Follow The Tea Party Money

The point is that we lose leverage if we cannot present a united front. But a false and fraudulent front is worse than no front.

The voters are the united front. These buttheads do not listen to Jenny Beth Martin any more than they listen to you or me. Eric Cantor hears us now.

Evidently you and I have a difference of opinion respecting how the party system in America works.

I believe a political party is a coalition designed to obtain and exercise power. The nature of the American constitutional system virtually dictates that power be obtained and exercised through two a party system. Any deviation from this fundamental principle of American politics leaves those who deviate impotent. That was the underlying assumption of the reply to which I referred you in the other thread.

Some time ago I wrote a reply explaining my understanding of why the American political system is a two-party system and only functions as a two-party system. There is no realistic exercise of political power outside the two-party system.

Here is that reply:

Governing is about exercising power. Political parties are about appropriating that power to one's own purpose. The founding fathers created a government containing many checks and balances in an effort to frustrate human tendency to consolidate power in one tyrant or, on the other hand, to concede power to the mob. Political parties in America are designed to overcome the checks and balances put by the framers into the Constitution.

The peculiar architecture of the American federal system with its bicameral legislatures, tripartite "coequal" branches of government, staggered elections for various branches, Constitutional limitations of government power especially freedom of the press and speech, are designed to make government impotent in the absence of a general consensus. The purpose of political parties is to provide that consensus for its constituents' point of view, to provide a consensus about how power should be wielded across the various competing entities of government.

The peculiar architecture of the American federal political winner take all system with its checks and balances means that it functions properly as a two-party system. Any successful attempt to form a third political party invariably condemns the political party from which it shoots off and to which it is most closely ideologically aligned to oblivion. Since it is human nature to entertain incessant arguments over the proper application of political power, political parties in America have developed a survival mechanism, they co-opt the principle grievances of the splinter group and make the dissidents' platform their own. This has been the history of political parties in America since the beginning. When a new ideology becomes popular, one party or the other seeks to absorb it.

If the party misjudges the public mood and embraces a splinter ideology in an effort to co-opt when that ideology is too radical to be palatable to the general public, the party loses the next election because it moves out of the mainstream. If the party misjudges the other way and declines to co-opt a movement which happens to be of sufficient strength, the party loses the next election because it has fractured its base. If a party attempts to absorb views of the other party, or approaching that of the other party, it risks losing the next election by alienating its own base. If it fails to absorb views approaching the ideology of the other party, it risks losing the next election by isolating itself to its own base.

Political parties are eternally faced with the same dilemma: should the party dilute its core message to attract less ideologically motivated voters or should it confine itself to a pure message and energize its core constituents? In attempting to solve these tensions, political parties are like amoebas or yeasts, everlastingly dividing or growing.

A civics lesson well done. Do you believe Jenny Beth Martin wields any power in DC? I believe she does not.

Any form of tea party organization or leader is a notice to the presstitutes that a new target has been set up, and the range is clear. Open fire. The tea party is an idea shared by many. Social media is the organization.

Your civics lesson seems to indicate that only a 2 party system works. Where does JBM and the tea party express fit in? Or other tea party organizations?

That ideological movement which assumes the name "TEA PARTY" or various acronyms or combinations of the name is a coalition intending to dominate the Republican Party and force it to accept tea party ideology as its own. Interestingly, the ideology is the Republican ideology of old revived and reinvigorated for the modern era, employing as you point out the technology, more or less effectively, of social media.

The Republican establishment profits from the existing system and the media are ideologically opposed to the old Republican ideology so, yes, the establishment will combine with the media in an attempt to discredit the tea party and its ideology.

If The Tea Party is ultimately successful and takes over the Republican Party it is only a question of time until it becomes the establishment and it must fend off or co-op the next new ideology. That is normal and it is the way our system has worked since the framers first started decrying political parties.

What is not normal and what is not legitimate is for leaders of the upstart ideology to sell out before they acquire political power while they hold themselves out to their constituents as offering the vehicle to acquire political power through influencing the Republican establishment. That is fraud. It is fraud to collect money under false pretenses.

It's also illegitimate to claim credit for an election victory such as David Brat's when they contributed nothing. By nothing I mean no money whatsoever, no endorsement, not even a word of encouragement.

Listening to the news reports today, the major media trumpet the victory as a victory of The Tea Party when at most it was a victory for tea party ideology, thankfully uncontaminated by hucksters who have apparently infiltrated the movement. Most people who hear those news reports are not political junkies like we are and will assume that the tea party movement is not dead but alive and vigorous. Part of that is to the good but we ought not to deceive ourselves as to what happened here.

It will be difficult enough to wrest power from the likes of Boehner and McConnell without crippling the effort by tainting it with opportunists.

Tea Party groups that offered Dave Brat zero support sure are thrilled he defeated Eric Cantor

I agree with that!