Posted on 10/24/2014 2:09:05 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
As the story goes, in 2010 there was a dramatic political course correction. The electorate that just two years earlier had overwhelmingly voted for hope and change, sweeping Democrats into office, up and down the ballot, across the country, had buyers' remorse.
America changed its mind after 2008 and broke hard for the tea party, building a wave that would devastate Democrats. At least that's the conventional lazy narrative about the 2010 midterm elections.
That narrative draws a picture of a tea party wave that swept Republicans to victory on the back of a set of conservative policies in reaction to President Barack Obama and Democrats.
As often is the case with Washington, reality and spin aren't necessarily on the same page. Reality is actually a little different; well no, it's actually really, really different than the tea party wave narrative would have you believe.
And as we are a few weeks out from the 2014 midterm elections where many believe Democrats are poised once again to be battered into oblivion by another tea party wave, it's important to dissect what happened in 2010 and why there is a possibility that this time might be a little different from what conventional wisdom is trying to tell you.
The 2010 tea party wave is a lie. In truth, if you look at the enormous drops in voter participation from 2008 or 2012 in comparison with 2010, instead of referring to it as the "2010 Tea Party wave election" a more accurate description might be "the 2010 Democratic ebb election."
Ebb is a particularly fitting depiction because much of the 2010 election dynamic that helped Republicans then, and which the GOP is banking on for this November as well....
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Maybe its a case of Democrats suffering from temporary sanity once in a while.
Good time for this article - just in time for (what I hope will be) the 2014 ebb.
What the author doesn’t consider is a subsidence in Democrat voter turnout - especially minorities who quickly became complacent thinking that obama now elected - everything was in the bag...
Then we did most certainly have a surge of Conservative voters lead by hugely visible Tea Party activities - who turned out to vote in November 2010 and elected 63 mostly Conservative Members to the House of Representatives — taking the House from the Democrats - and thank God they did.
One could not have lived through 2009 and 2010 and failed to have noticed the dozens and dozens of large Tea Party rallies in cities all over American beginning on April 15th.. This wave of demonstrations and protest culminated with a Tea Party Caravan and ending with the one million people March on D.C. 9/12/09 ... Freerepublic.com held its annual meeting there and many of use were there marveling at the turnout.
The Tea Party efforts continued - more organized throughout 2010 ... In October 2010 Glenn Beck held a huge rally in D.C. where many tens of thousands of Conservatives showed up ... Some say it was another million person turnout....
Then the electorate voted in November and the rest is history - real history -— not the fantasy version in the article.
Why the Tea Party and other Conservatives did not continue this method of rallying Americans though the 2012 Elections - I will never - ever understand... Because if the Tea Party had pushed big demonstrations instead of sitting back and acting like conventional political groups - obama would have been defeated... But the Tea Party stopped what worked to my amazement.
The author of this article is a propagandist... nothing less.
Glenn Beck had a mass rally in DC, but what people forget is that the Tea Party Patriots had ALREADY scheduled a big DC rally for 2 weeks before, Beck's rally killed the Tea Party rally, which had hundreds of cancellations when they found out about the Beck rally. Intentional or not, he helped take the wind out of the Te Party sails.
By mid 2012, so many of the Tea Party groups were defunct that I was told by leaders on national lists that I had that in Boise, for example, they had gone from 100 to 15; in Dayton, one chapter barely had enough to meet; and a list in IL had virtually no one still heading the groups that were there 2 years earlier.
In Dayton in 2010 we had 8000 (conservative estimate) at our first rally, but by 2013 no one could even organize a gathering half that size.
My sense is that so many of these people thought that by electing conservatives in 2010 they had done their job, and that congress would take care of it. Many gave up in frustration. More important, the Tea Party had trouble keeping the disaffected Dems and Libertarians because the mainstream supporters were also interested in the moral issues. While in theory the organizations were focused on economic issues, the rank and file were traditional social conservatives and they tended to dominate the groups.
I too was a Tea Party protester and attendee. However, after a year or so, I was probably one of first of the early wave to give up on the meetings, as it was clear it wasn’t working strongly or quickly enough. Our government has been lying to the American people on a scale not seen since the Nazis gripped Germany.
Amazing the darkness that has fallen on America in the last 6 years, I would never have dreamed it possible. After all, we Americans were different - we defeated the Soviet Union and won the Cold War. We fought communism in the Korean Conflict and Viet Nam. Now we are falling in the deadly grasp of Socialism with both eyes open?
Americans still had Harry Reid and the RINO hoard cramming things like allowing openly gays in the military, and Obama’s forced tax increases without protest from the RINOs. Idiot turncoats like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, the RINO sister-Senators from Maine, Scott Brown’s ugly liberal values, superRINO John Boehner and crew keep getting elected to the House of Representatives - all mis-represent conservative values to their own benefit.
