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
It's the belief that government is the greediest, most corrupt and murderous force on Earth and must be held in check.
“The Tea Party is but one example of a common form of political insurgency—one that almost always loses in the long run”
California dreamin. :-)
What the liberals and GOPe never seemed to understand is that “Tea Party” was only an organization in their and some who tried to play Tea Party Leader minds.
It was a ground swell movement by fed up conservative minded citizens, who no more wanted someone with their own agenda to “claim” to be Tea Party leaders than we wanted nobama’s tyrannical liberal BS.
The real Tea Party movement has not gone away, it has grown where it counts.
What was the LSM calling the founding fathers around 1776? Were they pronouncing them dead, year after year?
Or was it more ‘first they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win’?
“Raymond A. Smith is senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute and adjunct assistant professor of political science at Columbia University and New York University.”
I think one approach might be a rebranding - from the “Tea Party” to the “T’d Off Party”.
This new party would clearly define itself around limited government, reduced spending, a balanced budget, drastically less government regulation, an end to almost all government surveillance of Americans and generally increased freedom. It would be blind to social issues, and welcome all who embrace the above platform.
There would be no problem with belonging to both, of course! However, I think a solid majority of Americans would get on board with the T’d Off Party platform.
The country has problems both with the economy and world involvement. A party has to deal with these problems. A party that is just anti-government has limited usefulness. Its future is to dissolve back into the GOP. Another one-act pony like the Prohibition Party.
TEA is merely the policy statement . . .
Bingo. To paraphrase "V is for Vendetta", "ideas are bulletproof".
And, who likes to be anti-establishment? Hmmm...
Our young people are listening, and learning, and know they're gonna be paying more and more for this establishment's doings.
Tic tic tic tic tic tic tic tic...
Yep. Truly grassroot, heart of America, reasoned, seasoned, serious to the bone, and diffuse yet common. Uniparty is fearful, and for good reason.
You cannot stifle Free thinking and Freedom.
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” - Ghandi
Cognitive dissonance. If running establishment RINOs is a solution, why did all those “safe candidates” lose (which cost us the Senate) ?
It is called disinformation. Disinformation is an act of desperation.
Debbi
Actually, we’re modeled after the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. When one place setting gets used up, you just move over one seat to a clean one.
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