Trying to Think Like the Tea Party
In the residue of Christmas spirit, an attempt to understand what’s behind a toxic cloud that the Tea Party has cast over American government all year:
Yes, the economy has been bad, and many of us have been hurting—-from young people without jobs to the retired with no increases in Social Security and no place to earn interest on their life savings.
Yes, bailouts and stimulus have been very costly yet still not enough to turn the recession around, creating huge deficits.
Yes, government has grown more intrusive with massive health care reform and new regulations for financial institutions that control so much of the national wealth.
Yes, Barack Obama has not been a perfect president in a time of trouble and turmoil.
Yes, but…
Why must all these challenges mean government is the problem and not part of the solution, as it was during the Great Depression?
Next year’s election will provide the answer. The contest, as E. J. Dionne puts it, is between “a tradition that sees government as an essential actor in the nation’s economy, a guarantor of fair rules of competition, a countervailing force against excessive private power, a check on the inequalities that capitalism can produce, and an instrument that can open opportunity for those born without great advantages” and today’s Republicans who “cast the federal government as an oppressive force, a drag on the economy and an enemy of private initiative.”
Their most likely candidate, Mitt Romney, is now campaigning against the straw man of “an Entitlement Society,” in which “government provides every citizen the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to innovate, pioneer or take risk.”
In our 24/7 media world, these opposing arguments may be treated as if they were of equal weight, even though the second is palpable nonsense. Just measure Romney’s own rewards for financial juggling against those of any middle-class worker.
In these dark Washington days, however, there is a ray of hope.
14 Responses to “Trying to Think Like the Tea Party”
A frontal lobotomy would be required, that is mildly debilitating and very painful, so don’t do it…
I have heard rumors to the effect that watching Fox News 24 hours a day seven days a week for a couple of years can have a similar result.
The EJD quote gets to the nitty gritty. The gratuitous anti-govt propaganda that has been a part of the GOP at least since Reagan (and has achieved cult-like status in the TP) has infected a large portion of an otherwise halfway intelligent citizenry. Funny thing about propaganda, we all learned about it and what it was in public schools when I was a kid, do they even teach people this stuff anymore???
Robert Stein asks “Why must all these challenges mean government is the problem and not part of the solution, as it was during the Great Depression?”
Well, could it possibly be that our current governmental members are in over their heads and can not find solutions as they have never been a member of any organization that had to do strategic planning?
On one hand we have the left that promotes class warfare, while protecting programs that most all Americans know can not continue in their current form. But having the wisdom to do what is right, instead of politically acceptible for reelection does not exist.
on the other hand we have ther right that promotes elitist positions, protecting the rich from taxes while promoting a slash and burn position with many government programs. Here again, most Americans probably realize that some tax increases are necessary and some of these programs that the ATea Party wants to cut are really needed, but in a reformed condition.
And in the middle, where a high percentage of Americans exist in the political spectrum, are those that believe in tax reform which will raise revenues, program changes that will make the programs more efficient and less costly, while still achieving the outcomes when they were originally designed and put us on the path to a balanced budget.
However the legislative branch of our government is not designed to promote the positions of the majority of the left and right centrist American voter. You either get a far left candidate or a far right candidate in the house which causes nothing but turmoil with little action. Unlike the Senate where more moderate member exist, the house will continue to move to a more polarized position, causing more deadlocks to occur.
Please make a list of those far left politicians and tell me what their far left positions are, I could use a good laugh.
Why is it that those who want to support a conservative position can only do so by claiming that the problem is both sides? Intellectual honesty would require that one look at the actual votes and positions and determine the obstructionists.
The “Left” offered all sorts of avenues for compromise. The “Right” took the positions the Left offered as starting points and insisted they go further right. Then they insisted that the further right positions be the starting point for the “Left” and tried to force them further right again.
In no way can one consider the Republican Party as a party of coming to consensus with their colleagues across the aisle. The comics of 2011 are loaded with images of the “Right” holding a gun to the nation’s head and threatening to pull the trigger if they don’t get their way. There are few (if any) similar comics of the “Left” doing the same thing. I will not allow a comparison of the “Far Right” and “Far Left” to be made without calling out the insanity and/or hypocrisy of the situation.
