So, they are generally a bunch of people who get together to gripe, but not do anything about it? Sounds like typical Americans. Now the French on the other hand…
A new Washington Post canvass of hundreds of local tea party groups reveals a different sort of organization, one that is not so much a movement as a disparate band of vaguely connected gatherings that do surprisingly little to engage in the political process.
The results come from a months-long effort by The Post to contact every tea party group in the nation, an unprecedented attempt to understand the network of individuals and organizations at the heart of the nascent movement.
Seventy percent of the grass-roots groups said they have not participated in any political campaigning this year. As a whole, they have no official candidate slates, have not rallied behind any particular national leader, have little money on hand, and remain ambivalent about their goals and the political process in general. […] The findings suggest that the breadth of the tea party may be inflated. The Atlanta-based Tea Party Patriots, for example, says it has a listing of more than 2,300 local groups, but The Post was unable to identify anywhere near that many, despite help from the organization and independent research.
In all, The Post identified more than 1,400 possible groups and was able to verify and reach 647 of them. Each answered a lengthy questionnaire about their beliefs, members and goals. The Post tried calling the others as many as six times. It is unclear whether they are just hard to reach or don’t exist.
[…]
There is little agreement among the leaders of various groups about what issue the tea party should be most concerned about. In fact, few saw themselves as part of a coordinated effort. The most common responses were concerns about spending and limiting the size of government, but together those were named by less than half the groups. Social issues, such as same-sex marriage and abortion rights, did not register as concerns.
Alfred, the Tea Party will pick up a 20-30 seats as Republicans. They will owe the financial backers heavily, and act like they dupes they’ve always been.
You are a Tea Partier though. You hate real conservatives like Bob Inglis who have principles, and aren’t just looking for a handout like washed old hippies and soccer moms that you’ll elect.
#33 LDA – without picking nits, I can’t argue with you.
I’ll leave the nits for Bobbo.
#33–LCA==I wasn’t going to comment on your miasma of disassociated formulations, but what can I do when called on to do so by Animbus?
Animby’s excellent point that you should have admitted is that the TP is more a movement ((Animby is into that sort of spectography and we really all should bow to his expertise and involvement up to his elbows)) than a party although I half recall there may be a formal TP candidate out west? I don’t follow crazy’s that closely, not even when Alfred posts.
As the TP is not a party then, calling your analysis “polity” is nonsense. Its not what the word means.
But thats just a nit. What really makes your post rather ridiculous is making pronouncements on both sides of the argument. Thats really bad form. Shows a kneejerk recognition without the cognitive skills to differentiate and make a choice? Course, if McCullough liked it, maybe I missed something?
Now, as Animby might say, I need to alphabetize my spice cabinet, so I’m just too busy to respond further. ((Add condescending remark to conclude as I can’t think of anything more.))
Tis but a nit.
Clearly most of the folks here are letting the MSM and organized political operations define the Tea Party for them. It’s clearly not a party or organization itself and may never be. Its not much more than a sentiment at this point, but a powerful one.
Our political processes today is leaving behind the very ideals that made this country great and unique from every government before it. Unfortunately it has been corrupted much like any other government before it because we’ve allowed our elections to be about superficial issues and branding and branding of dems vs republicans because it’s all come down to money and power.
True tea party folks recognize this as dragging us down and are realizing that this sentiment is resonating with a significant portion of intelligent and affluent people who care deeply about our country more than the distraction or smear if the day. Where it goes from here we’ll have to wait and see but it’s understandable that those who are pleased with the status quo will do there best to try and nip this in marginalize it in all ways possible to nip it in the bud.
Tea party itself may be doomed to fail, but the ideals behind it will continue to evolve and likely culminate into a revolution. Only question is can it be a quiet
one.
I found the following teaser for the two disk set of “The Nazis: A Warning from History” from the BBC to be relevant:
Arguably one of the most important documentary series ever made, 1997’s The Nazis: A Warning from History from the BBC sets out to show that, far from being a uniquely German aberration, Nazism fed upon and was fostered by the prejudices and lemming-like inclinations of ordinary people. Although culminating with the atrocities of the Holocaust, these programmes are equally good on the motives of otherwise perfectly normal people, who needed only the tacit encouragement of the regime to perpetrate horrors against their enemies, their neighbours, or their own family. When confronted with evidence of their Nazi past, elderly former party members are often unable to find any other justification for their actions than simply that they could get away with it. Far from being a monolithic dictatorship which compelled the citizenry to act in rigidly prescribed ways, the Nazi state just allowed people to give their worst inclinations free reign.
