conservative districts...thats how they will influence policy.
The teabaggers are not thwarting legislation and they're not getting any of their candidates elected either. Apparently teabaggers are striking on the anniversary of Obama's inauguration. We'll see how effective that is when Mickey D's is short some burger flippers and the retired teabaggers don't shop at Walmart, January 20th.