Republicans and the Tea Party of No

Monday 17 May 2010

by: Arun Gupta, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Republicans and the Tea Party of No
(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Christian Haugen, webtreats)

As much as they may grumble, there is a legitimate reason why the Republicans have been labeled the “Party of No.” For decades, the party’s kneejerk stance has been to oppose any legislation or policy involving social, economic or political progress.

You name it, the right has opposed it: civil rights, school desegregation, women’s rights, labor organizing, the minimum wage, social security, LGBT rights, welfare, immigrant rights, public education, reproductive rights, Medicare, Medicaid. And through the years the right invoked hysterical rhetoric in opposition, predicting that implementing any such policies would result in the end-of-family-free-enterprise-God-America on the one hand, and the imposition of atheism-socialism-Nazism on the other.

Republicans are obstructionist for one simple reason: it’s a winning strategy. Opposing progressive policies allows the right to actualize the ideals that both motivate and define their base. Rightist ideologies are not without sophistication, but right-wing politicians and media figures boil them down to a crude Manichean dualism to mobilize supporters based on group difference: good versus evil, us versus them. By demonizing and scapegoating politically marginal groups, the right is able to define “real Americans,” who are good, versus those defined as parasites, illegitimate and internal threats, who are evil.

There is a critical paradox at work. The Republicans have deftly turned being the “Party of No” into a positive stance: They signal to their base they are working to defeat an alien ideology while defending real Americans and traditional values and institutions.

Ideologues and opinion-makers spin any redistributive policy as a zero sum game; progressive policies give to undeserving groups by taking wealth from or denying rights to deserving Americans and institutions. Since Obama took office, the rise of the Tea Party has made the Republicans even more strident in their opposition. The GOP fights against every Democratic policy – including the stimulus bill, jobs programs, aid to local governments, court appointees, more labor rights, health care, financial regulation, net neutrality unemployment benefits, expanding access to food stamps and Head Start, action on global warming and immigrant rights – because it claims some sort of theft of money or rights is involved.

Sara Diamond neatly summarizes the politics behind the right’s obstructionism in her book, Roads To Dominion. She writes, “To be right-wing means to support the state in its capacity as enforcer of order and to oppose the state as distributor of wealth and power downward and more equitably in society.” (emphasis in original) These principles, in turn, flow from four interrelated political philosophies that animate the modern right: militarism, neoliberalism, traditionalism and white supremacism.

The heart of the right’s agenda is neoliberalism, which is the rule of the “free market” above all else. It demands that everything be a commodity, all actions be judged according to cost-benefit analysis, every realm be opened to capital’s predations, all human needs subjugated to those of finance. If neoliberalism is left unchecked, argues David Harvey in A Brief History of Neoliberalism, it would result in market anarchy and the dissolution of social solidarities. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously summed it up in her view, “There is no such thing as society but only individuals.”

Faced with market nihilism, “some degree of coercion appears necessary to restore order,” writes Harvey. Enter the neoconservatives, who play a crucial role resolving the contradictions between neoliberalism and traditionalism through militarism. Harvey explains that they “emphasize militarization as an antidote to the chaos of individual interests. For this reason, they are far more likely to highlight threats, real or imagined, both at home and abroad, to the integrity and stability of the nation.”

Militarism is just the means, however. To mobilize support for repressive methods the right stokes the passions and fears of its base by posing traditional values as under attack: the family, God, marriage, America, private property, law and order, and freedom itself. These values are often linked to neoliberalism and contrasted in opposition to “collectivism,” which is presented as a looming danger to both property and God. This also bridges the ideological gap between the religious right and the free-market right.

For example, the Christian Right is stridently anti-union. While the Bible can easily be read as a socialist document, the central role of money-driven ministries and televangelism has oriented Evangelicals toward free-market ideology that is expressed in its “prosperity theology” – “the belief that God rewards signs of faith with wealth, health and happiness.” As many Evangelicals are actual or would-be entrepreneurs, this doctrine is readily accepted. It’s a small step to convince them that unions promote secular collectivism that threatens private religious values, thus creating a theological rationale for neoliberal policies.

I use “the right” instead of “Republican” or even “conservative” to describe the movement and its ideas. Until recent years, there was a breed of socially liberal, fiscally conservative Republican that retained a foothold in the GOP. These Republicans provided critical support for civil rights and other progressive legislation. This segment, which tended to concentrate in the North, has largely shifted to the Democratic Party (with the result of pushing the Democrats further to the right). So while the right may now overlap significantly with the Republican Party, it wasn’t always so. More important, as shown by the Christian Right in years past and the Tea Party today, the right will try to purge those Republicans deemed not sufficiently orthodox, making the party more and more extreme.

The Tea Party is the latest chapter in the history of the Republicans as the “Party of No.” Its existence depends on continuous promotion from FOX News, organizing by Republican consultants, front groups such as Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works, and the GOP itself. Much of the Tea Party’s funding comes from right-wing foundations through the front groups, and its politics are anti-government, anti-labor, pro-corporate and often socially conservative, which is the same agenda the right has been pushing for more than 30 years.

The roots of right-wing obstruction are represented by three pivotal historical figures: William F. Buckley, Jr., Barry Goldwater and George Wallace. “The father of modern conservatism,” Buckley proclaimed his intention to stand “athwart history, yelling Stop!’” in founding National Review in 1955. He knit together traditionalism, free market ideology and anti-Communism, and his politics were a textbook case of opposing distribution of power and wealth and for imposing social order. In the 1950s, he dismissed civil rights legislation because Southern whites were “the advanced race.” This wasn’t a passing fancy; he defended this position as “absolutely correct” in 1989 on NPR. He inveighed against the 1965 Voting Rights Act as threatening “chaos” and “mobcratic rule.” While opposing basic freedoms for all people because it threatened the traditional order, he was for using force to impose gulag-like policies such as quarantining drug addicts, tattooing people with AIDS on their buttocks and suggested “relocating chronic welfare cases” to “rehabilitation centers.”