Secession, or a return to Federalism - States Rights through 10th Amendment nullification is the only answer, as our voting system has been hijacked by illiterate low information voters who adore Obama and want free money that the Democrats offer. Democrats have succeeded in destroying America through attacking our morality and Christian values. The Black Caucus is made up of Communist Party members. They have a lock on single issue voters, welfare queens and single parent women, who can’t afford the children they bore. Senior citizens who feel threatened with lies about republicans taking their social security checks. The Fed printing money that will eventually lead to a crash and destroy our savings and America’s free market system.
Since the early days of the Tea Party, Ted Cruz has been a ray of light in the cesspool that is Congress. He was demonized for the government shutdown, which was protested by Republicans and Democrat alike. Democrats use lies and distortions - a tongue given them by Satan to push the final conflict.
While I still turn out to vote and talk politics with those who will listen, my philosophy is to hunkered down and try to prep from my children’t future and survival when the day finally comes that Americans look back amongst all the destruction and chaos that awaits, and wonder what happened...
Just because Belcher is belching, doesn’t mean that his prediction will happen.
GAVE UP! ... when the huge Tea Party rallies were primarily responsible for garnering the attention of the conservative electorate and was primarily responsible for taking the House away from the Democrats by motivating the BASE thereby putting a great hindrance to obama ever since... Just think how badly it would have been it that large conservative surge had not taken place...
Anyone who says or thinks that the Tea Party movement did not provide the major impetus for the election of 63 members to the U.S. House of Representatives is simply in denial of recent history... Dems and their minority underlings failure to come out in the numbers of 2008 was not even remotely the full story.
What made me upset with the Tea Party was that they STOPPED doing what worked - for what? That is why I got discouraged with them ... they became part of the standard political machine - doing things the way everyone else did and it DID NOT WORK in 2012.
Does anyone remember that the Tea Party so scared the Democrats that they went into full throttle for the entire year of 2011 - up until the elections of 2012 Demonizing the Tea Party ... the Leftist used every opportunity to turn the Tea Party into 3 headed racist monsters. The leftist media - which is most all of the news media went full bored to lampoon the Tea Party as knuckle dragging Neaderthals with no concern for the poor, or minorities ... They made the word Tea Party into Tea Baggers, etc. You folks remember all that don’t you? Do you think that the monumental effort to permanently stain the Tea Party was done because the Dems lost in 2010 due to a Democrat ebb? Maybe you should believe that Tea Party was seen as a force greater than the GOP because of populism when the RNC cannot even spell the word. And that the Leftist vowed to totally shut down any chance that the potential of the Tea Party could become greater... Some folks better take a closer look at recent history. The Tea Party became an absolute threat to Leftism - Socialism and had to be destroyed and it mostly has been ... even the GOP / RNC hates the Tea Party - because they fear being replaced.
No, they used to only warm up the fraud machine every 4 years, now it is 24/7.
Glenn Beck is a truly odd dude: says some good things, followed by really strange things and then hides when real opposition is needed.
Sarah Palin is a nice enough lady with a really grating voice that says some really insightful things mixed with some really weird things/surrounded by an occasionally weird family.
Michele Bachmann burned bright for a while and then faded when the Left started pulling their usual shenanigans.
Rush Limbaugh is a occasionally perceptive guy who is more an entertainer than any kind of leader. He more or less proved that for our generation when he bailed on Vietnam.
It goes on and on. It seems hard to believe, but out of a country with 330 million mostly legal residents, we can't find even one genuine leader who can summarize what's going wrong with this country and its culture and its security and still withstand the firestorm of opposition the Left can pull together.
But, since I did these, spoke to the groups, attended the conventions, knew the local leaders and you apparently didn't, you obviously know better.
Just one more obituary of the tea party. Could it be that rallies don’t accomplish goals? Also the tea party never caught on to the liberal version of a rally, call the press, show up for coverage, and go home. The tea party brought front and center the failure Obamacare is and raised awareness to the over taxation of anyone left working. This article is a rally cry to lazy democrat voters. Telling them if they don’t vote their freebees are at risk. The coordinated liberal/democrat message is conservatives stay home they are all the same and liberals get off your a** we need you to continue stealing tax dollars from conservatives.
The Tea Party like any other organization made up of humans, needs leaders, a directional focus, and an operational core to sustain and direct. Instead we have multiple Tea Party organizations, no focus of effort, no singularity of purpose.
Unfocused organizations without leaders fall apart and disappear.
What have you organized or participated in? I’m giving you on the ground reports. You don’t like the report so you dismiss it.
I haven’t started my own Tea Party branch yet - but I have participated in several large rallies in Washington DC. Good bunch of people. Just no leadership to speak of. Initially pretty massive, later less so.
Things seemed to become less ordinary people and mostly “characters” and vendors with Tea Party stickers, flags, pins.
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