An examination of how a cultured people could have allowed Hitler’s rise to power.
The Nazis would later try to rewrite history to say that Hitler became Chancellor simply because it was his destiny, but in reality, Hitler had been helped by economic circumstance and the support and miscalculation of others.
One historical question more than any other demands an answer.
How could a cultured nation at the heart of Europe be responsible for acts so heinous that they have altered concepts of what man is capable of.
How could the Nazis come to be? This series is the definitive television history of the rise and fall of the Nazis.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Like the Muslims, or the early colonizers of America, groups of people don’t have to “intend” to be/do evil, they just have to “be.”
Yea, Verily
LDA,
“…and those groups were to compromise on important issues…”
Are you honestly saying that the teabaggers will compromise? On any issue?
I’ll just leave this:
http://tinyurl.com/3xq5ww3
DobroD said “Tea party itself may be doomed to fail, but the ideals behind it will continue to evolve and likely culminate into a revolution. Only question is can it be a quiet one.”
Tea Partiers wouldn’t risk revolution for fear of losing their Medicare privileges. The Tea Party backers wouldn’t let it happen either, they make too much money off government contracts. Outsourcing government to the rich is the goal. These “revolutionaries” are their unsuspecting cannon fodder.
#23 Olo Baggins mistakenly said: the first tea parties started well before the 2008 election and many (most?) primaries. How might you explain that, if it’s all about Obama?
You are just plain wrong. The Tea Party movement is a conservative movement that emerged in 2009 with local and national protests against: the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the Healthcare Reform bill.
Do you remember (Feb 19, 2009) Rick Santelli asking for a tea party for traders to gather and dump the derivatives in the Chicago River? Santelli’s “rant” became a viral video after it was put on the Drudge Report.
p.s. Republicans do not equal Conservatives
TEA PARTIES ARE FOR LITTLE GIRLS, and MAD HATTERS, with IMAGINARY FRIENDS!
Ah who cares anyway, teabaggers are just wingnut Republicans who can’t stomach what the Republicans did to them over the last decade. Without Fox “News” (biased and unbalanced), that blip would have vanished quickly. Just more proof that Fox is an arm of the GOP.
Voting against your own best interests…nice.
jbenson…The-Dick Armey claims the tea party began after TARP was signed. He should know…
Alfred…you should find more intelligent entertainment.
Voting against your own best interests…nice.
It has been extensively studied, and shown to be generally the case that voters do no vote selfishly.
http://councilforeconed.org/news/story.php?story_id=65
#48 Olo Baggins said: “The-Dick Armey claims the tea party began after TARP was signed. He should know…”
Ha! Thanks for proving my point.
The Troubled Asset Relief Program, commonly referred to as TARP, was signed into law on October 3, 2008.
Dick Armey is correct in saying the tea party began after TARP was signed. The Tea Party movement is a conservative movement that emerged in 2009 due to their opposition to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the Healthcare Reform bill.
Well, don’t gloat because all the links about The Dick and his tarp tea claim are mainly about how he’s revising their history to suit his needs…so your original claim is likely the right one.
Apparently I was thinking about the movement to hate Obama on Fox, which began early. Whatever.
But I got sidetracked…the premise of the original point remains…There was no need to be a new outsider group if this was about Obama. The tea party was about Republicans in congress who voted the right way, and splintering off from them. IOW, we’d rather watch the country go through a massive depression than suffer a one-time stimulus program. Let’s kill Detroit and Michigan, even though “deficits don’t matter.”
Morons.
#49–SL==your link says that but it is pure opinion. The math, the book, and the studies went to whether or not voting mattered or not.
Here is a better example: why in the world would “the average joe” vote to repeal inheritance tax? The current exemption before one dollar is paid is whatever it is excluding 99% of people.
When the average joe repuke votes to repeal this tax, all they have done is vote against their own self interest because they have no legitimate expectation of having a taxable estate so all they do is increase the deficit leading to burdens on themselves or their kiddies thru currency devaluation.
