THE political class first sat up and paid real attention to the tea-party movement two years ago, when its acolytes in Utah ended the career of Bob Bennett, a venerable Republican senator, by denying him the party's nomination for his re-election bid. If Bob Bennett is not conservative enough, incredulous congressmen asked, who is? One person assumed to have dwelt long and hard on that question is the other, even more venerable Republican senator from Utah, Orrin Hatch, who has been in office since 1977.
On Saturday Mr Hatch survived the test that undid Mr Bennett: he won a ballot for the nomination at the state's Republican convention. Thanks to the local party's complicated procedures, he still has to face a tea-party backed challenger in a primary, to be held in June. But he has reason to be confident: he came within a whisker of avoiding the primary, falling just 32 votes* short of the 60% threshold required to secure the nomination at the convention. Assuming that the primary electorate is less conservative than the die-hard lot who attend the convention, and given Mr Hatch's edge in fund-raising, he will probably prevail in the primary too. And what with Utah's strongly Republican slant, winning the primary more-or-less guarantees re-election.
This muddled outcome puts America's pundits in a quandary. Had Mr Hatch gone down to defeat, the tea party would have been declared alive and well; had Mr Hatch sailed to victory, it would have been declared moribund. Clearly, it is not as potent and unpredictable a force as it was in 2010. Yet Mr Hatch, already towards the tanniny end of the Republican spectrum, has survived thus far by significantly strengthening the brew he serves his constituents. His current lifetime rating from the Club for Growth, a conservative pressure group, is 78%—but in 2010 and 2011, he scored 97%* and 99% respectively.
Mr Hatch is not the only Republican grandee to have jumped nimbly rightwards. Dick Lugar, an equally venerable (he and Mr Hatch joined the Senate on the same day) and even more embattled Republican senator from Indiana, is breathing an unaccustomed amount of fire these days. Even Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican senator from Maine who recently declared herself so disgusted with the polarisation of Congress that she is not running for re-election this year, has been inching to the right since 2010.
That does not mean, however, that the tea party is winning the war even if it has lost a few battles. For one thing, even in the giddy days of 2010, the general electorate deemed several of its candidates beyond the pale. And Mr Hatch, for all his conservative bona fides (he has introduced bills in the Senate to amend the constitution to require balanced budgets four times over the years), does seem inclined to compromise in times of crisis. That is exactly what the tea party holds against him, in fact—most notably his vote for TARP, a bill that bailed out banks when the entire financial system seemed on the verge of collapse. The true test of his fealty to tea-party principles would only come if the country found itself in similar straits again. Here's hoping we never find out where he really stands.
(Photo credit: AFP)
* Correction: In the original version of this post we reported that Mr Hatch fell 132 votes short of the 60% threshold required to secure the nomination at Utah's GOP convention. In fact, he fell just 32 votes short. We also said that Mr Hatch received a 100% rating from the Club for Growth in 2010, when his actual rating was 97%. Sorry.
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I don't think you understand the process in Utah. Mr. Hatch DIDN'T WIN the chance to have a spot in the primary, he LOST the chance to be the Republican nominee without a primary challenge for the Senate seat in the general election. In fact because of his loss, this will be Sen. Hatch's first primary in his six Senate terms. Contrary to your article, it rather looks like the first step to his ultimate defeat.
I'm not sure why so many of you have so much vitrol towards the Tea Party? Their principal platform is for lower taxes, lower governmental spending, and more accountability. What can be bad with that?
Being broke as an individual is bad, being broke as a nation is worse. All of you who don't start drawing Social Security before the end of 2014 should be very concerned. How much more financial burden is the youth of America willing to bear? How much more can they bear? The only group that is actively trying to do something about it is the Tea Party. The real question to me is why aren't you joining them?
Rich,
Read up on the issues. SS has not contributed 1 cent to the deficit and is fully funded to 2033 just as Reagan and Tip O”Neill designed it based on Baby Boomers. Illegals that pay into SS cannot collect it either. As birth rates drop for the working class so with SS payouts.
"I'm not sure why so many of you have so much vitrol towards the Tea Party? Their principal platform is for lower taxes, lower governmental spending, and more accountability. What can be bad with that?"
What can be bad about lower taxes? A bigger debt. But of course the Tea Party doesn't want to increase the debt limit either which necessarily means a barebones government. That may sound good in principle but in practice means soldiers don't get paid.
Having talked to TPers, I do think they're well-intentioned. They just don't understand government finance.
Perhaps you should take another look at the state of the SS trust fund. The trust fund contains no real money only special U.S. Treasury bonds. Eventually, and estimates vary, these bonds will have to be redeemed from the general treasury. And, while these bonds are not, through government accounting slight of hand, reported as debt, it will feel like debt to those having to pay for it.
As for the effect of dropping birthrates, the ratio of working Americans to SS collecting Americans has steadily erroded in the past 40 years of so. Currently the ratio is 3:1 down from a high around 9:1. Thankfully I'm one of the 1's, while you're one of the 3's.
The consequence isn't soldiers don't get paid. Soldiers will always get paid, there may be fewer of them to get paid.
Also, you've implied, unintentionally I'm sure, that the size of the government is OK, and that a barebones government is not OK. We could do with a lot less government, both Federal and State.
Right, there is no lockbox. And right, this is precisely why we should have higher immigration.
