Quote of the Day: Has the Tea Party Movement Now Been “Hijacked” by Palin and the GOP
Our political Quote of the Day comes from a must-read-in-full column by Nashville Post Politics’ Kleinheider on the Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin and the GOP. Here’s the first part of his piece:
The tea party movement is dead. The one I was familiar with anyway. Judson Phillips held it down and Sarah Palin drove a stake right through its heart live last night on C-Span in front of an unsuspecting audience.
Sarah Palin didn’t give a tea party speech last night. She gave a partisan Republican address. It was a purely political speech designed to position her for a presidential run in 2012 or 2016. Period. She wasn’t there to celebrate the organic nature of a movement she had nothing to do with creating. She was there to co-opt the name and claim the brand as hers. And she did.
The movement, that came to be officially recognized almost a year ago but whose roots go back further than that, has been snuffed out and replaced in the public mind. The movement that began as a people’s movement of angry independent, libertarians and conservatives will now be thought as the movement of people like Palin, Dick Armey, Judson Phillips, Mark Skoda, etc. Essentially, a wholly owned subsidiary of the “Official Conservative Movement” and the Republican Party.
This new tea party bears no resemblance to the one that began a year ago as a reaction to the collapse of our financial system and the subsequent bailout. That movement of ragtag and unorganized libertarians, independents and conservatives was something new and unique. An authentic protest movement angered not just by the new President, Barack Obama, who had presided over the bailouts but the president who started the ball rolling and whose incompetence had led to the crisis in the first place, George W. Bush.
AND:
For over a year the media has struggled to try and define just what exactly the movement was. Now they have a definition.
Sarah Palin.
AND:
The fact that Palin even has the temerity to position herself as a leader in the movement (and despite her protests that’s exactly what she was doing) is offensive to any student of very, very recent political history. Palin, as mavericky and rogue as she likes to paint herself, was the Vice-Presidential nominee of the Republican Party in 2010. She ran with John McCain and defended the Bush legacy. A project she continued last night in front of a faux-tea party audience.
There’s a lot more so read it in full.
Also be sure to read in full THIS POST by independent writer John Avlon on The Daily Beast, who was there for the Palin speech. Here’s a small part of it:
The National Tea Party Convention ended with a Palin for President rally.
This was always slated to be the weekend’s main event, with a $100,000 prize purse. But the organizers still hadn’t seen a copy of the speech as the crowd streamed into the banquet ballroom. What they got was less a Tea Party manifesto than Sarah Palin’s State of the Union speech—an address to a domestic spending protest group which spent its first 15 minutes focused on foreign policy.
It didn’t matter. With plenty of anti-Obama red meat and Palin’s patented folksy-sarcasm, this crowd was rapturous about just being in her presence. She remains the Queen of the Conservative Populists
.
AND:
Palin may be the most polarizing figure in American politics, but she is beloved by her supporters beyond anything seen since Ronald Reagan. Assuming she runs, whatever mistakes she makes between now and the nomination will be dismissed by her supporters as the work of the liberal media playing “gotcha” politics. And in the dynamics of the Iowa caucus that Teflon devotion could bring her victory.
For the Tea Party movement, it was an oddly establishment end to a conference devoted to rebellion—the crowd’s full-throated endorsement of the GOP’s former VP nominee. It is one of many still unresolved tensions in the Tea Party movement, which even after this much-hyped weekend convention remains divided between purposeful fiscal conservative Paul Reveres and people suffering from a serious case of Obama Derangement Syndrome. Another of Palin’s one-liners seems to fit the current condition: “If you can’t ride two horses then you shouldn’t be in the circus.” How long the circus can sustain riding these two divergent horses will determine whether the Tea Party succeeds or self-destructs.
Read it in full.
45 Responses to “Quote of the Day: Has the Tea Party Movement Now Been “Hijacked” by Palin and the GOP”
Oh my, and we all saw so much potential in the rugged, experienced, skeptical and independent-minded teapartiers, didn't we?
