Tea Parties: Joke of the Week, or Pathetic Excuse for Party Management?
17 April 2009In the days of Karl Rove, when the Bush adminstration was earning its now-undeniable title as the Worst President in History, it made sense to do all kinds of goofy things that would harm the domestic and global economy, as long as it gained approval from the base. “Serve the base,” seemed to be Karl’s motto. Unfortunately for Karl, a rather untravelled Texan who arrived with Gov. George at the White House fully un-encumbered with a deep historical knowledge of his own party’s problems, it turns out that the base was made of people who had nothing in common with each other. Thanks to Reagan’s campaign decision to embrace the Christian Coalition’s direct mail money generation machine, Karl’s base was made half of religious zealots, and half of Eisenhower returned GIs. These people had Nothing, and I mean, Nothing, in common.
This week’s exercise in Party Management (what can we give these disparate folks to do, so they will feel important?), no doubt cooked up by some PR firm on K Street in DC, was to have mini tea bag parties around the country. The real picture, if you ignored Fox TV : groups of 10-100 people, average age 67 (Fox, this is your demographic), whining in the rain about taxes.
IF someone had been at each event, asking: “Do you make less than a quarter of a million dollars in income per year?”, I can guarantee you that almost all of them would have said, Yes.
And then, with their No New Taxes signs on their shoulders, the interviewer could have asked the final question: do you realize that, under Obama’s budget, you will have a tax reduction? Boy, that would have spoiled their party.
Is this current crisis an IQ test? Of course it is: life is an IQ test. Is it Darwinian? You bet: life is Darwinian (unless you live in Louisiana, which just voted to put Creationism on school curricula). Will some lose, and some win? Absolutely.
The days of Karl, and his antics, are really over. In fact, the Pentagon’s propaganda office was taken apart by the Obama people this week. Now, the message of the nation will again come from the White House, and the State Department, and not from the Pentagon.
Staging goofy tea bag parties against tax increases that the people in the crowds would not be paying? Was it the ghost of Karl?
Had to be.
It certainly was not for the benefit of: the town, the county, the state, the country, the world. Did it benefit the party? On the face, the answer would be Yes. But, a day later, when they all realize that they actually were not paying higher taxes? Will they have that moment? Are they smart enough?
That’s the next test. Who will they be more angry with, since anger is the currency of the current party hacks? With the party hacks? Or with Obama, who didn’t raise their taxes after all?
I’m afraid the answer, again, will be (b).
8 Responses to “Tea Parties: Joke of the Week, or Pathetic Excuse for Party Management?”
April 18th, 2009 at 3:43 am
Meanwhile in cold place to the north spoilsport Sarah P is busy with vital moral matters: BreakingNewsAP: Alaska state House has unanimously approved a bill that outlaws sex with an animal. The offense is now a Class A misdemeanor.
April 20th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Wow Mark, I am very surprised that you so completely missed the boat on this one. I’m guessing, from your post, that you are basing your opinion on what the MSM is saying about the tea parties rather than what is actually going on. These protests are much more about a preference for smaller government than whining about the current tax rate.
This quote from Steve Chapman sums up the tax rate aspect fairly well: “The scale of the federal response to the crises has come as a frightening surprise to many Americans, who suspect the cure will be worse, and less transitory, than the disease. . . . So why did people rally across the country when they should have been planning how to spend their tax refunds? Because their true dismay is about the mushrooming of federal outlays, which the demonstrators regard as a future tax increase in the making. Which, of course, it is.”
As for me, I went to a tea party demonstration to voice my support for using the constitution’s enumerated powers as a path to “right-size” government: “10th Amendment to the rescue.”
April 28th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Mark, dataGuy is right. You rarely swing and miss, but this issue was a “K” for you. The point behind the tea parties had little to do with the tax policies of the next four years. Instead they were about the long term damage of the spending policies of the next four years, which have frightening potential consequences for our children and grandchildren, not to mention those of us who think retirement one day will be a good thing.
I know you love our new President and his progressive politics, but even you have to admit that driving the national debt to nearly $20T is absurd and highly risky for our country’s economic future. It figures to leave us in deep debt to potentially less-friendly nations who will be in a position to tell us how to run our affairs. If we fail to heed their instruction then they can call our loans in and we’re screwed.
You need to put some additional focus on the rising national debt and associated risks 10, 20 and more years down the road.
April 29th, 2009 at 11:05 am
As far as I am concerned I feel lied to and if I had been able I would have attended a tea party.
I made substantially less than 250k last year but am not scheduled for the rebate that was supposedly going to the 95 % of us who make under 250k
May 4th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Mark,
I’m with you! My eye doctor was trying to hand me tea bags and when I explained that I was happy to pay taxes for the right things, you might have thought I’d grown two heads. What do I have to complain about? I have a good income, a nice house, and everyone in my family is fed and happy. If I have to pay more taxes, I can handle that. Not infinitley, but some. But yet I’m actually going to pay fewer taxes overall even though I’m above the rebate level.
