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1.5 Cheers for the Tea Partiers!
I did indeed attend the Tea Party last weekend with my esteemed colleague Karl, which inspired the following thoughts.
One particular meme that I’ve seen cropping up among the Tea Party circles is those signs with pics of Bush and Cheney, along with the line “Miss Me Yet?” This is something that never fails to send the vomit shooting up the back of my throat. I won’t recount, yet again, the multitude of sins against limited government and fiscal sanity that have been promulgated by the Bush-bots and their neoconservative counselors. Sure, as Karl pointed out to me this weekend, for all his wretchedness, McCain probably wouldn’t have been foisting socialized (or cartelized) healthcare on us, at least this year (although it’s not inconceivable). Nevertheless the prominence of these die-hard Bushie fanboys among the supposedly revolutionary Tea Partiers is the number-one piece of evidence that the movement has been co-opted by amoral GOP set and its talk-radio enablers.
Depressingly, Ron Paul types and associated libertoids, apparently, were completely non-existent among this crowd. In fact, I would guess that, say, a Ron Paul Revolution t-shirt would get some hostile attention from these guys. That’s too bad, because the hard-libertarian forces are younger, more geographically diverse, and are much more serious about pushing back at against the growth of the state. This is not to criticize the undoubtedly fine and dedicated middle-American family men who seemed to make up the bulk of the Partiers, but a broad-based coalition is becoming increasingly essential.
Now, maybe it isn’t fair to pick on the Tea Partiers when after all, they, and indeed the GOP, were at the forefront of the opposition to this monstrous healthcare bill, as Karl pointed out in his post. So on that front, good for them, and I mean that, and I proudly stand with them.
But you get the idea if you ask these guys what they really want, it would boil down to a recitation of stale Heritage Foundation website copy. Let’s see, how about a reduction in marginal tax rates? Invade Iran! Support Israel! And we don’t like the welfare state, but we’re happy to ignore it, for the most part. Basically, Bush/Cheney. Miss ‘em yet?
Worse yet, the fringier of the Tea Partiers seem wont to eschew serious thought in favor of garbage like the birther movement or the “Barack is a Muslim” nonsense. Less stupid, but still stupid, is the tendency to characterize Obama as some kind of a hardline Leninist. Chatting with Karl that evening over some beers I characterized this tendency as, basically, rightwing mental masturbation. (To those who would characterize Conservative Donnybrook similarly: you’re wrong!) Fixating on these obsessions is a good way to push an already disfavored movement into total irrelevance.
If these Tea Party guys really want to keep what’s left of this country from disappearing down the shitter, the answer isn’t Marco Rubio or Scott Brown, and, for God’s sake, it’s not installing some sort of Bush/Cheney 2.0. It isn’t fiddling with marginal tax rates and, emphatically, it is not raining bunker-busters on Iran or expanding NATO or amping up bloodthirsty rhetoric towards China. It isn’t about kicking out DC Scumbag Team A and replacing it with DC Scumbag Team B, which will make comforting noises about its “conservatism” while advancing its own National Review-endorsed assaults on our liberty. And it certainly won’t come from joining the personality cult of the vapid, narcissistic and stupid Sarah Palin, an ardent fan of state power when it benefits her personally, whom we love anyway because she shoots guns and has lots of babies, and exudes family-friendly MILFey sultriness that sends middle-aged white dudes’ pulses racing.
What’s needed to counter the loss of freedom and the growth of centralized power in every sphere of life is nothing short of a rollback of the state on all fronts. Will the Tea Party crowd commit to this? Do they even want it?
How many of these “middle-American radicals” would vote today to repeal Social Security? Heck, ten years from now will these same “Kill the Bill” tea-partiers, as they load up on their government-provided diabetes and blood pressure meds, even be willing to repeal universal healthcare? I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I’m guessing I wouldn’t like them.
UPDATE: If you still refuse to become depressed about the Tea Party movement, read Derbyshire.
March 25th, 2010 at 5:47 am
At the risk of causing premature evaluation, I’d just add on to what you’ve written. I saw quite a few signs at the rally that read “START OVER.” Starting over with a federal health care bill nonetheless means a federal heath care bill. Starting over would mean inserting the federal government into a realm of people’s lives that previously enjoyed a small amount of autonomy (although the government is already up to its neck in the insurance industry, and has its fingers already in the health care pie).
I too believe it would be depressing to learn how seriously these angry right-wingers regard rolling back the state on all fronts. November 2010! Palin/Lieberman!
March 25th, 2010 at 6:18 am
Hey USA! Why don’t you stop your paranoid whining, you just decided to look after people less fortunate than yourselves, you know how selfish this makes you look to the rest of the world when you winge like this?
You should be happy, you just accepted that what happens to your neighbour effects you.
March 25th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Duncan, this is not about whether or not to be nice to poor people, it’s about preventing the US from becoming like whatever f*cked-up place you are from.
Karl: I agree.
March 25th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Breaking my silence for a moment, I would echo Willmoore’s sentiments, and add 1) that there isn’t another place on earth where people are more charitable out of genuine altruism than right here, 2) that noone in this country was without medical care before unless they chose to be, thanks in large part to private hospitals’ charity, and 3) Duncan, it’s “affects” not “effects.” Go sing the Internationale or sharpen your sickle for the next five-year plan or something, and 4) we here at the ‘Brook wish you and your husband the very best in your new marriage.
March 25th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
I lol’d.
March 25th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
LOL, Mike. I’m going to borrow that bit about the sickle and the 5-year plan.
Yeah, Tea Partiers aren’t worthy of the name. Think they’d care if King George III slapped a 1% tea tax on us? Or an itsy-bitsy stamp tax? That would’ve gotten a British magistrate tarred and feathered in 1775, Now, these Tea Partiers barely get fired up about the largest state in the history of the world committing one tyranny after another, month after month. “Socialized health care?! Oh no! What will happen to my Medicare benefits?!?”
And you’re also right about this. Like the leftists from ’01-’09, many of the Tea Partiers are really just complaining that their guy, their team, doesn’t hold the most powerful office in the history of the world. I remember all of the complaints about the wars, the civil liberties violations, etc., during Bush’s reign. Then those complainers got their guy in the White House. They went from left libertarians to supporters of a tyrannical regime. Now, in the era of Barack, we’ve got a bunch of right libertarians in the opposition wing who are complaining about socialized health care, tax increases, EPA regulations, etc. If they get their guy in 2012, they’ll shut up, even if we get another Republican stimulus, another Republican expansion of Medicaid, etc.
March 27th, 2010 at 2:19 am
Aloha from Hawaii.
Good post, Willmoore. While there is a resistance to the gaps in Washington I fear it will not last the mid term night. Once Republicans win a few seats in November, the tea partiers will be placated and return to watching American Gladiator.
I don’t think Paul’s brand of change is the key. If there is hope it lay with the proletariat.
March 29th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Thanks Bill– Hawaii? Around here it’s a beautiful 45 degrees with steady rain. Needless to say I’m jealous.
Josh, good point. What would talk radio have to say about the Stamp Act? “It’s a pro-growth broad-based consumption tax! The Stamp Act helps us stay true to our conservative ideals!”
April 2nd, 2010 at 12:31 pm
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