Well, I didn't see anything in them apart from a slightly more smug and self-righteous kind of right-winger with a few purple spots. Funny, how living in a country that has had social democrats as the only kind of government for most of the previous century can make you look down upon people who use the word “socialism” like some four-year old kid who just discovered a dirty word and is running around screaming it for attention.
Unfortunately, Europe is heading in pretty much this direction as well, which is why I look forward to moving to New Zealand or something to listen to the downfall from a muting distance.
She's just going to where the money is. When the organizer wanted what $500(?) to attend a three day affair that was packed with speakers, people howled that it was too much.
If you want to make money, are you going to make it from people that complain about the price? Or people that think you are worth paying for?
She is booked to come to my County and speak for the County Republicans. They are charging $250 a plate. Guess who is howling again? Time to wake up folks. They may shout the loudest but money talks, as the saying goes.
And why would she criticize the people that actually have the money to pay her in favor of the one's that don't?
It's really getting pretty funny, I mean you really (at some point) have to laugh at the gullibility of these people. Look, the GOP can absolutely NOT afford to let the Tea Party evolve into a third party since that would in turn weaken them. Their only recourse is to try and absorb that energy. And that energy is RIPE for being absorbed too, just look at how quickly and fervantly they are willing to latch on to SP. Look, this is all mostly varying shades of red anyway, with as Axel observes, a few purple spots here and there. Sorry to disappoint anyone who thought this was a true grassroots revival of common sense America or something, but I'm seeing less and less evidence of that.
JSpencer nailed it. Tactically speaking, it only makes sense for the GOP to 'absorb' the tea party.
Yep. JSpencer is right. Before I read his post I was simply going to write “And will everyone who is actually surprised by this raise their hand.”. I know I never thought it would turn out any other way. In spite of the constant protests about the presence of Democrats and independents at Tea Party gatherings most of the philosophy espoused is simply what the GOP claims it is all about. What really irks me is the constant pushing of extremely simplistic answers for complex problems. I mean, exactly how small can government be in a country that takes up a fifth of the world's livable space, has a population of a third of a billion and a complex, large infrastructure?
BTW, nice to see you back, Polimom.
I don't know if “hijacked” is the right word. Hijacking is done against the will of the hijack-ee. This seems more like a friendly takeover than anything else. I agree that it is a smart move by the GOP, since their brand is still a bit tarnished after the era of Bushco and the Drunken Sailor Party, but I'm not sure I agree that the tea party movement represented a serious threat as a third party. Most of the anger was focused on Democrats in general and Obama in particular, so for the most part I think GOP candidates would have gotten the tea party vote by default this November.
Mr. Kleinheider is spot on with his commentary, but the first sentence “The Tea Party Movement is dead” is probably incorrect and is belied by the rest of the piece describing what he, and most other reporters, have seen happening in tea party activism over the past year. I doubt very much the movement is dead, but Ms. Palin has probably ruined any chance she will be their “leader”.
Why Mr. Phillips and Ms. Palin were moved to put such a partisan face on the “National Tea Party” movement is open to speculation. Are they Republican neo-con's after more disciples? Are they Democrat progressives in disquise – hoping to make the movement look as out of the mainstream as possible? Are they just so into money and power that they can't see the stupidity of making a mockery of a non-partisan grassroots organization which will strangle at birth any chance of real non-partisan political reform? Was that the plan all along?
Okay guys, before you go engraving the headstone, you just might want to wait for the reaction from the local tea parties. There are definite anti-Republican elements of the parties that aren't going to take a hi-jacking very well.
Mostly, these are the same people who followed Ross Perot in the '90s: angry without comprehending the political situation, unengaged in the process, but now ANGRY (amorphously) and determined to bring DOWN those with whom they're angry.
