Tea Party gimmick gets exposed: Why it was always a tool of the Republicans

Salon ^ | May 22, 2014 | Heather Digby Parton

[2ndDivisionVet]

The myth that the movement was all about economic issues -- not social ones -- is finally laid bare. Here's how.

Jim Newell hit the nail on the head about the alleged “revenge of the GOP establishment” in this week’s primary elections. Yes, they are all Tea Partyers now. Who needs the label when they are getting everything they want from the establishment?

In fact, the Tea Party has always been populated by the rank and file far right of the party. Yes, they expressed hostility to their elected officials in Washington. They were angry that the Democrats won a majority and they blamed their leadership for letting that happen. But as John Boehner explained just yesterday:

"You get in these primary elections – they are hard-fought battles and sometimes – listen, there is not that much, not that big a difference between what you call the tea party and your average conservative Republican."

Indeed. Nonetheless, it is interesting that so far in these primaries the major victory claimed by the Tea Partyers doesn’t feature a standard libertarian-ish right-wing Republican railing against Big Government and babbling about Benghazi!™. It features a hardcore member of the Christian right, which is hardly the image of the Tea Party in the political press. That would be Ben Sasse of Nebraska, the Yale-educated history professor who had the backing of Tea Party groups like Freedomworks, the Senate Conservatives Fund and Club for Growth, and Tea Party icons Sarah Palin and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. He won the primary against establishment-backed State Treasurer Scott Osborne. Yes, he hates Big Government as much as any right-wing Republican, that goes without saying. But Sasse is motivated by his belief that the U.S. is a Christian nation under siege from that Big Government, not by his belief in free markets and low taxes.

Sarah Posner at Religion Dispatches unearthed his doctoral thesis from 2004 and it’s a fascinating treatise on the origins of the modern religious right in America. Unlike most historians, he believes that the conservative movement grew up in the 1960s not out of rebellion against the civil rights stances of the Democratic Party but rather the “secularization” of the culture in the wake of the Supreme Court rulings banning school prayer and Bible reading. He even goes so far as to claim that rather than a cynical decision to stoke the flames of Southern racism with the Southern strategy, it was Richard Nixon’s deep understanding of the Christian culture that led him to persuade evangelicals and conservative Catholics to join the GOP and usher in the era of conservatism in the last decades of the 20th century. It’s a novel understanding of that history, to say the least. Most historians cite Nixon’s pursuit of blue-collar Catholics as part of the strategy to peel off working-class votes with racial resentment. But Sasse’s dissertation is evidently persuasive in at least some respects.

But regardless of his level of accomplishment as a scholar, Ben Sasse clearly sees the world through the lens of a conservative Christian crusader. According to his website, he is a proponent of the most radical interpretation of religious freedom that’s in circulation today on the far right:

Ben Sasse believes that our right to the free exercise of religion is co-equal to our right to life. This is not a negotiable issue. Government cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances. He will fight for the right of all Americans to act in accordance with their conscience.

One wonders if he believes the child molestation at Warren Jeffs’ polygamous compound or Shariah Law honor killings are also non-negotiable religious beliefs that the government cannot force those people to violate under any circumstances. In any case, he is certainly a proponent of the Christian right manifesto, the Manhattan Declaration, which aims to change the strategy of the religious right from a purely moral argument to a legal doctrine that exempts religious adherents from following the law of the land.

One might wonder why the so-called libertarian Tea Partyers would back such a fellow even if he were right on all their economic issues. But one of the major misapprehensions about the Tea Party has always been the idea that it was not socially conservative, as if all those tricorner hat-wearing patriots were solely concerned with tax rates and regulations. The Pew Poll showed otherwise years ago:

Tea Party supporters tend to have conservative opinions not just about economic matters, but also about social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In addition, they are much more likely than registered voters as a whole to say that their religion is the most important factor in determining their opinions on these social issues. And they draw disproportionate support from the ranks of white evangelical Protestants.

A Tea Party by any other name would smell as socially conservative. Just ask Ted Cruz, another Ivy League Tea Partyer who recently made a pilgrimage to Liberty University and declared, “These are troubled times, and religious liberty, the very first liberty in the Bill of Rights, the very first protection we have, has never been more in peril than it is right now.” Or Sarah Palin, another Tea Party favorite who wears her social conservatism on her sleeve.

The point is that whether it’s the establishment winning as they ostensibly did in this week’s primaries or the Tea Party upsetting the conventional wisdom as they did last week in nominating Ben Sasse, it makes no difference. The three-legged stool of the GOP — family values, small government and national security — is as solid as it’s ever been, whatever they choose to call themselves. Sure, they may have a few Rand Paul fans ineffectually batting at one of those legs, but the Tea Party is right there with the establishment holding it steady.

*******

Digby is the pseudonym of liberal political blogger Heather Parton from Santa Monica, California who founded the blog Hullabaloo. She has been called one of the "leading and most admired commentators" of the progressive blogosphere.[1]

Digby began as a commenter on the blogs of Bartcop and Atrios and launched her own blog on January 1, 2003,[2] calling it Hullabaloo "because one function of blogs is to cause a ruckus"[3] and decorating it with a picture of a screaming Howard Beale from the film Network. She has been joined by other bloggers on Hullabaloo, including composer Richard Einhorn, who blogs under the name "Tristero".