Buckley was not alone in believing progressive policies eroded traditional mores and institutions. Barry Goldwater, who was trounced as the Republican presidential nominee in 1964, voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, calling it “unconstitutional.” He fought school desegregation, and the desegregation of public accommodations, claiming it “tampers with the rights of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of property.” He railed against federal aid to schools, the minimum wage, Medicare and the entire welfare state because “socialism can be achieved through welfarism.” He opposed the progressive income tax because it artificially “enforce[ed] equality among unequal men.” One of Goldwater’s informal advisers in 1964 was economist Milton Friedman, who saw nothing wrong with racial discrimination in employment because it was a matter of “taste.” Many campaign volunteers came from the conspiratorial John Birch Society, which labeled integration a communist plot. Within Goldwater’s campaign one can see how various segments of the right united in opposing racial equality, but each for different reasons.

In contrast to Buckley, Goldwater was no religious traditionalist, but he did combine libertarianism and anti-Communism. He hewed to a secular traditionalism forged from patriotism, the Constitution and frontier mythology, and was far more open-minded on social issues. His wife Peggy helped found the Arizona chapter of Planned Parenthood, and he made clear his contempt for and opposition to the Christian Right when it began to take over the Republican Party in the 1980s.

A contemporary of Goldwater was the unapologetic racist, former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who swept the Deep South in the 1968 presidential election running on a segregationist platform. He represented yet another form of traditionalism, one that stoked fears that “blacks were moving beyond their safely encapsulated ghettos into ‘our’ streets, ‘our’ schools, ‘our’ neighborhoods,” according to Dan Carter, author of From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution.

Wallace pioneered the race-based appeals that still excite the populist right today. But he was also a deft cultural warrior who, writes Carter, “knew that a substantial percentage of the American electorate despised the civil rights agitators and antiwar demonstrators as symptoms of a fundamental decline in the traditional cultural compass of God, family, and country, a decline reflected in rising crime rates, the legalization of abortion, the rise in out-of-wedlock pregnancies, the increase in divorce rates, and the proliferation of ‘obscene’ literature and films.” Add gay marriage, Islamophobia and immigration, and you pretty much have the right’s culture war agenda of today.

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The right’s need for enemies is coded in its political DNA. Without enemies to defeat, vanquish and even destroy, the right would suffer an existential crisis. For Goldwater it was the Communist menace; for Wallace, integrationists and intellectuals; for Nixon, liberals, antiwar activists and black radicals; for Reagan, labor, welfare queens and the Evil Empire; for Gingrich and his cohorts it was gays, feminists, welfare mothers and the Democrats; during the Bush years, it was Islam, immigrants, gays and abortionists; For the Tea Party, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, it’s all of the above.

There is one final step in how the right mobilizes grassroots support behind an obstructionist agenda. Few people mull over philosophical concepts when making political decisions. That’s why mobilizing group resentment and solidarity simultaneously is so effective. It gives people a way to see both enemies and allies in their daily lives. In the case of immigrants, the narrative is about “illegals” stealing jobs and social services from taxpayers. In the case of the Obama administration, the story is that taxes are being stolen from hard-working Americans to support parasites ranging from welfare recipients to Wall Street bankers.

Chip Berlet, a scholar at Political Research Associates, describes this as “producerism.” He defines it as “a world view in which people in the middle class feel they are being squeezed from above by crippling taxes, government bureaucracies and financial elites while simultaneously being pushed around, robbed, and shoved aside by an underclass of ‘lazy, sinful, and subversive freeloaders.’ The idea is that unproductive parasites above and below are bleeding the productive middle class dry.”

Segments of the right use producerism differently, explains Berlet. “Economic libertarians blast the government for high taxes and too much regulation of business. Anti-immigrant xenophobes blast the government for letting ‘illegals’ steal their jobs and increase their taxes. Christian fundamentalists blast the government for allowing the lazy, sinful, and subversive elements to ruin society.” In recent history, Wallace and Nixon used producerist rhetoric to mobilize white working-class resentment against blacks.

Producerism is premised on other techniques. First, argues Berlet, a group of people are dehumanized so they are seen as objects and then they are demonized as evil. Next, the group is scapegoated irrationally for specific problems. Lou Dobbs mastered this process in defining undocumented immigrants as “illegal,” then spouting dubious claims about immigrants being responsible for crime waves and disease outbreaks, and finally blaming them for stealing jobs and social services. Another example is FOX News and its hit job on ACORN. The group was caricatured as so nefarious and omnipotent, a poll last year by Public Policy Polling found that 52 percent of Republicans believed ACORN had stolen the 2008 election for Obama.

The Tea Party movement – which the Republicans have helped create and exploit to oppose the entirety of the Obama administration – is the latest political variant of the right’s themes. Much of the right’s anger is directed at immigrants, African Americans and social welfare and equality in general. Among Tea Partiers, 73 percent think “Blacks would be as well off as whites if they just tried harder”; 73 percent believe “providing government benefits to poor people encourages them to remain poor”; 60 percent believe “We have gone too far in pushing equal rights in this country”; 56 percent think “Immigrants take jobs from Americans”; 92 percent want a smaller government with “fewer services”; 92 percent think Obama’s policies are moving the country toward socialism; only 7 percent approve of Obama’s performance as president; and a combined 5 percent identify themselves as black, Asian or of Hispanic origin.