RIch,
What is real money ? Your thinking is illogical. Treasury Bonds have the 100% guarantee of the Treasury. Its threats are:
The Republicans borrow against it by taking us in to another unfunded war,
The Republicans fail to raise taxes
The Republicans fail to pay for Medicare Part D
The Tea Party forces a manufactured Debt Crisis.
It is the Republicans and lunatic Tea Party that are ruining this country.
"I'm not sure why so many of you have so much vitriol towards the Tea Party? Their principal platform is for lower taxes, lower governmental spending, and more accountability. What can be bad with that?"
Their refusal to compromise is my problem with that movement. TEA Party pretty much has been taken over by the GOP and it is now nothing more then an ideologically inflexible wing of the Republican Party.
No, I really meant that no soldiers would get paid. At least that was the case in 2010. Axing all discretionary spending including defense would not have balanced the budget in 2010. Revenue has rebounded substantially since then but still defense would have to be cut in half to balance the budget.
Sure, you can cut Medicare and Social Security but that requires congressional authorization. Simply failing to raise the debt ceiling can't do that. The president would be in violation of the law if he unilaterally cut those programs.
I would love smaller government but I'd prefer entitlement reform to closing the Department of Justice. The Tea Party doesn't distinguish between the two.
He has a good point. The problem is precisely that the federal government may not be able to pay for its commitments. We are on track for a debt crisis, and it doesn't matter where the commitments are put on the balance sheet, either way it falls on the federal government.
Although it is unlikely that we would go through a full on default, we will probably wind up reducing our debts through inflation. This reduces the value of the treasury bonds that are socked away to pay for social security. The fact that social security payments are linked to inflation doesn't fix this problem. Actually, the fact that payments are linked and the things to pay for them aren't is precisely what gets you the inability to pay for them.
The government is spending a lot of money and getting less money in revenue. It really is that simple. It doesn't matter how you divide that up on the balance sheet at all. Things that democrats want (like non-defense discretionary spending, medicaid, etc.) as well as things that republicans want (lower taxes, defense spending, etc) all contribute to this thing. In no way does a thing contribute less to the deficit for it being democrat rather than republican.
So we have a debate on how to fix that problem. Some people think we should spend less money and some people think we should raise taxes. This is a debate, of which there are two sides, and you are on one side, and he is on the other. It's called a difference of opinion. Chill out.
Legal, controlled immigration is fine with just about everyone.
You're living in the past man. And only have part of your facts correct.
Medicare Part D was enacted as part of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (under W) and went into effect on 2006/01/01 (also under W). The government paid for it the same way they pay for the rest of Medicare, payroll taxes and borrowing.
The fact is I didn't qualify my remarks by party, they're both at fault. Geo. W. Bush may well have been the most progressive president since FDR, Obama has been worse.
If you're not already or very soon going to be collecting SS and Medicare, you're going to be facing drastically reduced benefits and drastically increased contributions.
The Tea Party may very well be the only sane political voice left in the country.
All the discussion about SS, Medicare, are off-point, the article asserted that Sen. Hatch won and the Tea Party lost. This was a complete mis-interpretation of the results, Hatch lost and is now facing a challenging primary for the first time in his six terms. Consequently, I'd assert that the Tea Party won and can now stand up to Hatch just as they did Bennett. The real winner will be in the primary. But even if Hatch prevails in the primary I doubt it will mark the end of the Tea Party in Utah.
What we need is to make more immigration legal, with fewer controls.
And the third side no one discusses is to broaden prosperity; reverse the 40 year erosion of the middle class.
I don't think you understand American politics. The Tea Party isn't dead, it is just morphing into the greater Republican Party. The Republicans lost their way after Newt Gingrich stepped down as speaker. Tom Delay effectively ran the congress and used it as a till to reward political donors just as the Democrats had done in previous decades. Bush pursued the policies of LBJ--a Democrat that had initiated Vietnam war while continuing social spending. The only difference then was that we (the US) were on the Bretton Woods system, permitting the US to print money without inflationary consequences by forcing foreign central banks to buy up the surplus. The party is now returning to its conservative roots thanks to the Tea Party.
Almost all candidates are embracing a platform of substantial reductions in spending, reduced tax rates--in-fact flattening and simplifying our convoluted tax system--and an overall shrinking of the footprint of government. The financial problems with Medicare and Social Security will finally be dealt with through greater privatization and restructuring. And Americans are finally waking up fiscal responsibility. They understand that they can't continually spend more than they produce, neither can their government spend more than it takes in--that there is no such thing as "magic money". And given this continual sales pitch of the Keynesian economists, the Democratic party, and our charlatan president, who has little more ever to offer than the smile of a used car salesman and commentary about last night's basketball game, and additional spending programs that can "at best" temporarily relieve unemployment--at the expense of a massive debt hangover following the election--I think the Republican's are going to win. The public is ready for substance and fiscal responsibility. Oh, and after all this spending "stimulus" by the previous Democratically controlled congress, the economy is just booming isn't it?
The Tea Party is the Rorschach inkblot test for the right wing which is a loose coalition of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, social liberals but fiscal conservatives, social conservatives but fiscal liberals, bigots, angry white men and women, evangelicals, intellectual centrists, neo-cons, theo-cons, etc.