Digby was a Navy brat who graduated from Lathrop High School in Fairbanks, Alaska. She studied theater at San Jose State University (then known as San Jose State College) and worked on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System and for a number of film companies, including Island Pictures, Polygram, and Artisan Entertainment.[2]

She won the 2005 Koufax award for blog writing and accepted the Paul Wellstone Award on behalf of the progressive blogosphere from the Campaign for America's Future at their "Take Back America" conference.[4] Digby had initially kept her identity secret and it was widely assumed that Digby was male until she made an appearance at the 2007 CAF conference to accept the award.[4] Digby has since started writing regularly at Salon.[5] She also won the 2014 Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism.

[Star Traveler]

Let me say it another way ... the Tea Party does not fit me and my issues as a conservative, so I don’t want to be considered as part and parcel of their agenda and politics.

[ansel12]

They sure represent my issues, just not all of them, or all at once, and they don’t oppose any of mine.

[oldbrowser]

he believes that the conservative movement grew up in the 1960s not out of rebellion against the civil rights stances of the Democratic Party

His history is wrong. His analysis is wrong. His only purpose is to create confusion and misunderstanding. He is a scrubber for the marxists.

[Sivad]

The big thrust of big welfare spending came in the ‘70s under
the younger Brown although some can be traced to the elder
Gov Brown in the 60s.

[ansel12]

No, my California history is fairly respectable.

I didn’t say anything about Texas being perfectly anything, I did correctly point out that it is famously right wing, which is accurate, you keep bringing up a Senator from the 1950s, and a 1 term democrat governor from the early 90s.

You sound young, or like you only started paying attention to such things not very many years ago.

Do you know why California was a magnet for the left during the 50s and 60s, and 70s, and Texas never has been?

Do you think homosexuals in Texas, and dopers, and pro-abortion people, did not dream of California liberalism since before you were born?

[ansel12]

Yet my first two shocking experiences with welfare in California were in the 1960s, they already had a national reputation that had people moving here for the welfare.

[ansel12]

I trace the atmosphere for the tea party to Palin. Choosing her exposed something that had always been hiding, just how much many of our leading columnists, and campaign professionals and GOP supporting organizations had hated and feared us, remember the Peggy Noonan type shockers, with some of them actually voting and endorsing Obama to stop whatever it was that Palin was unlocking and inspiring?

Palin exploded on us and created something new, and while most of us were discouraged and the party broken by the Obama takeover, Palin never wavered, she never even took a breath, she instantly went to campaigning for a Governor's race within weeks of that election, and then kept up the fight, until something came from her inspiration.

For many months she was taking all of the medias's hate, and doing it alone, and proving that it wasn't fatal, from her courage, we started seeing other's slowly emerge, and testing the waters, getting bolder, remember how Perry and DeMint, seemed to gain boldness from watching her, Palin was injecting a swagger and confidence into what had at first been a fairly timid and splintered conservative movement, Palin nationalized us, united us, gave us a symbol and a feeling of being a coherent national force. We should not overlook the fact that her being a sitting Governor, and the recent Vice Presidential candidate, gave us a lot of instant weight.

Palin wasn't the leader of the tea party, or the founder/creator, but we all sensed and knew, that she was our girl, our mascot, or unifying symbol, our publicist, I don't know the word, but she was a giant force related to the tea party, I just don't think it would have gone so well without a Sarah Palin proceeding it, and as a part of it. Palin was the crowd and media drawing phenomena, everywhere she went it was 10,000 people and overflow crowds.

Remember events like Searchlight, Nev. March 27, 2010 when about 20,000 showed up, Where CNN reported
"Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin there in Searchlight, Nev., was the backyard of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but today it's the backdrop of this Tea Party Express - making a stop here," Whitfield said. "Hundreds of people, at least dozens of people - we haven't gotten a count of how many people turned out there. We heard Sarah Palin talk about everything about the campaign, to unseat Sen. Reid to what she calls ObamaCare, on the heels of that health care vote and even talking about her definition of her love of America."

[Star Traveler]

I like Sarah Palin and support her in whatever she is doing ... but, at the same time, do you realize how many “Palin haters” there are on Free Republic?

I do, because I’ve had them come after me here on this forum ... :-) ...

[Sivad]

Here is something for you to massage and it has been my point from
the start. You can fool yourself into believing that California just
drew liberals back in the day and maybe Texas draws only stand-up
conservative types. The fact is that population growth brings
liberalism, period. Where are the most liberal parts of Texas,
California, or anywhere? The cities. Turn your towns into cities then
see what happens. I’m just trying to provide you with some reality.
If you choose to believe that your righteousness is going to
prevail against the votes of the masses of uninformed then good
luck. BTW I am in my 60s and I have a BA in history with a
Concentration in California history.

[ansel12]

I’m trying to tell why the two states are different, you are wrong to think it is just immigration, and/or demographics.