One survey found that identifying as a conservative or a Tea Party supporter was an accurate predictor of racial resentment. Additionally, only one-third were opposed to the government tapping people’s telephones and racial or religious profiling, and barely half opposed indefinite detention without trial. This is a movement that thrives on opposing the distribution of power and wealth more equitably in society and for imposing a repressive social order.

With nearly 60 percent of Tea Partiers believing Obama is foreign born or saying they are not sure, it becomes clear why so many on the right have adopted violent and revolutionary rhetoric. The thinking is he’s a foreigner or a Muslim or stole the election, so he is alien and illegitimate. As such, it makes sense he is pushing an alien idea like socialism that may be part of some grand conspiracy like the New World Order, the North American Union, the Bilderberg Group or Satan. (In a poll last September of New Jersey residents, not known for being prone to right-wing radicalism, 29 percent of Republicans thought Obama was the Anti-Christ or were unsure.)

However irrational this position may be, the logical consequences are not: anything Obama and the Democrats do must be opposed because it is a life-and-death struggle. In opposing the health care plan, the right is not just trying to deny services to the undeserving, it is affirming and protecting free choice, family, the sanctity of life, the market, God, country, the Constitution – all arguments trotted out in the last year.

Like the Clinton years, no matter how much Obama tries to appease Republicans, he will remain under attack and be held responsible for bizarre crimes and conspiracies because the right has nothing to gain from compromise. In fact, Republican opposition has devolved from the philosophical to the tactical. The right-wing noise machine frames Obama and the Democrats as the source of all evil, making compromise virtually impossible. Republicans now assail Obama policies they used to champion from the market-friendly health care law and huge tax cuts in the stimulus bill to the bipartisan deficit commission and pay-as you-go budget rules.

At the same time, the Obama administration has stoked support for the Tea Party by providing aid and comfort to Wall Street rather than Main Street. The Republicans have exploited legitimate anxieties over high unemployment, a shrinking economy and onerous taxes by scapegoating the weak and marginal for policies that are structural and historical in nature.

The lesson for Obama and Democrats is not that they went too far to the “left,” it’s that they went too far to the right. Obama had the political capital and the leverage over the banking and auto industries to push for a “Green New Deal” that could have restructured the transportation and energy sectors and created millions of new jobs. Slashing the bloated military budget while fighting for some type of single-payer health care – instead of a plan that uses public money to subsidize the for-profit healthcare industry – budget deficits could have been constrained while reducing the financial burden of medical bills for most American households. Implementing such an agenda could have created a mass constituency that would fight for a progressive vision and against the right’s repressive politics.

The right has well-thought-out ideologies, a specific agenda, clearly defined enemies, and ruthlessly pursues power to achieve its goals. And it’s fighting a Democratic White House and Party that stand for nothing, which is why being the “Party of No” will continue to be a winning strategy for Republicans.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Thanks for all the responses.
First, let me tackle the one objection that seems to keep coming up, and which is a subject of furious debate on Digg: Civil Rights and Republicans. Many GOP partisans keep bringing up the role Republicans played nearly half a century ago in helping to pass Civil Rights legislation.

The article deals directly with this:
"Until recent years, there was a breed of socially liberal, fiscally conservative Republican that retained a foothold in the GOP. These Republicans provided critical support for civil rights and other progressive legislation. This segment, which tended to concentrate in the North, has largely shifted to the Democratic Party (with the result of pushing the Democrats further to the right)."

As this implies, support for or opposition to civil rights was more of a regional issue. And it's worth thinking in terms of right versus left than Democrat versus Republican on this issue, which is why I make a distinction between the right and the Republican Party. In the mid-20th Century there were Northern Republicans who believed conservatism meant extending individual rights to all Americans; these Republicans have essentially been excommunicated from the GOP.

One can also distinguish between Republicans and conservatives, who, to be consistent, should support abortion, birth control, civil rights, voting right, gay rights, women’s rights, etc., not because these are “special rights,” but for exactly the opposite reason. Historically, individual rights in the U.S. have been limited to special groups such as men, heterosexuals and whites. Therefore, extending the same basic rights to other groups is the essence of conservatism. But now this segment on the right is largely limited to libertarians with almost no high-profile representation in the Republican Party beyond Ron Paul.

As for civil rights legislation, everyone knows the vast majority of Southern Democrats opposed it, but which party welcomed them with open arms after Democratic Party leaders came down on the side of civil rights? The Republicans pursued the Southern Strategy early on, nominating as their 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater – who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and opposed the desegregation of schools and public facilities – precisely to appeal to segregationists.

There are literally hundreds of books covering the sordid history of the Republican Party regarding race over the last 50 years. The fact that in the last five years two different RNC chairs have felt it necessary to apologize for their party’s racial strategy, of “trying to benefit politically from racial polarization,” as Ken Mehlman put it, is evidence enough of how the GOP decided to build its power base on white supremacism. (Mehlman’s statement was endorsed by the Bush White House.)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-07-14-GOP-racial-politics_x.htm
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/republican-national-committee/michael-steele-acknowledges-gop-had-southern-strategy-for-decades/

As for the person claiming I’m calling all conservatives or Republicans racist. This is another straw man argument. Not all Republicans are racists, but if you’re a racist, you’re probably a Republican.

Which side – left or right – has prominent politicians and pundits calling for racial profiling and internment of Muslim and Arab Americans? Which side wants to racially profile anyone who looks like a Latino because they may be “illegal”? If you support SB 1070, then you support the criminalization of an entire group of people based on skin color. The canard about enforcing federal law is laughable and sounds convincing only to those who have not read the actual bill.