Every one of them thinks the coming of the Tea Party is the validation of their views while the only reason for it to come about was the failure of the Republican Party in the elections and the rise of Obama that was a common enemy of ALL of those groups.
I don't think the Tea Party is dead at all. The only way it will die is if and when the Democratic Party is totally defeated and the Right wing gets the power and the responsibility to make policy decisions.
The Tea Party will implode at that time being pulled apart in all of those directions that its constituents want (like what happens to the coalition governments that happen after a political failure in other countries). When it is time for details of implementation, sound bites and anger will no longer be sufficient to hold them together.
"And given this continual sales pitch of the Keynesian economists, the Democratic party, and our charlatan president..."
So Professor, what do you really think?
No no, don't hold back.
If you do a little research, the Tea Party is strongest in areas where the real estate bubble collapse was the worst. Lower taxes, smaller government? Of course, that's what they'll advocate. That's all the poor buggers can afford.
Some of this made sense, then we got into sillyland in the second half of the post with the denial of basic economics. Spending creates jobs. Government spending, consumer spending, business spending. Whatever. Once you pretend that's not so you are orbiting Mars.
Now, we can have a reasonable argument as to which is the most efficient type of spending, and government policies to promote said efficiency, and so forth. But how can we get there when you are living in De Nile?
As a Black man, I feel any conversation about economic inequality is flawed if it doesn’t address racial inequality as well. I'd hoped Tea Pary would present spaces for such conversations to take place. I’ve found plenty of reasons to support the Tea Party movement, but I've found the movement support me. Much has already been said about race and the Tea Pary movement. Some have criticized the movement for its perceived lack Some have criticized the movement for its perceived lack of diversity and aggressive “whiteness.” As we all know, racism exists, even within this, ostensibly, well meaning movement. It exists as a kind of pathological denial of the privilege in which this type of white activism is deeply rooted. Ignoring complex issues of race and privilege in the Tea Party movement will only suggest that it is actually steeped in the kind of racial intolerance of which it has been accused. During my time spent at Tea Pary rallies, I was disgusted by the amount of white protesters who happily waved signs with Obama as a monkey or savage, while likening student loan debt to slavery, with seemingly no thought to how the co-option of slavery rhetoric might look to Black Tea Partiers. While being in debt is undeniably unpleasant, to compare it to the literal enslavement of millions of Africans is odious. This is the kind of racial obliviousness that will alienate Blacks from poor and avg whites, with whom they have much common and who might otherwise be sympathetic to the overall message of the Tea Party.
You're thinking is short term. Possibly, academics (most of whom have not worked a day in their live's outside of the academic world) can show that government spending during a recession stimulates the economy. But there is always a price for that, it is called debt. And given that we have as a nation tapped out literally all of our credit, having reached the levels of debt in proportion to GDP in which countries have experienced a currency crisis, we cannot afford more. Moreover, government spending ever does little more than generate paper. Where did our spending go under the guidance of our illustrious president? The public service unions. And what do they contribute to economic growth and productivity? Nothing.
The bottom line is that we are on borrowed time as a nation. Continue the spending, and the world financial markets will cut us off-that is when it will get painful. The spending is reckless and is political. It is designed only to get a president re-elected, with no other forethought or concern. Living in denial? Stop reading those arcane theories generated in a closet by academics. Try reading a book with some real understanding of economics: Economics in one lesson by Henry Hazlitt.
It's more than possible that spending during a recession (or during anytime for that matter) kick starts an economy. It's common and proven. The long term is another matter, and worthy of a different discussion.
As for the deficit, well here are the developed countries with public debt ratios of less than 50% -
1) Australia
2) Denmark
3) Finland
4) Hong Kong
5) Luxembourg
6) New Zealand
7) Norway
8) Sweden
9) Switzerland
10) Taiwan
11) Turkey
It's pretty clear from that list that fiscal health is more closely related to high taxes than to low spending.
If truly your first care was the deficit, you would propose raising taxes. Instead, you propose spending cuts. That reflects your view of the best type of government being a minimal government. Which is fine. But please don't couch this as being about the deficit. It's not about the deficit. That is not your prime concern.
I think you profoundly misunderstand the Bretton Woods system. The link to the gold standard, albeit tenuous, gave the government less not more discretion to run deficits. What happened under LBJ is that the current account moved from surplus into deficit, driven by social spending and the war.
The fix on international exchange rates (dollars to francs or pounds or whatever) prevented the government from reducing the value of the dollar to increase exports and reduce imports. The gold standard (dollars to gold) meant that the money supply couldn't increase over time with the economy. This is a serious problem as otherwise you would get persistent deflation which would cripple investment. Or, as we increased the money supply, the gold standard would break. Presumably we could simply constantly readjust it, but this would allow constant speculation in the gold/dollar rate, which would make it even harder to keep the rate down and we'd go into a spiral where gold would cost more and more dollars.
What you are looking for is the "exorbitant privilege", as de Gaulle called it, which is the status of the dollar as the international reserve currency. That exists without the gold standard although it does mean if our currency became unstable it might lose that status. The gold standard was there to, in some ways, weaken the exorbitant privilege by making gold, rather than the dollar, the reserve currency. This meant that de Gaulle, rather than keeping dollars, could trade his dollars for our gold, which allowed France to take us for a ride, walking off with a serious portion of our gold reserves.