Same with health care reform, social security, and all the other programs. ONLY the super rich benefit from these corrupted votes. No reason at all for average joe citizen to vote repuke, and yet so many do.
#37 Bobbo
I know what polity means and used it appropriately. I also know they are not really a party (they are more of a disorganised lobby group), I also know they are mostly just supporting Republicans because they have motivated the candidates to lie and pretend they will do what they want like Obama did for the disaffected ‘liberals’.
I said as a group of disaffected voters (i.e. the original conservatives that saw through ‘Shrub’ and already opposed the democrats and were mainly supporting Ron Paul) they offer me more hope than people that stick to the two husk parties, not because I necessarily agree with them but because they have started to break out of the two party miasma.
#40 smartalix
I think it is possible. If the Legislature was made up of many groups / parties eventually they would need to pick what really matters and compromise on other things. However, I think the vapid and poisonous political discourse would need to change first.
P.S. The head-stompers certainly won’t compromise.
#52, bobbo, did you read the entire thing?
One of the fundamental premises in modern economic analysis is that people tend to behave rationally. This doesn’t mean that people are always rational, but that at least they are not systematically irrational. So when you look at voting, you can look at the probability of your vote being the deciding vote along with your expected payout from that vote, and compare it to the cost of placing a well informed vote, and see that what you expect to gain is far smaller than what it costs. This implies that voting is an irrational activity – but people still do it in droves. The answer then is not to then just throw up your hands and conclude that voters are acting irrationally; but instead to find explanations for why it actually is rational. This is where the theory of expressive voting comes from.
The purely self interested thing to do is for 51% of the people to vote to take everything away from the remaining 49%. However, this is not what is generally observed when looking at the behavior of voters. Instead, people vote based on other things, like what types of policies they feel the government should be engaging in. Average income voters who vote for the candidate who promises to repeal inheritance taxes are likely not doing so because they think they might one day be subject to it and gain some future direct benefit, but maybe because they feel that passing on wealth to children shouldn’t incur a new tax after it was already taxed when it was first earned. This point being that people tend to vote because they feel good about showing support for things they have been convinced are the “right things to do” rather than “what do I get out of it?”.
Does it really matter WHO gets elected any more?
Since the Citizens United decision, we will be ruled by corporations, since they have the money to fund the elections. They own the voting machines. No matter who gets elected, we are royally screwed.
Alfie – Limbaugh is an ENTERTAINER who makes millions of dollars a year while you sit in squalor and swallow his cat food. Then you close your cardboard curtains, turn on your 286 eMachine and 14 kbs acoustic modem, fire up your AOL browser and vomit Limbaugh’s stinky tuna puke all over our lovely forum. You are, once again, getting so tiresome. Please see a doctor about your tummy trouble, see a shrink about those voices you keep hearing and go cash your welfare check – eventually you’re gonna have to upgrade to Windows 3.11!
Alfie – Today I downloaded yesterday’s Limbaugh show. On my walk to lunch, I listened. He’s a funny guy. But you. It worries me you take him so seriously that you spout his ideas almost verbatim! (verbatim, Alf, means word for word.) You must take shorthand in order to keep up with him.
He is obviously joking when he encourages people, especially Latinos, to not exercise one of the major tenets that made our country great: the individual vote. It seems very, very likely that conservatives will win back control of the House and possibly the Senate. With this victory all but assured, is it really necessary to urge people of Latin descent to not participate?
Is it not better to win and know you have a mandate from the majority than to win and know that a large portion of some voting block stayed away from the polls? Or, are you in favor of politics as usual that merely states: it’s better to win – however.
You would be well-served, Alf, to remember that Limbaugh is a sit-down comedian who barely finished high school before stumbling from job to job until he discovered his loud-mouthed rhetoric worked well on AM radio.
Please don’t misunderstand me: I think what he has done is great. He’s living the American dream. I wish him continued success. I just wish he’d make it more clear to the more feeble-minded in his audience that most of his show is – satire. Tell me, Alf, do you think he’s not poking fun at the audience and his sponsors when he refers to a commercial break as an “obscene profits” break?
Come on Alfie. Go back to thumping your bible. You’re no good at politics.
#55–ALD==my point may be too subtle, or maybe just my own “but” polity is ABOUT political STRUCTURE==it by definition does not apply to “MOVEMENTS.”