Here’s just one section of SB 1070 worth noting
http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf:
A. IN ADDITION TO ANY VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW, A PERSON IS GUILTY OF TRESPASSING IF THE PERSON IS BOTH:
1. PRESENT ON ANY PUBLIC OR PRIVATE LAND IN THIS STATE.
2. IN VIOLATION OF 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1304(e) OR 1306(a).

Point 2, U.S. Code Section 1304(e), refers to the legal requirement that all registered aliens have in their personal possession at all times their “alien registration or alien registration receipt card.” Therefore, by definition, an undocumented alien is in violation of this statute. And point 1 criminalizes the very presence of every undocumented alien in the state of Arizona.

The Act’s explicit intent is to “to make attrition through enforcement the public policy of all state and local government agencies in Arizona.”

Thus, SB 1070 defines every undocumented alien in Arizona as a criminal by their presence in the state, state policy is “attrition,” and every state agency and police officer is instructed to “make a reasonable attempt … when practicable, to determine the immigration status” of any person lawfully contacted.

What does this all mean? Any cop in Arizona can stop anyone appearing to be Latino on reasonable grounds that they are committing a criminal act because if they are undocumented they have been redefined as a criminal by merely being in the state. This circular logic makes racial profiling official policy, despite declamations otherwise. Even if the person is a U.S. citizen, one can always claim there was reasonable suspicion.

One need only examine the New York Police Department to see how racial profiling can become widespread policy. From 2004-2009, the NYPD recorded more than 2 million stops, more than 85 percent of whom were Black or Latino, wildly out of proportion to the population. In 2009, Blacks and Latinos were nine times more likely to be stopped than whites were, despite a lower chance of arrest rate than whites. And force was more likely to be used against Blacks and Latinos despite the fact whites were nearly 60 percent more likely to have a gun.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/nyregion/13frisk.html?pagewanted=all

Of course there are about 50,000 “illegal” Irish in the U.S. as well as more than 700,000 from Canada and Europe, so why not start asking everyone for papers? If you can’t prove it on the spot, you get locked up. If support SB 1070, you should support this.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8G6U2ko8
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/09/22/mccain_bemoans_fate_of_undocum.html

I doubt any of the alleged conservatives posting here or on Digg would support the same type of humiliating and terrifying police raids in their neighborhoods, workplaces and homes that Latinos are regularly subjected to in many parts of the U.S.

One final thought about the Republicans and race. One shouldn’t uncritically buy into the notion that all right-wing politics since Nixon can be boiled down to the Southern Strategy. It’s the question of should the right’s politics be conceptualized primarily as issues of race (white versus Black and/or Latino), place (political-geographical regions and concerns) or space (the suburbs, exburbs and endless sprawl). Matthew Lassiter takes up the space thesis in The Silent Majority. This book is worth reading for the nuances on the right’s history as it intersects with the construction of suburban spaces as government-subsidized social-political entities. Lassiter focused much of his work on the Sunbelt region which incubated a “color-blind” ideology, consumer rights and meritocratic individualism that helped justify suburban residential segregation and exclusion and reshaped national politics. I think he’s on to something, but it’s also shades of gray. So while the middle class may have rejected Wallace’s crude racial appeals, they still favor racial exclusions and a kinder, gentler white supremacism. Another book worth reading is Mike Davis’ City of Quartz because he examines how Southern California was constructed and marketed as a white utopia starting in the 19th century. Race is at best beneath the surface in U.S. politics, if not out in the open in ugly forms as it is now with the right and the Tea Party movement.

As for the other responses. Aren’t the Democrats the party of neoliberalism? Yes and no. Clinton fulfilled much of the neoliberal agenda – NAFTA, gutting welfare, deregulation of finance and telecommunications, paying down debt over funding social welfare, expanding the prison-industrial complex – and Obama has largely followed suit, particularly with the Wall Street bailout and the healthcare “reform” that transfers public money to the for-profit healthcare industry. The Democrats, however, have to at least pay lip service to how the New Gilded Age is grinding down much of their base: labor, women, Blacks and Latinos. The Democrats aren’t as aggressive as Republicans in privatization and deregulation, though they can often do more harm, e.g., it took Clinton to end welfare and if Social Security is gutted or a national V.A.T. is instituted it will be because of Obama. But the Democrats do enact mildly progressive economic policies through the federal bureaucracy, such as allowing unions a little bit more room and protection in organizing or expanding access to some social welfare such as food stamps or Medicaid.

In terms of single payer, Obama had a chance to push for single payer after his inauguration. Given the fact that the single payer bill, HR676, had nearly 100 co-sponsors in the House, the appeal of a slogan like “Medicare for All” and how easy it would have been to steamroll opposition in the House based on Obama’s political capital and the fact that Congress members all enjoy socialized medicine, the only real question would have been could the Obama White House pushed such a bill through the Senate. Maybe, maybe not, but we will never know. Nonetheless, there was an opportunity, and even if single payer couldn’t have been passed right away, the Democrats could have then forced through a robust single payer option as part of a reformed healthcare system as a compromise, rather than surrendering on every point of principle right away.

At the same time, however, Obama was not going to do this because he is in the neoliberal mold. His campaign was made possible by corporate donations and that’s who he pays fealty to. I would argue that his politics today would place him comfortably in the Republican Party during the Reagan era, which is would calling him a socialist is so absurd. Part of what I’m trying to examine in the article is the historical process that keeps pushing the center further right. What’s considered “common sense” today was considered sheer lunacy 50, 40, 30 years ago. (Much of this is grist for a future article: Why the Democrats don’t stand for anything or oppose anyone.)