We only managed to keep on the gold standard as long as no one used the gold standard. This was why only governments were allowed to redeem money for gold. Most countries such as GB and Japan and West Germany looked the other way and didn't take advantage of our idiotic gold policy, out of cold war solidarity. The problem that there was one country which was a prick about the whole thing- France. This is why the gold standard was such a bad idea- because it was just like giving gold to France.
By the way, this is coming from somebody who really dislikes Keynesianism and very much supports cutting spending. It's just that's not how the Bretton Woods system worked.
You are absolutely right that anyone who brings racism into the Tea Party is being odious, and rather moronic in my opinion. The public debt, and the greater and greater share of what earn that it looks like will be going to government concerns all Americans, white or black. Trying to turn that in something against black people isn't just incorrect, it's self-defeating. As someone who wants to deal with the debt, as much as possible through cutting government spending, I think that anyone who tries to make African Americans feel unwelcome supporting this should shut his trap. Let me assure you, I bear anyone who tries to bring racism into the tea party all kinds of enmity.
You are right- if the tea party doesn't manage to bring black people along with it it will be far far weaker. An all white movement loses not only the support, but the perspective, of other groups.
At the same time, I dislike those trying to associate not giving all our moneys to the government with racism. Perhaps there are people who come to that from a racial perspective, but I don't think that has the slightest bearing on whether we should give all our moneys to the government. For whatever reason, we shouldn't give all our moneys to the government.
I think stopping our headlong rush towards default isn't about any one group of Americans alone because it is about America. A debt crisis will hurt all of us, so if there ever was a time to lay aside old differences it's now.
As much as issues of race or privilege are important- the fact is we are all, privileged or not, on the same sinking ship. I agree with you though, the tea party needs to represent a cross section of the American people so that it advocates reforms for reducing the scope of government that benefits all groups equally.
Also, I don't think the tea party is an all white movement. There may be troglodytes like that there, but I think they have been overstated. Even when they are there, they are the useless ones. If I was to think of the one person who probably did more for the movement than any one else, it would probably be Michael Steele. There are two few black people in the tea party, but some people matter more than others. Your average belligerent yokel doesn't equate in importance with the head of the RNC who helped win them the midterms. Cutting him lose was probably the worse mistake the republicans have made recently.
Anyway, I continue to hope that we will avoid both a debt crisis and crippling tax rates, for all Americans.
I actually understand the Bretton Woods system quite well. To be specific, foreign central banks were given a devil's choice of increase their own money supplies to maintain the fixed exchange rate or buy up the surplus US dollars, defacto financing the war. They chose the latter until France rebelled, and as you put it, "used it". That was the end.
Fiat money works if instead of attempting to stimulate the economy they would simply allow the money supply to grow with the productive capacity of the economy. Technically Keynesianism works btw, but it requires governments to pay off their debts, and ignores that we have credit limits. Those factors are all now in play.
Btw...I understand the limits of the gold standard, I discuss it in my very first lectures in international finance each quarter, and have done so for years. The problem is that most politicians don't bother to attend those.
sorry for the tone teach.
I still don't get why the Bretton Woods system would give greater freedom to print money. The gold standard of the Bretton Woods should limit the ability of the government to print money. I don't get why if we increased our money supply, and they wanted to keep the exchange rate stable, they would have to increase the money supply more then rather than now. It would seem that the strict capital controls back then would make it easier to maintain a peg. Or are you talking about the lack of a peg now? There are still countries which seek to keep an artificially low currency to export their way into prosperity, just like W Europe back in the day, that help us run deficits- namely China and East Asia.
It would also seem that Keynesianism would work a lot less well than under the Bretton Woods system, which was designed by Keynes to help make Keynesianism work. Without capital controls, governments can't practice financial repression to keep down the cost of borrowing. They risk a flight of capital so they can't do as much stimulus- that seems to be the problem afflicting the Eurozone.
It was an abuse of the system. The US became reckless, and because foreign central banks had and obligation to maintain fixed rates, they had to choose between buying up our deflated dollars, or printing more of their own currencies creating domestic inflation. Essentially we were leveraging Europe's desire to maintain the system of fixed rates against them. Finally, they gave up. The problem is an analog to the problems you have in disciplining the PIGS nations, there was no enforcement mechanism other than to abandon the system and allow the currencies to float. And floating exchange rates are no panacea either, particularly not for business or international trade.
What I was saying is that our reckless management of our economy has had penalties this time. A substantial depreciation of the dollar over the last 11 years, and debt approaching unsustainable levels. And my big point is that given the debt we have accumulated, we no-longer can continue the spending in attempts to temporarily reduce unemployment. We are at risk for a currency crisis. The only reason the value of the dollar has been sustained is that 1) the US became the world's consumer of goods over the last 10 years, and the rest of the world doesn't know who else to sell to, and 2) the rest of the world is in a greater mess. Finally, 3) the world's investors want a safe-haven currency. But if we continue like we are, those sentiments are not going to last. We need to restructure our economy and reduce business costs so firms have incentives to invest in the US again.