It is a fundamentally anarchist movement, and Tower of Babel Syndrome was to be expected (see the Farah/Breitbart faceoff last night). Why would anyone be surprised that politicians envious of their cash and their votes would do anything to coopt them? After all, they don't actually stand FOR anything: just AGAINST. They are just “ANTI” gosh darn it!!!
People like that are easy pickings for any glib demagogue. (Time to watch “A Face in the Crowd” again.)
Every election cycle when things are bad, the question is: Who is in poweer NOW? Not two years ago, not four years ago, but NOW.
Populism is bottled every election year by those parties who can — 2006, the Democrats bottled the anti-war protests for electoral victory (there was no coherant opposition to the Iraq war other then “Let's be Neville Chamberlain and leave dictators in power,”).
Now the Conservatives and Republicans are bottling the power of the Tea Parties, who by nature are Fiscal Conservatives (not social) and now from Left leaning people like Greenwald it's “How dare the populace revolt againt Obama?”
The questions for November is: Are people being hired? and If not, who is in power NOW?
It's important to bear in mind that there are many different groups operating under the Tea Party movement umbrella, and they don't all agree with one another. Some are conservative while some are libertarian. Some are Republican partisans while others are staunchly anti-Republican.
The Tea Party National convention that was held last night in Nashville was organized and paid for by the Tea Party Nation, which is held in very low repute by many people in the grass roots Tea Party movement. And if Sarah Palin's hyperpartisan speech last night was any indication of the Tea Party Nation's opinion, then yes, the Tea Party Nation has been hijacked by the Republican Party. Although, some people suspect that this was Tea Party Nation's owner, Judson Phillips had in mind all along.
Just who is Judson Phillips, you ask.
Well, apparently not a very nice guy, that is, if you ask some of his fellow Tea Party compatriots.
Several hours after the Tea Party National Convention ended, I was searching the internet for reactions to the event from a grass roots Tea Party member's perspective, and I came across a rather interesting but very long post written by Kevin Smith over at his blog, in media res, and he does not have kind things to say about Tea Party Nation founder and Tea Party Convention organizer, Judson Phillips.
A self-described “libertarian conservative” and native of Tennessee, Kevin Smith was with Judson Phillips during the founding of Tea Party Nation (which I should point out, it one of MANY different Tea Party organizations, many of which do not see eye-to-eye with one another regarding what the underlying goals of the Tea Party movement should be). The two ended up going their separate ways after Judson Phillips made the Tea Party Nation became a for-profit organization (after apparently telling Smith and the rest of the steering committee that it was to be a non-profit organization).
Given the very damning (whoops, can I say that word here?) things Smith says about Judson, it would be interesting to hear Phillips' side of the story…
…which, incidentally, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air attempted to do, as reported in his on-going coverage of the Tea Party convention controversey over a month ago. Unfortunately, Judson never got back to Morrissey. He did, however, release a statement with regard to the controversy. Unfortunately, his statement regarding the controversy ended up being a nonstatement. Given an opportunity to defend himself against rather damning allocations made of him by a fellow Tea Party member, he wrote:
The really funny thing to me is the fact that all an author of a blog has to do is mention Palin and all the Lefties come out in full battle armor. The irony is Sarah Palin would probably have been a footnote in history had the Left ignored her. Yet I have heard many in the left say things like the Tea Party Movement is based on fear. Get real who is afraid of who?
The Tea Party Movement is not an organization it is just a bunch of people who are against the way government has been operating. The 600 people who attended the convention did not represent anyone other that themselves or maybe some small local organization.
The Movement operates by uniting people against a common foe “your enemy is my enemy”. This is the strength of the movement as well as its weakness. Organization could be the Tea Parties downfall, if the common cause comes face to face with differences the members probably are ignoring right now. So I think the movement will stay largely the same for the coming elections. Rallies and events will be organized, the word will be put out about them and thousands of people will show up in support. Various politicians will speak at the events and gain support from the participants. Other politicians will
suffer the wrath of the Tea Party supporters and may lose due to the opposition. And the Left will continue to disparage the Tea Partiers and continue to lose credibility by their words and actions (the Left never listens or learns).