As for sources, much of this material is from various books, which makes it more difficult to cite than URLs. I mention a number in the text, as well as political research associates, which has an invaluable scholarly site devoted to understanding the history, sociology, philosophy and psychologically of the right. Other books worth reading include Rick Perstein’s books on Goldwater and Nixon. Kim Fein’s Invisible Hands, Esther Kaplan’s With God on Their Side, Kevin Phillips books, such as the American Theocracy, Dynasty and The Emerging Republican Majority, and Dan Carter’s The Politics of Rage.

Finally, the sources for information about the Tea Party. Does anyone think there would be a Tea Party movement without the right-wing echo chamber lead by Fox? It couldn’t exist without vast amounts of prime-time cheerleading posing as news. In terms of the right-wing groups I mention, one can google up the connections between them and various Tea Party groups, and they are the source of the secondary funding. All the data at the end comes from two polls, one of which is from the University of Washington and the other of which is the New York Times/CBS News Poll. Here are the links:
http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/racepolitics.html
http://documents.nytimes.com/new-york-timescbs-news-poll-national-survey-of-tea-party-supporters?ref=politics

Comments

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This article starts well

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 14:07 — Thinker (not verified)

This article starts well with great historical facts but then ends up claiming all people with conservative values are just racist. The article also fails to mention how the recent Democratic leadership has increased the war on terror, dissolved civil liberties and authored bills which exported the jobs (attached to workers rights) to basic slave-labor factories. The author also claims the Bilderberg group is a conspiracy?! The real threat in America is from the Corporate Giants and the Private Banking Institutions who openly fund both sides of our corrupt political system. Some issues don't revolve around race and the only way different sides can delegitimize opponents is through veiled accusations of racial intent. Good try, but not working.

I couldn't agree more. Obama

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 15:22 — Anonymous (not verified)

I couldn't agree more. Obama had the wind at his back to really think outside the box and bring in new ideas for healthcare, finance and green technology. Very few people automatically embrace the 'new'. They need to see it in action first and the country has lost a chance to truly come into the the 21st century. The 'same ole same ole' will not work this time no matter how much we want it to. I'm afraid it is not the populace who cling to their guns and religion that are the problem - it's the politicians who cling to their lobbyists and pollsters who are dragging us backward. And alas there doesn't seem to be a solution in sight.

When good proposals are sent

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 16:56 — Anonymous (not verified)

When good proposals are sent to a committee to be ironed out so that rank differences become mere bagatelles and an agreement can be reached that satisfies all parties, what went in at the beginning comes out somewhat different at best, and radically so on average. So Republicans come up with a good idea that goes to committees dominated by Democrats and we get the horse-to-a-camel transition. Democrats come up with a good idea going into a Republican-dominated committee and we get a scandal of some sort. All government needs to exist is make believe something is being done, when what is actually happening is that Senators and Representatives, once in office, send their aides to do research while they run around kissing up to the money that will get them re-elected.

Never mind same ole same ole, it's hard work to sit through an unstaged townhall meeting, and these guys don't have the chops for it. 'No' is a word the Pentagon hasn't heard since before WW II. The much-vaunted conservative value of a competitive market is a sham, and always has been; a myth stuck out there by people who are zealous in protecting the dream that put them in charge of the pirate ship we live on.

The Republicans are situated

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 17:25 — M.B. (not verified)

The Republicans are situated to get back in power, sooner rather than later. They now have Citizens United to back their most corporatist candidates and to destroy any opponents. They have 90% of the media either blatantly on their side, or unwilling to challenge even their most outlandish proclamations. They also have corporate controlled electronic voting machines which are still just about everywhere, despite numerous demonstrations of their vulnerability to election fraud. Meanwhile the dems have been sadly ineffectual, leaving many one-time supporters angry with, or indifferent to, them. Scares the hell out of me.

Come off it, the Democrats

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 17:43 — Anonymous (not verified)

Come off it, the Democrats simply want to be ahead of the Republicans in funding, otherwise their principles and moneyed constituents are the same!
Look at the number of D's that destroyed health care reform. Look at the number that are working to protect banks from financial reform, look at the number of stooges who openly fund the hell out of "defense."

The Republicans will get

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 17:49 — Anonymous (not verified)

The Republicans will get back into power if they get more funding then the Democrats. Obummer/Clinton received *more* money then McCain and Alaskan Queen in the 2008 annointment. Your votes can be bought, indirectly.

As Democrats we all seem to

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 18:39 — liznandy (not verified)

As Democrats we all seem to know the problem. And Yes, I was once a liberal, compassionate Republican. I now am a mental health advocate and still compassionate. I have realized for many years that we are not born equal, even in this country; that some of us are born lucky; and that few of us can succeed on our own, no matter how hard we may keep trying. I had hoped that O'Bama would be our shining knight and carry us into the realm of 21st century policies with a revamped economy that upheld Main Street, not Wall Street and fought for single payer health. Let's face it; if the insurance companies had wanted to get it right they had the last 60 years to do so. All they wanted was more corporate profits, not more insured Americans.

Isn't there somewhere a saying that enough is enough? If not, there ought to be. What I want to know is what do we say YES to? It is a much more interesting word than NO and since we Democrats represent Main Street values, which means not only rebuilding our own barn/homes, but those of our neighbors who lost theirs for what ever reason. When we work together with those that will help us we really can do anything we want to do. And let's leave our religious beliefs out of this.Secure as we are in our right to our individual faiths we don't need to parade our righteousness in public. I would also be happy to get back to millions instead of billions or trillions. Even hundreds of thousands of dollars sounds good to me. I just want to walk through the streets of my town and not see people begging for food or shelter or medical care, secure in the knowledge that some of my taxes will go to help those in need because that is why I gave them in the first place, and the rest will go for safety and infrastructure. It doesn't seem so difficult. We are in this lifeboat together or have we forgotten?

