The Tea Party is oft-portrayed by the media as an actual ‘party’ with a political platform. Let’s be honest - they don’t have a platform, they have a gathering of soap boxes. There’s a big difference between angry rhetoric and actual political goals. The thing is that, despite the abundance of colorful signs, they don’t actually want smaller government or no government or government out of the bedroom – they want government out of THEIR bedrooms and THEIR wallets. This same group of people who are (sometimes literally) up in arms about taxes, socialism and big government seem either in denial about, or blissfully unaware of, the fact that we are paying the lowest tax rates in years and “socialist” handouts like unemployment, Social Security and Medicare are the primary sources of income and health care for their very own members. These crowds are every bit as eager to have the government tell other people how to live as they are to tell the government not to tell them how to live. So Big Government isn’t the problem – “Government Stuff I Don’t Like” is.
Just check out the candidacy of Sharron Angle of Nevada. She’s built her campaign on uber-extreme views about abortion (not ever – even for rape and incest victims - God has a plan – go with it), and eliminating everything from Social Security and Medicare to the IRS and the Department of Education. Her reputation in the state legislature was for a guaranteed “no” vote on anything; to the point that not even lobbyists would talk to her. Even for conservatives, she’s too extreme for the national stage, and her handlers are busily reworking her website to be more palatable. See also Rand Paul of Kentucky, who just loves regulation as long as its businesses doing it. And if a business thinks that racism is cool, that’s fine – who is Congress to tell them they can’t? And lest we forget the darling of the Tea Party – Sarah Palin. That’s a whole book of hilarity and fear unto itself. From her “foreign policy experience” of sorta governing a state near a foreign country to her endless willingness to comment on issues she admittedly knows nothing about (the recent Prop 8 ruling, for example), the Palinator has become an icon to the Tea Party. Taxes? BAD! Oh wait, ‘cept the Bush tax cuts for the rich – those are cool. Foreign policy? Bomb ‘em! Whoever they are – doesn’t matter – just point and shoot. Taxes to pay for all the pointing and shooting? Oh just cut some silly stuff like ... well ... umm ... like ... unemployment benefits! Yeah – get those lazy bums up and working! No matter how often she embarrasses herself and the rest of us with her snowbilly nonsense, nothing seems to shake the faith of the Tea P. The fact that Saint Sarah has little or no credibility, and is motivated solely by the Almighty Dollar doesn’t deter them from hanging on her every sarcastic, dare-you-to word, evidencing that the Party’s “platform” is more about anger and resentment than about accomplishment.
Partiers reportedly bristle at the suggestion that they answer to, or are part of, a hierarchy. Wait. So your “party” isn’t a “party” as much as it is a sort of antique-mall umbrella term used to refer to endless small groups of folks united only in their ... what? Dislike of taxes? Not really a novel concept is it? And now there’s a new threat on the horizon: so-called net neutrality. The new problem is that Google and Verizon are trying to tier the internet so that preferred (read: paid) sites get preferential posting rank and speed on the internet, once again handing us (the little guys. Wait – I thought you folks were all about protecting small business little guys?) over to massive corporations. Well, maybe. The apocalyptic threat here is that the FCC is trying to prevent Google and Verizon from taking over the Internet. That must be bad – umm, well, cuz it’s the government. Huh? So monopolies and toxic rivers that catch fire and price fixing are OK? So that must mean farm subsidies are bad? Well, I haven’t heard from the Party on that one – but some of their favorites (Michelle Bachmann among them) are happy recipients of farm subsidies, so I guess that kind of socialist big government waste is A-OK. Lest we be distracted here, make no mistake – according to the USDA, farm subsidies go overwhelmingly to giant agribusinesses (the top 10% of large corporations garnered 74% of the subsidies, with 62% of farmers receiving nothing), not quaint little mom-n-pop dairy farms.
This is a group of people largely dependent on the government, and yet protesting the very existence of government. The best part? That many of the programs most vehemently opposed by the Tea Party (based largely on misunderstanding and misinformation) are programs and proposals that will most directly benefit them! The unemployed and uninsured opposing the stimulus plan and health care reform. The elderly so wrapped up in false patriotism that they oppose ending unwinnable wars in order to preserve the Social Security and Medicare benefits they depend on. Or better yet – opposing the very government health care they themselves fight tooth and nail to retain! It becomes a mockery of politics, and an entertaining but distracting source of false news and non-headlines. I remain convinced that the Tea Party is a reality show. The motley crew of the unemployed, uneducated, retired, and the educated but still conspiracy-theory-obsessed gather, dress up in period costumes, and play at understanding 18th Century society. Much like religious fanatics who pick and choose the pieces they like and defend them to the death as absolute truths, the Tea Party pick and choose a few truths and rumors and hang a proclaimed ‘philosophy’ on them. At some later time, I may have a guest blogger explain why the Tea Party view of history is ... a little ... selective.
But in the meantime, the cracks are beginning to appear as the groups begin to realize that – horrors! – blind, blanket resistance to all things government may not be a viable platform for a political party. Especially when the reality is that they will have to face their secret love-affair with government regulation. The Tea Party has made itself about “no-isms” and oversimplifications. This is a party that is less about a unified goal than about a generalized resentment of a myriad of things, some legitimate, but most springing from some very fundamental misunderstandings. Primarily that “they” are a “they” and not a motley crew of “I”s. Face TP – you can dress up in costumes and paint purdy signs all you want, but the fact is that you are – by and large – much more accepting of government regulation than you want other to believe. As long as they’re regulating someone else. That’s all I’m saying.
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