Speaking as a political junkie its going to be a fun summer.
You know what Archer99?
Every time I hear an Iraq supporter such as yourself compare the Iraq War with World War II, Saddam Hussein with Adolph Hitler, and antiwar critics with Neville Chamberlain, I'm going to throw it right back in your face.
During World War II, it was the NAZI's who used pre-emptive war as an excuse to invade Poland. It was the NAZI's who appealed to patriotism and nationalism in order to bolster their support for war.
I abhor making comparisons between Americans with NAZI's or American politicians with Hitler. I do not honestly believe even the most misguided Americans or politicians are that bad. But if you're going to start disparaging critics of the Iraq War by comparing them to Neville Chamberlain and the Iraq War with World War II the way that partisan warmongers like Sean Hannity and Mark Levin did in the weeks before the war, then you are inviting the NAZI comments on yourself. One should be able to defend the rightness or wrongness of a war, without making absurd comparisons to World War II.
“I don't know if 'hijacked' is the right word.”
It's not. “Adopted” (by an aimless, but still-awake GOP) is more like it.
If the Left had ignored Mrs. Palin, she migh now be a heart beat away from the presidency of this country. [Yikes!]
“I abhor making comparisons between Americans with NAZI's or American politicians with Hitler. I do not honestly believe even the most misguided Americans or politicians are that bad.”
HA! Then you must have forgotten this:
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=621
And as far as Iraq war, President Bush chose Wilsonianism as a way of fighting Al-Queda. We knew more about Iraq then Afghanistan (Read: The Great game by Peter Hopkirk and Charlie Wilson's war — no one had on the ground info on Afghanistan).
When i was a Democrat in the 90's, I remember protesting Bush's father for NOT using the troops to bring Democarcy to the ME. Why the change of heart in 2003? Because you folks on the Left HATED Bush more then despising Saddam Hussain.
America has only three foreign policy schools: Isolationism (wghich is what Code Pink espoused), Nixionism (leave dictators alone, which is what Obama supports) or Wilsonianism.
And thanks for going Godwin. tell me, what policy papers did Code Pink write to oppose the Iraq war?
That comment rates a half a dozen likes, I am sorry I can only give you one…
With regards to my previous comment directed at Archer99, I want to make it CRYSTAL CLEAR to everyone here at TMV that I am NOT calling Iraq War supporters NAZI's, nor I am I implying that George W. Bush or any other Republican politician is Hilter. I have friends and family members who are Republicans (some of whom may have supported the Iraq War), and I never dream to make such an accusation of them or anyone who might share their views.
I AM, however, trying to make a point. And that point is that as surely as Iraq War supporters can violate Godwin's law and compare the Iraq War with World War II, Saddam Hussein to Adolph Hitler, and antiwar critics to Neville Chamberlain, then just as surely, critics of the Iraq War can resort to the same tactics (and using no less logic, I might add) against Iraq War supporters.
I welcome a spirited debate with regards to the Iraq War. But I others who, like me, criticized the Iraq War have called everything from “leftists” to “socialists” to “Saddamites” (ha-ha, very funny), to an “apologist for Saddam Hussein” to “unAmerican”, to “unpatriotic”, to “Neville Chamberlain” . . .
. . . and frankly, after seven years, I'm growning tired of it.
I see you are using Code Pink as some kind of boogey man. Code Pink is a very small organization of a few middle aged and older ladies with virtually no influence on anything.
Wow, Archer99. You really picked the wrong guy to debate. I mean REALLY picked the wrong guy.
Because you know what? I am not on “the LEFT.” I am not a progressive. I am not fiscal populist. And unlike you, I have NEVER been a member of the Democratic Party.
NEVER.