Excellent article. In

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 18:50 — Katy (not verified)

Excellent article.

In attempting to answer a poster on another site about why I "assumed" the Tea Party was racist, I began looking for the answer, and landed here. I was looking for someone who could explain why the Left (of which I am one) continues to pin the racism label on the Tea Baggers. You have provided the ties precisely. I will be sending people here to read your article.

Thank you very much.

Don't think about anything

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 19:37 — Soularddave (not verified)

Don't think about anything too much, or figure anything out, or you'll be branded as one of the "elites". You can't win; they've got a pat answer to everything.

Their corporate funded (commercials) noise machine grinds them out relentlessly.

The two main features not

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 19:40 — T. A. Madison (not verified)

The two main features not specified that describe these "Republicans" are that they are authoritarian and anti-Constitutional. They are no longer the "loyal" opposition. Fear mongering and addiction to authority is used to justify militarism and the erosion of democratic law. True democrats, Left, Right and Center better start citing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights if we are to avoid our own home grown Il Duce.

Are we talking about the Tea

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 20:01 — inL.A (not verified)

Are we talking about the Tea Party Patriots or the the Tea Party Express? Two different groups with big differences.

As a lifelong liberal, I see

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 20:08 — Anonymous (not verified)

As a lifelong liberal, I see the Tea Party as a definite improvement on things. YES it is gaining very many strange bedfellows.

While I believe in Democracy and representative government, and even 'socialist' improvements, I am as aware of the deep corruption that pervades our society and can disregard labels of liberal and conservative in the process.

I am sick to shit of big talkers and liars that are out only for their own momentary monetary gain.
We are all screwed as long as we trust these pigs.
Things CAN get better, but it will take more of us to agree.

And in that light, the tea party has a logical right to exist even though they seem so unfocused now.

Thank you, liznandy@23:39.

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 20:55 — Ken Hall (not verified)

Thank you, liznandy@23:39. Society is about shared goals and responsibilities, society can create commons that no individual or private company would (in these times)) contemplate. Democracy sees a shared need in educating all the populace (schools and libraries), that way leads to higher production and prosperity for all. Democracy sees a shared need in ensuring the health of the populace, which leads to higher production and greater prosperity for all. Society has an interest in seeing that all people have a minimum level of care, enough food to eat, a roof overhead, etc. And all these measures lead to less inequality and crime. Before Reagan came into office there were no "homeless people", they were something US citizens encountered with dismay on the streets of Europe. Lo, how the mighty have fallen! My simplistic take on the world is that there are those who are willing to share the earth and its bounty, the universe and the stars, our common humanity and inter-relatedness with all creatures, and those who are not.

It must be difficult being

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 21:37 — Arrel (not verified)

It must be difficult being Obama, our first enlightened president. He knows the world will no longer support divisive thinking, so he looks for what is bets, what is workable on all sides. Most of us are taught dualistic thinking and cannot tolerate gray matters, answers that aren't either or but "both and". Obama will succeed, not with my generation so much, but will resonate with the youngsters and the next wave of leaders, who will have integrity. The world is already exposing those whose outsides don't match their insides. Not many leaders standing today will be around 3-5 years from now.

I could have saved the

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 04:43 — Anonymous (not verified)

I could have saved the Author a little time and quite a few sentences here...

The Republicans are ALWAYS the Party of 'No'...,

UNLESS.., any act of Government involves the DEREGULATION and/or THE DE-TAXATION OF ANYTHING AND EVERYTHiNG CORPORATE....

AND... if it involves ways for the Government to keep a better and easier eye on EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING UNLIKE REPUBLICANS...

You have to admit its pretty

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 09:27 — zJo Den (not verified)

You have to admit its pretty funny dude. Seriously.

Lou
www.web-anonymity.cz.tc

Fabulous, excellent;

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 09:29 — Zac Reisner, Portland, OR (not verified)

Fabulous, excellent; extremely important article. As lucid and cogent an explication of the conservative right's history and ongoing agenda as I've ever seen. Should be required reading in all political science and current affairs classes in all colleges and Universities, and public high schools. The ordinary working class citizens of this country need to know how they're being hoodwinked by the conservative/fascist elite.

AND I could have saved the

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 09:36 — Anonymous (not verified)

AND I could have saved the author even more time, there is little DIFFERENCE between the parties. The DEMOCRATS have voted lock step for war, for abridgment of our rights, for cutting social safety nets, for increasing the police state, for gutting financial reform, for preventing decent universal healthcare. THIS WEEK, the Democrats will approve BILLIONS more for War in Afghanistan. Absolutely the worst kind of article!

Someone didn't pay attention

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 09:53 — Anonymous (not verified)

Someone didn't pay attention in school.

Desegregation was vehemently opposed by the Democrat party to the bitter end. It was the Republican/conservative agenda that pushed the issue in regards to desegregating the South.

Other points, all good. Point on all of us needing a tea-party-like cause around which to gather and discourse regarding our way forward is also good.

It's time to get rid of red/blue, dem/repub, cons/lib names and labels and get to the basics of working together to get the job done.