Reality #1: The “Far Left” is not equal to the “Far Right” in its unwillingness to find solutions. The “Far Right” is recalcitrant and unyielding. They want their way and ONLY THEIR WAY. The “Far Left” want their way but are more than willing to meet somewhere in the middle.
I would also like to add that the “Far Right” is in power. They hold elected office, they have full control over their own news network, they dominate talk radio, they sit in the Capitol building. The “Far Left” occupies coffee houses and poetry slams in San Fransisco and Berkley. They are PETA and CODE PINK, they are irrelevant. If you think Pelosi and Obama are “Far Left”, you’re pretty out of touch.
I know from all the way over there on the right side that is currently where the conservative think the middle of the road is most of us that are actually in the middle seem to be lefties, but it is your perspective that is off, not ours.
Forty eight million Americans voted for Sarah Palin for Vice President.
This is disturbing.
Why is it that those who want to support a conservative position can only do so by claiming that the problem is both sides?
Valid point as that is no defense for a partisan position, however I’d add that noting both parties are the problem would be very reasonable in trying to support a moderate viewpoint.
DaGoat..I believe you will find that this is anything but a moderate site to express ones views. Express anything but the lefts position that everything bad in Washington is due to the republicans and not due to partisan politics on both sides and you are the village idiot.
Quelcrist Falconer..”Please make a list of those far left politicians and tell me what their far left positions are, I could use a good laugh”. Access Americanselect.org, click on candidates, drill down on Obama, page down on his positions and you will find the far left positions of the democrats. For proof, check out some of the selections candidates can make and all of his is as far left as you can select. Moderates will select either of the two middle selections, while the far left/right will pick number 1 or 4. For the laugh, watch MSNBC, they appear there nightly. For the far right, just watch Fox. And for those moderates, try CNN since the seem to really be the fair and balanced network.
I checked out that web site and remain unimpressed. The way they wrote up Obama’s positions used all of the same key words and phrases that I see coming from the Republican presidential candidates and RNC talking points. I call BS on them as not being partisan, frankly.
Because the essence of government, and the reason it performs badly in many respects, is that it’s run by multiple disagreeing sides.
If there were only one side, with a single set of goals and a single set of principles for achieving them, government would work much better. Which is essentially what the Republican-bashing writers on the left keep saying.
Of course, if we all agreed on goals and principles, there wouldn’t be much need of government to begin with. Anarchy would work fine too.
All of this argument about the “far left” and “far right” seems pointless to me. It assumes that our political dialog can be reduced to a single dimensional line, and that there is some point on that line that represents the “middle”, and that all other views can be described based on their distance from that point. The single-dimensional political model is useful in some ways, but we’ve taken it too far if we start arguing about who is farther away from the arbitrary middle point.
Speaking of over-simplifications, and back to the point of the original post, I agree that this election will be largely a competition between two very different view points about the role of government, but the way the post (and many others) have framed the question is a false dichotomy. The government can be all of those things that you mentioned that the left and the right think it is. It can be both “a countervailing force against excessive private power” and also “a drag on the economy and an enemy of private initiative” at the same time. There are trade-offs in every policy decision. I want elected representatives who can recognize that there are negative consequences to every act, even ones that are right. A failure to recognize this means that they will fail to consider and address those consequences, which means I can’t trust them with my vote. And if they do understand that nuance but don’t say it because it might hurt them politically, then they are untrustworthy and also not suitable for the job.
Obama did not release all the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, nor did he allow all of them civilian trials (what the Right would call a Far Left position).
Obama did not order the EPA to immediately crack down on carbon dioxide emissions (another Far Left position).
He did not send the FBI and others out to confiscate all the firearms (another ‘claimed’ Far Left position–claimed by the Far Right)
He approved over 200 offshore-oil drill contracts (definitely not Far Left)
He did not immediately bring the troops home from Iraq (another fear of the Far Right)
He did not legalize gay marriage, nor have it recognized for benefits for federal employees (another Far Left position)
He did not insist on a benefit increase for Social Security recipients for the last two years (another one)
The list goes on. Need I remind the readers of yet more positions that he and the Democrats have NOT insisted on?
Its been so long since the Right has had a genuine Lefty to complain about they don’t know whats what anymore. They’ll paint any democrat in the Oval as a super liberal even if he’s 10 steps to the right of Glen Beck.