You must be new to TMV, because just about any blogger or commenter here could tell you that my political leanings are probably best described as classical liberal or libertarian-liberal (though I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the Libertarian Party).
I voted for the Libertarian candidate for president in 2004 and for the Boston Tea Party candidate for president in 2008, and I voted for several Libertarian candidates for the House of Representatives in the period between 2002 and 2009.
I am not not a purist libertarian. I certainly do not hold libertarian positions on 100% of the issues. Probably not even on 80% of the issues. But I'm willing to bet that my support for free market capitalism is greater than yours.
So you can imagine, right now, why I am laughing at you–laughing that after a single exchange, you could know me SO well as to to just KNOW that I am part of THE LEFT.
There's more to politics than LEFT versus RIGHT, Archer99.
“The questions for November is: Are people being hired? and If not, who is in power NOW?”
That explains 2006 and 2008, which were not pro-Dem, but which was obviously anti-GOP.
The Dems and their naive nebuluous left wing don't understand what always has been obvious.
Meanwhile, while they continue their obscession and pathology about Palin, back in the real world:
That Geithner and Summers are still in the administration is something of a surprise, but not wholly, given the Dems' ineptitude as well as mischief-mindedness this past year. Give them until the next elections in November. If things haven't gotten better (never mind getting worse), they should go. Don Rumsfeld was sacrificed after 2006 for much lesser reasons. By November 2006 Rahm Emanuel should also go if things are still bad. Not that I welcome more idiotic and pathological agenda items from the left wing of the Dems, but even people there will be glad to see him go, and many of those people want him gone (along with Geithner) already.
The Tea Party is pronounced dead, just as Sarah Palin was pronounced politically dead. Repeatedly. Washed up. A quitter. Nothing of importance to say.
Eulogies for the One Who Will Not Stay Buried
Alas poor Palin, I knew her once well
Consigned to oblivion, no more story to tell
The experts have spoken! They've dug Sarah's grave
But darn it that woman, she just won't behave!
It's an outrage! She's crazy, and not an elite
She's a mongrel from nowhere, she even eats meat!
So unlike Prince Obama, she's not of his class
OMG she's on TV and kicking his __
It seems you have confronted the exception that proves the rule.
“The Tea Party is pronounced dead, just as Sarah Palin was pronounced politically dead. Repeatedly. Washed up.”
Approaching ten threads, at least until the important programming (Super Bowl halftime) pre-empts it.
rofl, the professional 'moderates' are out in strength
A must read
Steady-state-economics. Tea party and Libertarians can support some of these ideas.
http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~mllewis/ENVR%2046…
Oh, Archer99…A part of me wants to believe that you don't really believe what you're saying–that you could possibly support such a callous position.
Thousands of innocent Iraq civilians died as a result a result of our government's invasion of Iraq. Thousands.
And why? Because our decide it would be easier to fight a war in the Iraqi neighborhoods rather than Afghani neighborhoods.
Just listen to what you're saying (or actually, read what you're writing), and PLEASE tell me that you do not really harbor such a callous disregard for the lives of Iraqi civilians.
Nick, your comments could be summed up as an “Ode to Presumption”. Thank-you for responding well to a wornout and bogus talking point.
No, Archer99's link merely proves a point that I've been making at TMV for years–that hypocrites can be found on both the LEFT and the RIGHT.
Presumably, some of those pictures are from anti-war rallies. Being anti-war means being anti-aggression. That some of those anti-war protestors would advocate violence towards Bush suggest that these are people who have no principles–people who do not even seem to believe in the principles that their protests are supposed to be about. In short, they're hypocrites and are a disgrace to the anti-war movement.
Isn't it sad when unprincipled activists taint a movement filled with honest grassroot activists?
Isn't it sad when an organization pays lip service to a populist ideal in order to co-opt a grass roots movement in order to further their own political agend (the way many ANSWER types attempted to do with the antiwar movement, and the way many pro-war Republican types are attempting to do with the Tea Party movment)?