I wonder if some commenters here are not missing something. The Tea Party has never been a homogenous entity, reflecting the same marriage of laissez-faire economic concervatives with "social" conservatives as the broader GOP. But when we look closely, the Santorum revolt against the Party leadership was at its roots a populist one. Right-wing perhaps, but populist, and defined in opposition to the perceieved privileged and powerful. So, what if Mr. Romney does become President, the GOP gains Congressional seats, severe austerity ensues, and then no broad-based prosperity returns in 4-6 years? The incipient split between the groups will likely end in divorce.
Its not at all certain that severe austerity will return broad-based prosperity to the country. If fiscal restraint is not accompanied by growth, many millions will suffer, and the old saw about less/no govt = more business/economic growth is less and less true in a globalized environment. Less/no gov't in the area of trade has become an excuse for financial, labour, and Intellectual Property arbitrage. Free trade is not free and a dangerous fiction much like the "state of nature" arguement of early modern Europe that led to repression.
Didn't this happen the last decade? I was once in the vanguard
of the T.P. movement, but these guys have turned out to be right wing socialists. Really just neo-cons with a diffferent marketing spin.
W. W. states: "This muddled outcome puts America’s pundits in a quandary. Had Mr Hatch gone down to defeat, the tea party would have been declared alive and well; had Mr Hatch sailed to victory, it would have been declared moribund".
.
If this is true, then pundits you speak about are not very "punditive", excuse the neologism. I mean, the premise you suggest - defeat or victory of one Mr Hatch - is not at all sufficient for any reasonable, leave alone scholarly, conclusions about so diverse, serious, and quite complex movement as Tea Party.
.
Lame, W.W. - once again. Try better.
W.W?
Well, why not? The posts on Democracy in America blog are anonymous, so I chose W. W. You can call him WTF or DIA, or whatever.
The posts on DiA are not anonymous. This piece was written by E.M.
E.M. or W.W., it's still lame.
ahbeng@kwayteow:pts/0% at teatime -f endoftheworldasweknowit.sh
warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh
cannot open input file endoftheworldasweknowit.sh: No such file or directory
...
...
Well, drat.
Sir, I protest your taste in shells.
Heathen, you know not the glory of zsh.
Can we sell the Tea Party to the Iranians?
The further right the better. Natural evolution will do its job eventually to get rid of those troglodytes.
Before they take the rest of us with them?
Don't be so pessimistic, we only got where we are because of science. Give those troglodytes time with their medieval ideas and they will start to burn each other on stakes.
Sorry, but I find it difficult to be optimistic. The only bright side I see is demographics, but that's a ways down the road.
This is a difficult one, it's either education, or demographics, both require a long lead time before you see any change, but you might if you still in nappies:-)))
See what call goes out to, "Have a tea party!"
The Republican party has drifted so far to the right that it is scary since their Congressman must sign pledges to never raise taxes regardless of conditions and they all must vote as a monolithic block.
The Tea Party arrived on the scene at the worse moment possible. After 8 years of GW Bush and in the midst of a financial collapse of biblical proportions, they sudddenly found religion and became obssesesd over deficit spending when common sense called for fiscal stimulus followed by well thought out entitlement reform in the mid term.
As the story implies, it would've been disastrous is they had gotten their wish and the handful of huge banks that dominate the US financial sector had "just been allowed to fail". The calamitous collapse that would've occurred would've sparked a global depression. Apparently, many clueless Tea Party types thought Lehman Brothers was a clothing store .
Many suggest Ronal Reagan could get the GOP nomination today. It is notable how many Reagan era operatives hold the present day GOP in disdain and prefer Obama. Former Budget Director David Stockman and supply side economist Bruce Bartlett stand out. Recently, former Solicitor General Charles Fried wrote about the hypocrisy of the GOP in opposing "Obamacare" since it is essentially their own prescription for health reform in 1993.
Bartlett conducted a poll at a Tea Party rally that documented how misinformed the Tea Party is about taxation even though they famously spout off about it. Most have no idea that tax levels are at generationally low levels nor that Obama lowered their taxes. Most shocking - many do not even know what they themselves pay in taxes.
Article and poll here:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/18/tea-party-ignorant-taxes-opinions-colum...
I meant to say many suggest Reagan could NOT get the GOP noination today.
After passing his huge tax cuts (Bruce Bartlett did much of the research supporting it) he went on to pass at least 6 tax increases, including the largest peacetime tax increase in US history ( as a % of GDP and in inflation adjusted dollars).
He also was divorced and pretty progressive on many social issues
Meh. The Tea Party was and always has been just a group of angry Republicans. A lot of their grievances were fair, but let's not pretend they were this entirely new group in the arena.
It's simple what happened. They were angry after the Democrats won the 2008 election, they believed Republican promises of reversals of Obama's policies in 2010 and voted for Republicans in droves, and once it became clear that Republicans in 2010 are basically the same as Republicans from 2002-2006 (mainly because most of these guys have been in office since Nixon was President), they became less loud and enthusiastic.
The same cycle happens on the Left, too. Ultimately, some people forget that our political system makes it punishingly hard to accomplish anything without broad consensus manifested either by bipartisan compromise or one side winning massively. So those people become hopeful about either "Taking our country back" or "Restoring American values" or "Bringing Change," then they vote in droves for the opposition party, then they spend the next 2 years being disappointed.
I mostly agree, but I think the tea party folks should have been every bit as mad at Bush as they were at Obama and while the timing argues for your version of events, I don't assume that they were insincere.