I am sorry. Does the author

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 09:58 — Anonymous (not verified)

I am sorry. Does the author really think there was public support for a single payer system? The problem most conservatives or the right have with Obama is his desire for a European Style government at home. We are watching the EU basically fall apart at the seams because of the same policies that the left wants implemented here. Why should we remove the system that has made America the most prosperous in the world and replace it with the failed systems of Europe. Linking the right to the tired argument of racism is ridiculous. The right has it's crazies but the left isn't exactly immune. Recently Woody Allen said that he wished we could give Obama dictator powers. We could also bring up the racism and filth that is spewed by the likes of Jeremiah Wright and Farrakhan. If I were to say that those people defined the left that would be intellectually dishonest, so saying that the right is nothing but racists and uneducated people who are easily stirred by rhetoric is just plain false.

What a bunch of crap. During

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 10:40 — Anonymous (not verified)

What a bunch of crap. During the Bush years just replace Republican with Democrat in the article and you have exactly the same thing. The left was just as big of a party of NO during the Bush years. Give me a break. Liberals are so full of themselves. I am going to go and puke now. Thanks!

Well, despite the fact that

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 11:14 — Anonymous (not verified)

Well, despite the fact that someone so arrogant and naive as you can mix up trivial American History, namely that the Republicans opposed slavery(Lincoln was a Republican). It was a pretty standard piece of liberal hysteria. If you don't learn to respect the other side, you won't understand. This is bipartisanship at its best, and if you may, put down your New York Times for one minute and actually read something worthwhile you might change your mind.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. More

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 11:15 — Anonymous (not verified)

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

More unhelpful partisan rhetoric.

Nobody on the right as asking for corporate anarchy, unfettered environmental devastation, or employee abuse.

We all believe there need to be rules. We just need to argue how to weigh freedom and personal responsibility with protection for the individual.

We just need to make sure our compass is still set on "Ask not what our country can do for you..." and not "Look what the government already does for you, it can do more."

You have a

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 12:14 — CTM (not verified)

You have a half-understanding of history.

The vast majority of things that you claim the right was against, history and a REAL understanding of history shows that they were not... what they were opposed to was the methodology and administration of the tenants. And given the mess that government has become - just look as what the left (despite a GOP-in-name-only Governor) has done to California; the government-centric programs and policies have made the entire state a complete and unfixable mess.

But your "article" (absent any citations but heavy on the sanctimony) shows just what is wrong with political discourse. YOU are the problem. This was not an attempt to fix anything, but to try to position yourself as somehow superior... but never did you take a look at the multitude of bureaucratic, philosophical, fiscal or operational failings of your own advocacy.

As such, this is nothing but more lame propaganda. A grand wasted effort.

Ah, it's more fun to close

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 12:15 — Anonymous (not verified)

Ah, it's more fun to close your eyes and scream than it is to open them and see the world, isn't it?

We all do this. But Arun, I must congratulate you. Witnessing someone spew forth such blatantly self-righteous material, pile up deliciously hypocritical fallacies is a real treat. Perhaps if you'd stopped to consider what this article could possibly accomplish, you'd have gone in a different direction.

But now that I stop to think, my posting this comment isn't likely to do a bit of good. Oh well, it's written so I might as well make sure that everyone within shouting distance knows my opinion.

Ummm, Republicans were

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 12:30 — John M (not verified)

Ummm, Republicans were largely responsible for the passage of the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s...

"In the 26 major civil rights votes after 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 percent of the votes. By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 percent of the votes."

Granted, Republicans of today are hardly the same as they were even 25 years ago... Still, REAL Republicans were very supportive of individual rights...

I just want to point out

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 14:57 — chris johnston (not verified)

I just want to point out really quick the humorous attempt to paint republicans and the ones stopping civil rights... check your history on that one. Why dont you ask Al Gores dad how he voted on it? not to mention you brought up minimum wage in your article, yet these are the same people who are rallying against the AZ immigration law. pick your poison and be consistent.

Could you please cite

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 15:01 — Anonymous (not verified)

Could you please cite sources?

This article is one of the

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 18:23 — lynne (not verified)

This article is one of the reasons I stopped contributing to TO. It has devolved in to a hate session with absolutely no positive ideas left within it.

Arun: What are your sources

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 22:30 — Left Flank (not verified)

Arun:

What are your sources for the figures in #23, and the arguments about the origins of the movement in #12?

"The heart of the right’s

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 23:25 — Anonymous (not verified)

"The heart of the right’s agenda is neoliberalism, which is the rule of the “free market” above all else."
Is this not also the heart of the Democratic Party's agenda?

The author of the original

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 11:44 — Bernard J. Fine (not verified)

The author of the original article at least had
the forthrightness to sign his name to it and list his affiliation. Only two respondents in the list above have given complete names. Not one has given their affiliation.

So who wants to waste their time paying heed to remarks by anonymous people?

I am a retired social scientist, liberal, who worked for the army, yes, the army, as a civilian for nearly 40 years. I was brought up during the depression and grew up as a young person during FDR's administration. The Republican Party in my younger days was not
the Party of No, at least to the extremes of the present. I started out as an independent voter and voted for such as Republicans Henry Cabot Lodge and Leverett Saltonstall for Senate because they had some semblance of integrity.
Same for Governors of Massachusetts.

I switched to being a Democrat when I perceived that the Republicans had become different...e.g. Barry Goldwater, Reagan etc.

Now, neither party is covered with glory on many issues, but at least some on the left are at least still trying to make things better. Many of you commenting above have good insights as to the problems etc., but it would be a much more intelligent and informative conversation if each of you identified yourselves and your affiliations. As for me, when I see "anonymous" I usually read no further. If you don't believe enough in your ideas to identify yourself, why should others?

I have to admit to not

Thu, 05/20/2010 - 08:39 — Steve Jones (not verified)

I have to admit to not having read the entirety of this article, but it just kept getting crazier and crazier, basing new claims on the previous falsehoods.