I have yet to see any evidence that the approximately one-third of American citizens that support the Teabagger agenda, are anything other than the one-third of people who supported Bush no matter the circumstances.
The movement is largely made up of disgruntled Republicans that don't want to call themselves Republicans anymore. So they create a “new” movement populated by the usual suspects, with willful ignorance and denial as cornerstones.
The true Teabaggers aren't smart enough or politically savvy enough to wrest the movement from the Republican opportunists that now have the beast by the scruff of the neck. Teabaggers, you are being used to further the same old Republican masters that you say you want to avoid.
You may win a few battles, but you will lose the war, because, frankly, the Republicans are playing you like a fiddle.
I have yet to see any evidence that the scrotum slurpers attacking the Tea Partiers are anything other than the same minority of scrotum slurpers who still support Barrack Obama.
You don't like being called nasty names? Me either. Don't ask me to remain silent when someone hurls a sexual epithet at me.
Why so sensitive?
I don't believe any of my post was directed at you specifically.
Are you so personally invested in the Teabagger movement that it is affecting your mental state?
If so, I am truly sorry.
Are you implying it would reflect poorly on a person if s/he was slurping scrotums?
Also, it really is the movement's fault that it carelessly called itself “Teabaggers”.
I attack the Tea party cult, but I most definitely don't slurp scrotums.
fine, let's carry on in more measured tones, appropriate to our setting, and shall simply but respectfully disagree with you. My mental state is… just fine, thanks
You just made a Sarah Palin poem. You think she would make a good president.
Your mental state is… Hm.
Do another Snowflake for Jesus rant for us, kk? lol
This is a perfect example of the simplistic belief systems I referred to earlier.
hypocrites can be found on both the LEFT and the RIGHT
Well I certainly agree with you on that one, no problem. Still, the overwhelming quantity of opposition to the Iraq War came from the left, especially early on.
That would be ok with me.
“Still, the overwhelming quantity of opposition to the Iraq War came from the left, especially early on.”
Which is to their credit. It was fascist thinking and fear that made people support that pathetic excuse for a war – reason never entered into it for the supporters. Not all who opposed the war were motivated by reason, but the only people thinking reasonably loathed the war and the moronic non-CiC who promoted it.
Of course hypocrites can be found on both the left and the right. That's been the case since the parties came into being, but that's not the same as saying equal hypocrisy, an idea that amounts to pablum for dull thinkers. And yes, the overwhelming opposition to Bush's idiotic and criminal War came from the left. No surprise there.
Yes it makes for wise politics, it worked for Scott brown. Hopefully this movement can be captured by moderates and independents of the Brown type and not the more right-wing side of the GOP.
hurls a sexual epithet at me.'
Cut the espressos. Sexual epithets are silly. Go _____ yourself sounds better to me than you are illogical and a cretin.
Also, please, leave out the graphic body part verbiage, if I have a daughter, I would not like her reading that..
my issue is i dont like hypocritical politicians. I feel Palin writing notes on her hands would not be revelant if she was not always attacking others. I am looking at the facts… the fact is she had a prepared speech at the tea party convention so she had a hard copy instead of a teleprompter. She clearly knew the questions to the QandA the washington post has a picture of her on thier website with answers written on her hand before she started speech. I am more concerned as to why Palin needed to write her core beliefs down on her hand. In addition im concerned about her double standards and what she stands for or against. I feel she will run for office again but she has a whole bunch of work to do.She didnt not impress me with her convention speech very partisan…i honestly feel the whole tea party movement is partisan. i am not understanding why the tea party convention was filled with partisan speakers that are to the far right but they claim to be nonpartisan and i noticed it also in the Q&A session. I dont like politicans that personally attacks a president either republican or democrat. If you all dont know this story has made it over seas! Can somebody explain… maybe there is an answer to my concerns