Furthermore, these are not the same guys. They can't accomplish anything for just the reason you cited but I don't really believe that Nixon- or Reagan- or even Bush 43-era Republicans would have made as screwy a spectacle as the class of 2010. That bit with the debt-ceiling might have been principled but it was also very dangerous. Previous generations of Republican legislators were more porcine in the middle but less so on the ends.
Why would any US Senator be incredulous about Bennet's removal? He was a consumate liberal insider being allowed to hide out in the Republican Party. We call them RINOs. Unfortunately, they are not an endangered species in the GOP...
What made Bennett a RINO? The Tea Party ousted quite a few deserving RINOs but from what I can tell Bennett wasn't one of them.
RINO's aren't an endangered species for the same reason fools aren't. The criterion is that someone labels you that way. Like John McCain and Lindsay Graham, Bennet is a RINOINO..
What you call a RINO will survive long after the Tea Party is forgotten. They wanted to reduce the size of government, but could not agree on the details of where it was too big and where it was wasteful. They didn't care to learn any facts.
Anyone who thinks Senator McCain, Lindsay Graham, and Bob Bennet are RINOs must live in an alternate universe. I saw intelligent politicians who had different political philosophies from the Democrats, but compromised where necessary to maintain governance. In other words, politicians. Same with the "DINOs". When you eliminate the real politicians and replace with ideologues, you end up with Jayhawkers vs. Bushwhackers, Tutsis vs. Hutus, Communists vs. Fascists (most anlogous to todays Dems vs. GOP), or just political hacks tea-bagging the Wall Street titans. Be careful what you ask for.
Keep in mind that the tea-bagger sect is a creation of the Greedy Old Party, which created this pseudo-populist cult in order to justify its unprecedented intransigence in opposition--which has served the oligarchy quite well during Obama's first term. The American people, not so much.
Even if the tea-baggers are exposed as radical, racist hypocrites, then we can fully expect the GOP to use other similar fictions to create the illusion that their interests are aligned with the American people's. With ownership of global media conglomerates and the ability to spend unlimited monies to install and enrich their venal candidates, the oligarchs merely use the tea-baggers as a smokescreen.
This is really the type of regurgitated MSNBC-speech that gets "Recommended" on The Economist these days?
You clearly have never read the regurgitated Fox News-speech that gets the same treatment. :-)
Given that the Tea Party successfully challenged a few of the GOP-blessed in their primaries which in some cases resulted in the loss of a seat, I suspect that there is not quite as much coordination between the two groups as you seem to be suggesting.
Also, while there is an unfortunate number of conservatives who are racists (which I say in part based on the unfortunate experience of seeing them appear on this very forum), I would be cautious about calling all (or even necessarily most) of them racist since it is just making you look like a caricature of an extreme Leftist yourself.
The bond market is Europe's Tea Party, reiging in the EU's free-spending governments. With the federal deficit heading towards the stratosphere even before the bulk of baby boomers hit retirement age, the U.S. is not far behind.
The Tea Party ran out of money in the Presidential primaries too quickly with too many candidates. Don't count them out just yet.
The Tea Party has taken over the Republican Party in much the same way as the Progressives took over the Democratic Party in the thirties.
I have met and spoken with many local Tea Party supporters. By and large, they are an outgrowth of the Southern Strategy engineered by Nixon Republicans. From my experience, most of them are older (40+), have an upper-middle class or greater income, and almost exclusively, they are white. Many of them are devout Christians. Socially, they are extremely conservative; politically, they are Reagan anti-tax conservatives with affectations toward Libertarianism. A strong undercurrent of racism and xenophobia is prevalent, coupled to strict Constitutionalism and an anti-Federalist, pro-states' rights viewpoint. The woes of the current situation in the US are invariably blamed on Jews, Communists, Socialists, minorities, atheists, immigrants, and the poor and working classes.
Beyond this demographic the Tea Party simply does not have a voter base large enough to keep it in power for long or in any great numbers. It resonates somewhat with the blue-collar/working class, but they can be put off a bit by the often self-centered approach favored by the Tea Party, where the general consensus seems to be that all taxes and all entitlement systems should be abolished (except for Medicaid and Social Security; not surprising given the older age of many Tea Partiers.)
That being said, the Tea Party has in fact done an excellent job of forcing the Republicans to the right on many issues where the party had previously been drifting leftward. By hijacking the political discourse, they have gained far more visibility and exposure than would have been accorded them otherwise; by taking over the Republicans, they have guaranteed themselves ample media exposure (the media in the US almost exclusively ignores any political parties other than the Repubs & Dems.) Therefore, moderate conservatives have been forced to pay lip service to some of the Tea Party ideals, if only to be elected or stay in office.
In this sense, Tea Time is not at an end; though the party itself may not endure, it has managed to "bump" the Republican Party enough to have a lasting influence in American politics.
Yes, yes, I know- having a different opinions about government spending from yours is, of course, racism and antisemitism. Thank you for defending our level of discourse.
Those racist teabaggers like Allen West and Herman Cain and the xenophobes like Marco Rubio have hijacked the GOP from the Strom Thurmonds and Pat Buchanans!
At least here in the South, as observed in person at a number of different "Tea Party" events, there is no shortage of overt racism, usually directed at Obama; "illegal immigrants" (meaning Mexicans) are often blamed for unemployment and crime; and the strong dislike of government welfare programs is usually only extended to SNAP (Food Stamps), subsidized housing, and such (programs which tend to be heavily populated by minorities and single mothers, two common scapegoats of the Right) while excluding "white bread" welfare such as Social Security and Medicaid.