Initially what caught my eye is the mention of the Tea Party. This article CLAIMS that "The Republicans" HELPED to create the Tea Party. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ask most people who align themselves with the loosely organized concept of "the Tea Party" and you will find that although they generally hate the financial decisions the Obama administration have taken, they also have no love for the big government that Bush supported either. In fact, I think LIBERTARIAN would be a better description of the Tea Party, and big government of ANY flavor is what it's against.

Yes, the Tea Party is against all the bailouts and incentives, which is THE issue now. Just like it logically makes sense to STOP SPENDING when your personal credit card gets maxed out, rather than just applying for a new credit card and start "stimulus spending" in hopes that somehow your first bill will resolve itself, but there are plenty of traditional Democrats, in the image of RFK and others, who still remember that you can't spend your way out of debt, and agree with the concepts of the Tea Party movement.

Seeing the Tea Party as a bunch of people organized by the Republicans isn't going to help anyone - I think if you actually look into it, you may find the answers that the traditional Democrats have been looking for, and you'll see that it's not all a bunch of angry white male Republicans.

I agree that we dont need a 3 party system, but I dont agree that the 2 parties have to forever be Democrats and Republicans... Perhaps it will someday be the Tea Party, and EITHER the Dems or Reps??

You Lie or are stupid or

Thu, 05/20/2010 - 09:30 — Anonymous (not verified)

You Lie or are stupid or criminal

There is overwhelming

Thu, 05/20/2010 - 12:35 — Arun Gupta (not verified)

There is overwhelming evidence that the Tea Party is a creation of GOP operatives, pundits and front groups. Some of the grievances are real -- such as a regressive tax system, which is a product of the Republicans themselves -- while many other issues are imagined or invented -- such as "illegal" immigrants stealing jobs from Americans.

If you're a Tea Partier, your passion may be real, but you're a tool for the right-wing agenda that aims to screw everyone except multi-millionaires.

In any case, here are just a few articles outlining the GOP role in creating the Tea Party:

GOP Operatives Crash the Tea Party
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35785.html

Here's an article from April 2009 showing the already extensive involvement of Dick Armey's Freedom Works, the Koch family-funded Americans for Prosperity and Newt Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/09/lobbyists-planning-teaparties/

And more early evidence how the above groups (along with the "free-market action group" dontGO) created and coordinated the Tea Party
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/04/the-tea-party-movement-whos-in-charge/13041/

Teabagger Timeline
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/a-teabagger-timeline-koch_b_187312.html

These various groups are funded by huge, powerful and extreme right-wing foundations --such as Kock, Bradley, Scaife, Olin and Walton -- that helped create the radical right over the last 40 years. It's classic astroturfing.

Thanks for all the responses.

Thu, 05/20/2010 - 15:11 — Arun Gupta (not verified)

And right on cue, here's

Thu, 05/20/2010 - 15:39 — Arun Gupta (not verified)

And right on cue, here's more evidence of how the modern right opposes any and all political and social progress. The Tea Party's Rand Paul, now the Republican U.S. Senate nominee from Kentucky, makes it clear that he opposes aspects of the 1964 Civil Rights Act because it infringes on the rights of private business. This is exactly the dynamic explained in the article.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/pauls-views-on-civil-rights-cause-a-stir/?hp

Thank you for taking the

Thu, 05/20/2010 - 18:39 — liznandy (not verified)

Thank you for taking the time to answer our comments with a very long cogent comment of your own. I'm impressed and gladdened that you care enough to do so. I must admit I have given up on the yuppies of my children's generation. Once they realized that they might become millionaires many of their values changed-of course, not all. I'm now working on my grandchildren who range from 18-24 and who seem to understand better that we are all in this together and are less distracted by the need for money and power. I think that what distresses me the most is that we have become so unethical in our dealings with each other starting from childhood on all the way through our business and political life. I was no angel for sure, but to win at any cost by using banned drugs or to make millions in bonuses by betting against one's own customers is the kind of evil that takes my breath away. Suddenly it isn't how one plays the game that matters it is only winning that matters, even if it means changing all the rules. How discouraging for the rest of us. Competition can bring out the best in us when individuals, teams or corporate entities play by some kind of code of conduct; otherwise it turns us into wild beasts that devour each other. Isn't that what we have been doing in the marketplace, throwing good money after bad so that most of us become losers? It's not my idea of what our forefathers had in mind and maybe as Republicans and Democrats we can agree on that.

Did I miss where these stats

Fri, 05/21/2010 - 14:56 — Statistics in question (not verified)

Did I miss where these stats are from? I liked the article and would like to be able to cite these #'s if they are accurate.

Among Tea Partiers, 73 percent think “Blacks would be as well off as whites if they just tried harder”; 73 percent believe “providing government benefits to poor people encourages them to remain poor”; 60 percent believe “We have gone too far in pushing equal rights in this country”; 56 percent think “Immigrants take jobs from Americans”; 92 percent want a smaller government with “fewer services”; 92 percent think Obama’s policies are moving the country toward socialism; only 7 percent approve of Obama’s performance as president; and a combined 5 percent identify themselves as black, Asian or of Hispanic origin.

Again, here's the info (it's

Fri, 05/21/2010 - 15:41 — Arun Gupt (not verified)

Again, here's the info (it's at the end of the long response):

All the data comes from two polls, one by the University of Washington and the other by the New York Times/CBS News.
http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/racepolitics.html
http://documents.nytimes.com/new-york-timescbs-news-poll-national-survey-of-tea-party-supporters?ref=politics

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