The nature and the generations old reputations of the two states are different, and rightfully so.

Texas and California took different paths long ago, in fact, they were always different in regards to being conservative and liberal.

Fifty and 60 years ago this state was often voting republican but was proud of it’s open and “enlightened” ways, well, here you are.

Neither one of us has ever seen a right wing, social conservative California, and neither one of us has ever seen a liberal, social liberal Texas.

How do you think Texas keeps moving right, yet has the second largest population in America?

The answer is that Texas and Texans are fundamentally different from California, and were, generations ago.

What do you remember the national reputation of the two states being in 1965 or 1970?

[Sivad]

You so miss the point. Is the US more or less conservative than it
used to be? Is Texas more or less conservative than it once was?
What causes more restrictions, more liberalism? One big cause is
population growth and if you think that many of those new people are
as politically astute as you and I then you are just plain nuts. Why do
conservatives move away from cities? How did cities come to be so
liberal?

Originally, I made a point that massive population growth will lead
to the liberalization of Texas. Your defensive response was to compare
the different type of peoples attracted to Tx and Ca will assure Tx
will maintain Tx conservative path . Guess what? Those who travel
the country for work are just not that different from each other. I
suggest that you keep an eye on your southern border and
another on your Universities.

[ansel12]

You clearly are not reading my posts, and if population and immigration were the problem, then Texas would have been long gone as well. You can’t keep clinging to Texas being second to California in population to explain generations of history.

I never said that the types of people moving to Texas now will maintain it’s conservatism, I said,
“”What killed California, aside form the immigration, was that California was never right wing, social conservative, like Texas is, and always was.
California always leaned rino/libertarian, so it didn’t have the underlying muscle to prevent being absorbed by the left.
Texas actively fights for it’s conservatism AND, it’s Christian conservatism.””

“” California has always been known as a liberal state, even when voting republican.
Texas has always been known as a conservative state, even when it voted democrat.””

“”Even in the time of Reagan, when I lived in both Texas and California, largely as a drifter and hitchhiker, California was know as the promise land for social liberals, while people were terrified to hitchhike through Texas because it was tough, and didn’t take guff from lefties.

Texas was thought of during the 60s and 70s just as it is thought of today, even harsher actually, with Austin being seen as an oasis in the middle of a bunch of right wingers, and Christians.
California has always been seen as the place to flee to if you were a liberal and especially a social liberal, to escape the right wingers and Christians, regardless of which right wing state you lived in, it was known as a rino/libertarian type state, regardless of who the governor was.
People largely came to California, because it was famously liberal, and never more than moderate.””

“”Yet my first two shocking experiences with welfare in California were in the 1960s, they already had a national reputation that had people moving here for the welfare.””

“”Do you know why California was a magnet for the left during the 50s and 60s, and 70s, and Texas never has been?
Do you think homosexuals in Texas, and dopers, and pro-abortion people, did not dream of California liberalism since before you were born?””

“”The nature and the generations old reputations of the two states are different, and rightfully so.

Texas and California took different paths long ago, in fact, they were always different in regards to being conservative and liberal.

Fifty and 60 years ago this state was often voting republican but was proud of it’s open and “enlightened” ways, well, here you are.

Neither one of us has ever seen a right wing, social conservative California, and neither one of us has ever seen a liberal, social liberal Texas.

How do you think Texas keeps moving right, yet has the second largest population in America?

The answer is that Texas and Texans are fundamentally different from California, and were, generations ago.

What do you remember the national reputation of the two states being in 1965 or 1970?””

[Sivad]

Thanks for the review but you just rehashed the same personal
fantasy as opposed to reality. In 1965 I remember California as
a place that had voted for Richard Nixon in 1960. Seems to me
voters in Texas both alive and dead had chosen JFK in 1960.
What the hell difference does it make? Where you go wrong is
that you think others are as stuck on politics as you. Most
people don’t care. For the vast majority changing opportunities
drives immigration habits. You obviously have not read my
posts either or maybe you would have answered my question
about whether or not the US is more or less conservative than
in the past.

[FreedomPoster]

“Hundreds of people, at least dozens of people”

The dominant media culture is built on lies that favor their political allies. This needs to be hammered home at every opportunity.

[trebb]

Kind of interesting and based on a faulty meme. I wonder if the author realizes the difference between “The government needs to be smaller and less intrusive” and “The government needs to control every aspect of your lives - even whether or not you should be allowed to live”.<p.Tea Party “extremists” don’t want to control anyone else’s life - Left wingers want absolute control.

[taildragger]

$100 bucks says she has never been to a meeting or met anyone who considers themselves a tea-partier....

[Engedi]

I bet she drives a Prius and has an Obama sticker on it...betchya

[Engedi]

I bet she drives a Prius and has an Obama sticker on it...betchya

[Aurorales]

FreeRepublic hails from California.

So do many conservative Americans and some great FReepers.

Watch who you are calling “clueless”.

[Aurorales]

FreeRepublic hails from California.

So do many conservative Americans and some great FReepers.

Watch who you are calling “clueless”.