To me, the Tea Party is the same old Deep South Republican GOP with a thin veneer of fiscal conservatism applied, as opposed to true Libertarian ideals of individual freedom and small government. This is why it will not win the Libertarian vote, since the Libertarian Party doesn't rely on scapegoating to lay the foundation of its tenets.
YMMV.
Your characterization of the demographics fits well with polls of members I've seen. I believe they are also majority male.
This is one of the best posts I've ever seen. It deserves a wider audience than the people on this board.
Upholding the racial diversity of the Tea Party by singling out three individuals is not a very compelling argument.
It's the political equivalent of the 60s scenario of having a handful of token minorities in a public school that is 99% white, then parading them in front of a camera and saying "See? We're fully integrated!"
To the best of my knowledge I don't recall seeing many Tea Party supporters come out in favor of Cain, at any rate; once they realized he was not "morally pure" his exit was swift and ignominious. You're more likely to hear names such as Ron Paul, Virgil Goode or Mike Huckabee.
I never claimed the Tea Party was diverse. It clearly is not. My only claim was that they're not especially racist when you look at who they support. The problem with Democrats is that they see white conservatives and automatically think racist.
I don't know where all the vitriol against "tea party" comes from from the left. It isn't a political party, and a "tea party candidate" just seems to be someone who says they are a tea party candidate. It's like someone who is a "progressive" for the left. There isn't any group that really has the right to bestow that on them. For the left, it just seems to be "someone on the right I really don't like", which is probably why you don't like it. It really isn't pin downable, so it's a sort of meaningless term that can mean anything to anybody.
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As for the idea that a lot of republicans were getting voted out of office, can't we agree that after eight years of Bush the republican party needed some cleaning out. I would say a lot of the anti-establishment mood has to do with how much people, right as well as left, really did not like the Bush administration. Bush passing Medicare part D and waging two wars without the money to pay for it, and Dick "deficits don't matter" Cheney really shouldn't be the face of the republican party. I just wish the left would realize that it is wading into a intraparty conflict where it doesn't belong, essentially to defend the legacy of George Bush. Admit it, a President who blows money he doesn't have buying stuff for seniors we can't afford was kind of your preferred Republican. George Bush and Nixon- you'd welcome them as democrats if they were only prettier and nicer.
IMHO these labels tend to be self-applied by Democrats and Republicans in an attempt to link themselves with important and fondly-remembered aspects of Americanism: "Progressive" Democrats seek to be associated with the economic progressivism and social reforms of both Roosevelts and Kennedy, and "Tea Party" Republicans with the classical American liberalism of Jefferson + the rebellious colonists fighting against oppressive taxation.
The Tea Party is hardly the group to do house cleaning. A bunch of intemperate crybabies.
"Get the Federal gubnit off my Medciare." indeed.
Change the Constitution, then elect Arnie and give him a gun.
My preferred Republicans were McCain minus the Palin and Clinton minus the libido.
The Democratic equivalent of a RINO is a DINO. Who would win in a fight? Where did I put the popcorn?
Replying to myself is pretty lame, but in response to my first question, I think that the answer depends on whether you think of a DINO as this or this.
who really cares what Clinton does? Can't be any worse than the snorting and whoring going on in Wall St.
It is amazing that the Tea Party has become a force. Essentially they have no interest in governing. And the westerners are the biggest hypocrites seeing at the coastal folks who vote for Democrats pay all the taxes that the tea party states get from Washington.
The tea party is still an organization to be reckoned with. its views still are embraced by millions of voters as opposed to the nonsense "occupy movement"
Hey, if you can take a grassroots movement that's outraged over Bush's bailout of big banks (while letting the folks whose busted mortgages hurt the banks go unaided) and turn it into a movement defending corporate America against "Obama's socialist takeover"; that kind of organization is just too valuable to let go down the drain.
yea its a great group comprised of the 47% who pay no taxes. Yep that's a great social movement take from the producers and give it to those who refuse to work...sounds a lot like Cuba and Russia how did those societies pan out
:-)
That 47% talking point is misleading. Pretty much everybody pays taxes. Sales tax. Payroll tax. Indirectly, property tax (which are passed along through higher rents).
Well said.
re: mandinka1 in reply to gzuckier
Darwin called. He wants his mutated newt back.
About time these Republicans end their moral crisis and along the way learn some practical lessons as well: for the past 30 years, they have grinned at the prospect of electoral victory with the help of right-wing, conservative groups and dismissed all else. So a new energized band of more conservative politicians has delivered them the congress. But this same bunch, who the usual Republicans relied on, hunted them down, kicked many out of politics, and those who survived pretended to be the kind of conservative they weren't. So the next wave came and kicked a number of these pretenders out again, and the survivors pretended even more. Yet they seem to be never immune from the wrath of these puritanical right-wingers.
Doesn't that illustrate, perhaps the cowardly, defensive stance they have been taking doesn't serve them well even on purely pragmatic grounds? Until when are these people going to veer rightward and yet primary after primary get bloodied by the more conservative alternatives?
