Newt Gingrich prophesies that the Tea Party will become the militant arm of the GOP. I've got news for Newt: it already is. Dick Armey saw the opportunity to exploit the brand of a moderate Libertarian political initiative and took it. The only thing heard from Libertarians since has been through the equivocal musings of Ron Paul about the fringe elements of the Tea Party. Congressman Paul, the fringe of which you speak is 50% of your number. It is also the most visible part, as no doubt intended by Dick Armey.
What does Dick Armey get from his investment in buses and websites and consultants? He gets a disposable brand name that can insulate the GOP from the excesses that a militant arm of a political party might undertake. He gets deniability and distance and expendability. You are expendable Tea Party. And Newt ought to keep his mouth shut.
The social conservatives that have expropriated the Tea Party give it, through their media visibility, the appearance of a racist, religio-capitalist and militaristic movement. The other half of the Tea Party are simply concerned about money, deficits and responsible government, as is their icon Ron Paul. The GOP base component, supporters of Sarah Palin as a political figurehead, exhibit the classic symptoms of GOP social conservative adherents. They are incapable of making any sense and don't care if they do. Libertarians, by contrast, are as sober and thoughtful as a county judge; they are persons you can have a conversation with and not feel the need to bring a firearm along to defend your point.
The GOP base is a lazy bunch with animal cunning, unwilling to do the real work of constructing and communicating a coherent economic or budgetary policy since Reagan. The fact that Reagan's policies were only semi coherent in detail and totally failed systemically, and spectacularly, has reduced the GOP political argument to "the gubmit sucks." Admittedly, it would be hard to construct a political argument that would loose the vastly wealthy to gorge on the public like hyenas on the sick and weak of a wildebeest herd.
Libertarians, on the other hand, are often as offended by the abuses of business as they are the excesses of government. Libertarians have had some long overdue political traction, eclipsed now by the GOP social conservatives. The practical political principle of a Libertarian is that spending is done if it does any good. It is a tough ideal to realize in practice, but it is an ideal to which most Americans could adhere. Small government is a rubric, a succinct preemptive rhetorical strike on recklessness and waste in government. It's a pity the Libertarian message has been appropriated by the GOP profiteering class to cripple critical oversight functions of government in a corporate age that the Framers could not have anticipated.
The TARP program is postulated to have kicked off the Tea Party movement with a nearly pure Libertarian base. TARP is winding down and financial reform promises to, at least, create a framework from which competent regulation may grow. Similarly, health care reform acknowledges the problem of medical costs gone wild in profiteering. Even though the mandate is offensive to most, it is arguable that the excesses of the health industry itself made it a regulatory requirement. At issue right now though, with Libertarians and Americans in general alike, are jobs and deficit spending.
Deficit spending versus jobs is now the focus of 50 million Monday morning economists. Would that we had had more time or access to prepare the public and that there were actual economic science to work with rather than politically manufactured ideologies like Trickle Down, but here we are. On the potency of our economic belief systems now rests the fate of a nation, and likely the world. This is no longer a political game of who's up and who's down. It is not a sport. At peril is the existence of democracy, that because democracy is an economic luxury funded and supported entirely by a motivated middle class of exceptional men and women, as were the Founders.
The GOP is uninterested in problem solving for or from the public. To them all decisions and policy come from the corporate oligarchy. Your opinion is not required nor is your protest welcome. The only protest that is welcome is protest against the protesters, those that would reform and subdue the power of the personless rule of corporate profits. To protest against the protesters is what the Tea Party has been commandeered to do, and to deflect criticism of doing that by the appearance of independence.
To the extent that government is at fault for that of which the Libertarian component of the Tea Party protests, is the extent to which government is in the political funding thrall of the corporations.
Consider that Social Security is the product of a corporate world with the means but not the inclination to fund retirement of their work force. Medicare likewise. These obligations were pushed down on the public, socializing the moral ethical failures of the private business world. Should people have saved all their lives for retirement and medical expenses of aging? Perhaps. But in order to do so they should have had unrestrained collective bargaining to help them achieve that, in a labor market as free as has been the capital market. Business is all too willing to socialize expenses, but never profits. The same mindset gave us TARP. The GOP is the party of business failure both technically and morally, and they are the party of TARP. One has to ask how a Libertarian can align himself with them, other than out of fear of the socialism the GOP themselves depend on to absorb expenses like education, infrastructure, retirement and health care for the aging.
The question Libertarians must ask themselves before their moment in the limelight passes again is this: will you accede to a preemptory move by the GOP to put you in their estimation of your proper place, subservient to the modern equivalent of the East India Tea Company?
Raymond Johansen: Tea Party Fear in Europe
Until recently, we in Europe have watched this absurd political theater from afar, but now I truly worry that the right wing party will learn from these extremely reactionary forces and adapt the same strategies, in Norway and Europe.
Point is WE ARE ALL IDEOLOGUES - its just that soem ideologies have areas of overlap - on social issues i overlap with Libertarians - On helping the poor and needy (ad sometimes the enviroment) a christian conservative might overlap. We can form temporary alliances but never forget that deep down inside we disagree and wont be able to convince eachother. So the best we can hope for is to peacefully agree to disagree and respect democracy (somehting that the TP lacks).
And just what was ACORN and SEIU for the Democrats and the President?