It would be like analyzing atheism in religious terms. You can force it by analogy or comparison, but its not the natural fit.
Just a hint, but take it as you will.
#57–SL==yes, I read the whole thing, but to be honest, I got dizzy pretty quickly. Any “social” subject that immediately goes mathematical is suspect in my experience. But my critique remains untouched by that article and by your analysis. It and you are talking about the self interest analysis in the ACT OF VOTING and doesn’t go to HOW ONE VOTES. I guess I could call that polity?
Too long for a blog, but if you can’t identify issues on which the great american public is voting against their own self interest ((I gave several examples)) then you have a few screws missing. 51% don’t vote against 49% because they recognize it isn’t fair, isn’t nice, is hypocritical, or won’t work in the long run. SEE???===its not in their own self interest defined as over the long term as opposed to a hand job in a dark alley. What the PUKES stand for today is 51% of the voters voting against 98% of the people in favor of the SUPER RICH top 2%. If you can’t see that, you have lost enough screws, nuts, and bolts, to be fairly characterized as a Stoopid Human.
#60–Animby==your best post ever. Informative and funny. I’m sure Alfie and other ditto heads will take it to heart.
Yea, Verily.
#63, Whether one decides to vote and how they choose to place their vote are very much related. And democracy is a very hypocritical system. People vote in secret to support policies which publicly they often condemn.
I’m always disappointed that you have to turn to personal attacks when you don’t like with what others say. We should look to get you a seat on “The View” as you would probably fit in well there.
SL==yes, yes, I understand you would like to be treated with the respect you don’t deserve. I actually toned it down for you. “Screw loose” compared to how dismal, alfie, and the whole dittohead chorus sing? Maybe even too much respect for you as you avoided the question twice while making ad hominem yourself. Is it polite enough to call you a hypocrite? And assuming it is, how far off having a few missing screws is that?
Answer the question: can you recognize the american public voting against its own self interest on any number of occasions OR is it your position that never happens.
When you pull your head out of your ass, you may not only see more clearly, you may be deserving of respect that you don’t give yourself to honest discourse.
Ha, Ha. Yea, Verily.
Animby, Rush is the model for a lot of the right wing entertainers. He does it better than any of them. He’s got the whole fat white guy smug thing nailed and it just sends people over the edge. And it’s a perfect shtick – he can say anything he wants and then do the whole liberal “what happened to freedom of speech” thing. It’s a perfect circular argument.
You’re right though, too many people take him seriously. I wonder how many people take Jon Stewart that seriously?
#66 Someone Else said, “I wonder how many people take Jon Stewart that seriously?”
Good comparison, Some. I did a quick Google search to no avail but I distinctly remember reading or hearing that there was some percentage of people who relied on The Daily Show – and worse, Colbert – for their daily news. I guess some people will believe anything they see in the media. I’ve even heard some people believe what they read in the New York Times!!! Gosh, I hope that article I remember wasn’t in the NYT…
Animby, actually I think Stewart does a pretty good job of skewering the political news – both left and right. And I don’t think people read him the same way. And he’s actually got wit:
Wyatt – “This martini is dryer than Harriet Tubman’s vagina”
Jon (laughing in shock) – “That wasn’t the reference we rehearsed but OK. Cicily Tyson’s going to beat my ass”
That’s fast. Scary fast.
Just for the record, it’s The View that gives me the creeps.
Someone==its not nice to set Animby up like that and then reverse your position.
Rush is a Big Fat Stupid Idiot and nothing like the social critic that Stewart is. What else is “hard news” and better news than anything else you can find on the tube than Stewart mocking the current position of some politician by showing 3 clips of him saying just the opposite. That is NEWS, criticism, and humor all in one–and the best of all 3. Its based on HONESTY.
Animby, I hope you were just suckered in by the momentum of things. Just working too hard as usual I assume.
>Here is a better example: why in the world would “the average joe” vote to repeal inheritance tax? The current exemption before one dollar is paid is whatever it is excluding 99% of people.
So what? First of all it excludes less than 99% as the total number of estates valued higher than that is pretty high, the value for a single year is irrelevant, and of course any number of people could be beneficiaries.
Also, having an estate tax means making corporations more powerful, as they are the ones buying up the properties people are forced to sell to pay the estate tax.
Then there is the factor that people won’t want to pay the estate tax when they die.