I don't blame Olympia Snowe for being disgusted with the Senate. I think Harry Reid is the worst Senate Majority Leader in American history. As she wrote in her WaPo op-ed, "Why I'm Leaving the Senate" on March 3rd:
The Senate of today routinely jettisons regular order, as evidenced by the body’s failure to pass a budget for more than 1,000 days; serially legislates by political brinkmanship, as demonstrated by the debt-ceiling debacle of August that should have been addressed the previous January; and habitually eschews full debate and an open amendment process in favor of competing, up-or-down, take-it-or-leave-it proposals.
And I don't blame her one bit for for saying that if she had to grade the President on his willingness to work with Republicans, he would "be close to failing on that point."
Putting Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar and the "strength" of the Tea Party aside for the moment, I think the 2012 presidential campaign will be the worst campaign this country will ever know in terms of partisan polarization.
I have two bones to pick...
1st, saying Harry Reid is the worst Senate Majority Leader in US history gives short shrift the many horrid leaders who've come before him. Seriously, that's quite an outlandish statement and you need to back it up or keep quiet.
2nd, grading President Obama on his willingness to work with people who have absolutely no interest in working with him is just BS of the worst sort. It takes two to tango, and at least Mr. Obama tried to work with the Republicans - which is far more than they've done.
I will agree that the partisanship of the upcoming campaign will be historically bad, though not neccessarily the worst ever (it has been at least as bad on a few occasions).
Supamark,
1. That you have "bones to pick" with me does nothing to change my opinion of Harry Reid's tenure. I think it's outlandish of you to tell me to keep quiet.
2. Whether you like it or not, Sen. Olympia Snowe said if she had to grade the President on his willingness to work with Republicans, he would "be close to failing on that point."
Now, please keep quiet. Thank you.
You've heard the term, "put up or shut up?" well, when you make an outlandish claim, you do in fact need to put up or shut up. In other words, prove your outlandish claim or remove it.
And just because an outgoing senator says it, well, that does not mean it's true. In this case, she's about 90% wrong (Mr. Obama has rightly given up working with the Republicans, as they've shown they're not interested).
I'm sorry you don't have the ability to tell the difference between "I have a couple bones to pick..." and, "I have a coule bones to pick with YOU." but it's not really my job to correct your lack of reading comprehension. Only "1" of the items directly referenced you - your zany claim the Harry Reid was the worst majority leader in US Senate history. Trent Lott and Bill Frist were at least as "bad". Mitch McConnell, should Obama keep the White House and the Republicans gain the Senate, will be worse.
k.a., don't you know you're supposed to shut up?
Supamark, Why don't you just call me zany and be done with it?
cs r, Absolutely hilarious. I love Pajamas!
I think both sides have some blame. For example on raising the debt ceiling it was the Republicans who blocked passage by demanding things they were never going to get - e.g. a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. This caused a downgrade in the US's credit rating. S&P said this in their document accompanying the downgrade. The resistance to the debt ceiling raise increased the probability of default now and in the future. There was no mention of any other possible cause of a cash shortage.
I think both sides share blame, too, but Olympia Snowe is right: the debt-ceiling (debacle of August) should have been addressed the previous January.
Read this column by The Mighty Ezra Klein. He explains (much better than I'm able), "What the Democrats did wrong on the debt ceiling in 2010"
But there was a moment when Democrats did have the leverage: December 2010. The election was over. Nancy Pelosi was still speaker of the House. Harry Reid still had 59 Democrats in the Senate. The Bush tax cuts were expiring. And Democrats had a perfectly popular and intuitive position: Extend the cuts for the middle class but, in a time of deficits and sacrifice, sunset the cuts for the rich...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/what-democrats-did-w...
The Democrats were cowardly to the extreme through '09 and '10, and for no real reason. They have received, and continue to receive, an enormous amount of criticism from both the right and the left (yes, really, even people who vote for democrats are generally less-than-thrilled with them, and most are pretty forthcoming with that information).
Nonetheless, they stand in contrast to a party dead set on fiscal suicide and psychotic social policy. Those of us on the left are presented with the choice between a bunch of incompetent cowards, or people who are startlingly effective at doing the opposite of what we want. Or we can stick our heads in the sand and hope it all goes away; a choice which many are likely to take, and I'm sure a plurality of Americans would be quite happy to see.
Anyway, I believe Harry Reid's biggest failing is his inability to act like a Majority Leader. Many Senates have managed to pass legislation just fine without any party holding a veto-proof super-majority, most in fact, and yet he seems convinced of the contrary and allows the Republicans to walk all over him. The fact that McConnell established himself as the top Senator despite the fact he had an inescapably weaker position is simply embarrassing.
OK, that was funny until the net neutrality bashing, that just left me scratching my head... I don't get it.
Rest assured, k.a.gardner, that nobody here is trying to take away your freedom to speak and act like a fool, though I don't know why you are being so vehement about exercising this particular right. :-)
Well, I've been exposed to a new word: "tanniny". I still have no idea what it means though. Is this an arcane Britishism, meaning perhaps that the senator is heavily tanned, like an old piece of leather, or full of tannins like an oak? In either case what does that have to do with the political spectrum? Is the other end of the Republican spectrum "raw", "uncured", or "pale"? This needed a footnote.
Tea is full of tannins
Ah, I get it. And how does he treat the dairy lobby? MIF?