Warm regards,
Michael Winters
I appreciate your comments and sentiments. I imagine that what you describe was in theri charter for SEIU and ACORN; but I dont think you received the memo or email about their recent behaviors. Have you ever taken the time to research how close the SEIU is to big government and business? Did you know that ACORN was audited for monies that have not been accounted for by their officers? I guess they just lost their way in national politics and big money and forgot about the people the orginally promised to help...
Warm regards,
Michael Winters
But really Michael, the article is about why and how the GOP appropriated the brand of Tea Party from its Libertarian base. The former ACORN and SIEU leaned Democratic already. The Chamber of Commerce leans GOP. No subterfuge there.
You are absolutely correct in stating the role of SEIU and ACORN's role but that is not how they have behaved in recent national and state politics. As a journalist and national blogger please dont tell me that you missed the news about their behavirs at the local level.
Warm regards,
Michael Winters
Imagine what if... we had invested in clean environmentally safe manufacturing plants in the 80's?
Imagine what if... we had given manufactures tax incentives to retool and expand their companies here at home in the 90's instead of helping them chase the globe for slave labor?
Imagine what if... we had spent the billions of dollars on a dumb war investing in redoing our infrastucture in the 00's?
Imagine what if... Wall Street had been focused on building this country honestly than padding their pockets with what little wealth the middle class still owns?
Pres. Obama has the opportunity to change those "what ifs" into reality, I only hope it's not too late.
Trickle down 30 years later... and his son struggles to find any roof to work on, as most of the plants are now empty skeletons. Now the area is loaded with low paying service jobs and wharehouses that store the cheap goods from overseas that we used to make. All those companies raked in record profits from the move to other countries. While their former workers struggled to buy the basics, and now their grandkids work minimum wage jobs.
The middle class is the backbone of this country, without it we are just a bunch of serfs working for the corporate lords. Pity the people that don't understand it, thank God that we now have a President who does. He learned a vital lesson working as a Community Organizer on the South Side of Chicago, where my husband's family witnessed the same economic theft of the middle class.
Government workers are the new whipping boys of Republicans like Glenn Beck and the New Jersey governor! Soon our wages will go down and the spriral downward will start anew unless the economy picks up.
Progressive Keynesian economics is a disaster. It destroys economies, and it deprives individuals of liberty. It should be rejected utterly in favor of a system of honesty and justice in currency, banking, and economic activity. Government should be responsible punishing transgressions against liberty, not participating in vast systemic violations of liberty.
Your article is very thought provoking and accurate on many levels ... thanks for your keen observations.
However, you forgot just ONE little thing ... seems to unite these seemingly dissimilar intellects ... THERE'S A BLACK GUY IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!!!!
Cover the childern's eyes ... re-write the history books ... we want our country baaaaaaack! (And there was wailing and nashing of the teeth!)
And to date ... has NOT proven US wrong!
OMG is right!
Image if McCain/Palin were leading this Nation at this time in history!
Our NATIONAL refrain would be in the words of Dr Smith "We are doomed!"
With that thought in mind ... I am OK with a dwindling minority of ill-informed, mislead, willfully ignorant white folks saying "We want our Country baaaaaaak!"
At least we still HAVE a Country!
The timbre of the neo-con "tea part" movement is akin to what happened in 1968..TWO assassinations AND a police riot in Chicago...November's gonna be déjà vu all over again?
The Democrats have to go ahead and do what needs to be done. And, sell it to the electorate.
That is quite a practical course. But, the Democrats have to campaign well, and Democrats have to get out and vote. Otherwise, that hobby horse may get the GOP home.
Bottom line, then is (1) not a single thing can be done to remedy this sorry state of affairs without amending our Constitution; and (2) it is absolutely no more of a challenge to force the convening of a Constitutional Convention to address the whole universe of our systemic political deficiencies than it is to force the passage of even a single constitutional amendment (that, given political realities, would be guaranteed to be of puny stature).
I mean, if there are any more than the two choices of the status quo, or a sufficiently radical departure therefrom, to create a true improvement in the greater society, I sure haven't heard anything in my sixty plus years about what they might be.
This article claims that "The social conservatives that have expropriated the Tea Party give it, through their media visibility, the appearance of a racist, religio-capitalist and militaristic movement." The opposite true. Left leaning media, and there is very little unbiased reporting nowadays, is constantly striving to make the tea partiers out to be racist, militaristic, and religously political. Few days go by without the Huffington Post displaying an article that claims the tea party is dangerous. So much generalization and slander is becoming ridiculous. Honest, hard working families have concerns that are expressed in following conservative speakers or attending tea party rallys. To be demonized by the Left only makes them more inclined to vote in a conservative fashion.
the tea party movement is far from dangerous. It will not last for long. They will vote GOP or Libertarian no matter what HP or "left leaning media" says. And, you know all that. tell me something new, instead of this boiler plate.
Examples
The current debate over the appropriate timing of mamograms is somehow an Obama policy, even though the scince behind the study represents years of work and Obama had nothing to do with the results or research itself.
Fox recently broadcast a sigment that showed similarities between the muslim crescent and an Icon employed in the current effort to reduce nuclear proliferation. The icon is based on an atomic model - Fox only reported a rummor/contrivance/lie and never asked the administration the basis for their choice of iconic symbols.
Health care reform will lead to a takeover by government of all health services! No, it's a plan that uses the current system of private care providers, it's a system similar to the Swiss not the British. But Fox viewers will never know that.
Liberal bias in media? Mainstream media is owned by corporate interests and depends on those corporations for advertising income - not a liberal group. But, unlike Fox, they follow the journalistic code. Truth has always seemed like a liberal idea throughout history.