Posted on 02/04/2014 7:10:01 AM PST by kristinn
Just how close is the Tea Party to its demise? Last week, Fox News didn’t even bother airing the group’s official response to Barack Obama’s speech, in which the president forcefully called for an end to tactics that prevent the government “from carrying out even the most basic functions of our democracy.” Even Speaker of the House John Boehner, who seemed so downtrodden last year, now has an extra spring in his step, and is daring to push for immigration reform over the vocal objections of the far right. All but the most extreme Republicans have abandoned their shutdown tactics, and though the GOP still vows to repeal Obama’s signature health law given the chance, the changing power dynamics on Capitol Hill are palpable.
Indeed, it’s been a rough few months for the Tea Party. Fewer Americans than at any time since 2010 now call themselves members or supporters of the group. The tactic of running far-right candidates in Republican primaries clearly cost the GOP control of the Senate in 2010 and again in 2012. Their intransigence also helped to prevent Mitt Romney from defeating the president they have so vilified. All this has sparked counter-mobilization by the GOP Old Guard too: Since last fall’s ill-conceived Tea Party-led gambit to shut down the government, defund the Affordable Care Act and potentially default on the national debt, establishment Republicans have boldly lashed out at conservative outside groups that once had them cowering in fear, while pouring millions of dollars into races across the country to bolster moderates against right-wing insurgents.
At the same time, some of the leading Tea Party figures on the national stage are now departing from elective office, including Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who won’t seek reelection this year, and Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who left the Senate last year to become president of the Heritage Foundation. Others have consolidated their positions as national laughingstocks—most notably former veep wannabe Sarah Palin, but also the filibustering, Dr. Seuss-reading Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) who seems to be following the same trajectory, only faster. Others have been busy distancing themselves from the Tea Party, such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) taking a more moderate stance on immigration and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) choosing to emphasize civil liberties over more radical tactics..
There may still be plot twists, turns and even reversals ahead for the Tea Party, but the main question now is not if the group is in decline but what its endgame will be. Tea Party proponents have been quick to claim a long and victorious lineage in U.S. history, ranging from their namesake tax revolt in Boston in 1773 to the 1978 anti-tax Proposition 13 rebellion in California. It’s no surprise that the Tea Party is eager to stress such antecedents, since both led to huge victories: the American Revolution and the rise of Reaganism. Both historic episodes also share a heroic story of grassroots anti-government struggle followed by a supposed triumph of liberty.
So how does the Tea Party’s story end? Consider a wider lens, one that includes comparable movements in other democracies. The Tea Party is but one example of a common form of political insurgency—one that almost always loses in the long run. This kind of counter-establishment movement is common enough that comparative politics has a term for it: the “anti-system party”—a group that seeks to obstruct and delegitimize the entire political system in which the government functions. As explained by Giovanni Sartori, the Italian political scientist who coined the term in 1976, an anti-system is driven not by “an opposition on issues” but “an opposition of principle.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/tea-party-how-will-it-end-102984.html#ixzz2sMm1FoeM
Whistling past the graveyard.
The elections are right around the corner
The Tea Party is the new anti-establishment.
An establishment that is so thoroughly corrupt that it has abandoned the middle-class to cater to special interests. A government that has sold itself to the highest bidder. A government that has become so big, it is consuming everything in its path.
This is our “Chicago ‘68”
This Alinsky tactics at work
Fox News never airs the tea party response and in fact there were three other responses besides the GOP one. It doesn’t matter on bit. The tea party still is chugging along fine.
Fox News never airs the tea party response and in fact there were three other responses besides the GOP one. It doesn’t matter one bit. The tea party still is chugging along fine.
And Rush Limbaugh’s going off the air and Fox News had no viewers until a liberal Democrat (”almost as liberal as Nixon!”) was elected president....
What fools these liberals be.
You can write an article and declare a movement dead. Go ahead. Still you can’t force people to come out to vote or give up their money or time for a political party they don’t believe in. Not yet, anyway. Republicans won’t win elections by declaring the Tea Party dead.
Blah blah blah... blow it out your well worn politico arses. Ask schumer and reid if we are close to demise. WE ARE THE ONES YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT!
When politicians learn to uphold the Constitution!
What the pundits from both parties don’t realize is that the Tea Party is not like them. It is not a hierarchical organization, with a president, CEO, CIO, treasurer, etc.
At the same time, it *does* have an organization, but one that is alien to their way of thinking. Thus they cannot attack, subvert, corrupt, undermine, or betray it, as they could each others organizations.
A good analogy is that they continually fight a conventional war, but their enemy is unconventional. It is everywhere, and it is nowhere. And it is slowly, and methodically, defeating them.
It is not oriented to winning any great conventional battles just yet. Instead, it steadily erodes their strengths, making them weaker, and forcing them to commit increasing resources that accomplish less and less.
And when it finally fights in a conventional way, it will be at the Republican National Convention. It will take the convention, and then it will purge the RINO old guard from power. Many of them will hang on at first, but will lose their taste for battle when they find themselves relegated to the back bench, their opinions rejected, and then just ignored.
At some point, their big money supporters will panic, realizing that they, too, have their access to government money on the line. That when the RINOs are gone, the gravy train is over. And because the Tea Party will remember their perfidy, against not just the Tea Party, but against the nation, such fat cats will soon be fighting with the ally cats for garbage can scraps.
The establishment in both major parties are scared to death of the Tea Party. The Tea Party has the potential to unite people on issues where the democrat and republican parties exist to divide us. This keeps the people weak and the govt all powerful. It really, really scares them. Their world would come to an end if the Tea Party took over govt.
It’s way past time to remind the gutter scum in DC that they derive their power from the consent of the governed!
Today we seek to clarify the US Constitution and also face two institutional layers. I pray resolution comes without martyrdom.
What a surprise!!!
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