I guess that makes me truly middle class.
Yes, I’m slightly nervous of the size of the spending plan, but it seems in keeping with the size of the major problems that went unsolved for the last few decades even though we knew better, like dependence on foriegn oil, climate change, health care, education, infratsructure, etc.
It’s time we stopped being adolescents and decided to be adults instead, and pay for what we need.
May 4th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
I should apologize to our group for allowing posts without names; it runs counter to our policies. I have left those of TechEd and DataGuy (who knows, they may be identical) up because I thought their ideas were worth sharing, but I’ll probably pull them down soon, hoping that the same two posters will come back and post the same ideas under their real names. This would be much appreciated.
As for the ideas involved:
I would like to have heard more from Richard: what did you make, why didn’t you get a rebate? Without more data, one can’t decide what is out of whack: bad promises, or needing a new accountant.
As for the tea bag thing:
1. Everyone is against taxes, even Brenda, if they are ill spent.
2. This is a non-issue. Rather, it is a propagandist’s way of getting lots of people together angry out in the rain in the name of your party when you have nothing, absolutely nothing, to sell them.
3. The fact that the GOP caused all of the damage leading us to spend so much fixing the damage seems an idea beyond their ken. You broke it, now the Dems get to pay for it. This is so transparent a ploy that it is not worth more detail.
4. I have grown suspicious that there is a deeper story to the tea bag brouhaha. Most people already perceive it in the way I wrote about it: ill-conceived, not based in any reality other than raw emotion, the product of a party currently without ideas. But there may be another aspect to this:
Readers will recall the years-long strategy at GOP meetings, regarding the government, called “starve the beast.” At the end of the Bush administration, it seemed fairly likely that he was spending trillions, in some glee, knowing it would hobble the following administration in its ability to enable any of its major campaign promises re: healthcare, energy, etc. This was mirrored at the time in the media.
The strategy basically assumes that if you spend all the money and keep a lid on taxes (or reduce them), the government will have to contract.
What the GOP did not count on was the complete disaster their own administration brought down on all heads, with the resulting de facto permission to spend, war-like, on fixes until the country, and the world, was out of danger. Starve the beast is not only inoperable as a strategy, but worse: it completely backfired. I happen to think that more than a few top Republicans thought they had this all sewn up.
This may explain their fury (although, it has to be said, their party must now be re-named Angry Old Men, since anger seems to be their only contribution to discourse and problem-solving). At least some of the strategists in the party are probably furious that their carefully laid self-destruction movements actually opened the door to Obama’s spending.
As for how much is being spent on this emergency, GOP behavior reminds me of an arsonist who has lit my house on fire, and then drops by to complain at the cost of all the firemen trying to save it. And this is the crux of the tea bag parties. Don’t bother.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I’m sorry but I had not taken the time to read the FAQ to see the site’s policy on using “Real Names”. Frankly with billions of people in the world, I feel my nick name is a more unique identifier that my given name. However, I will respect your guideline.
My name is Guy Davis; I posted the comment as dataGuy. For the record, I don’t know Tech Ed and did not post his comment. I’m pleasantly surprised that this comment thread is still active.
Much of what Mark posts on this site I am in general agreement with. My main disagreement with this particular post, and his comment response, is the assertion that the GOP is the driving force behind the protests.
I’m sure many of the protesters consider themselves Republicans. It seems obvious that the GOP would view these protests as anti-Obama and thus good for their cause. What has surprised me in the reactions to the protests is how many people can not fathom a political interest that is outside the two main parties. I would have been just as happy to support this movement if it had happened during Bush’s administration (maybe even more so). If you ignore their rhetoric, the actions of these two parties are so similar as to not offer us much choice come election time.
You are correct in saying that the driving interests of the tea-party movement are very unfocused. I think this is why the anti-tax theme tends to stand out. The desire to return to the original intent of the Constitution, to have a federated government, is what I personally find most appealing. I intend to do what I can stress that aspect of the protests as much as possible.
We have had to endure many terrible executive administrations in a row. If it wasn’t for the glimmer of hope, that people are finally upset enough to demand a return to our founding father’s vision, I think that I would become despondent about our future.
May 6th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Mark – do you believe in neverending stock growth? it is just not realistic. contractions are normal and should happen.
what about govt growth? the same goes for that too. it’s about time it contracts, spends less, trims pork, and have some semblance of financial responsibility. maybe a balanced budget amendment is what we need.
this is what tea parties are about. they’re not party sponsored. the common denominator is $$$$ and we’re spending way too much.