A leopard cannot change its spots: Tea Party Tomfoolery

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Steve Benen, Washington Monthly

One of the reasons I'm inclined to write about the Tea Partiers is that there are still many in the political establishment who believe the political mainstream should do more to take the Tea Party crowd and its hysterical cries seriously. This strikes me as silly -- most of the activists seem to have no idea what they're talking about. Why explore substantive challenges with angry mobs who reject reason and evidence? By all appearances, this hasn't quite sunk in yet with many observers. Thomas Friedman has a column today suggesting Tea Partiers strive to "become something more than just entertainment for Fox News." Specifically, the columnist recommends that these activists start taking energy policy seriously and endorse "a $10 'Patriot Fee' on every barrel of imported oil, with all proceeds going to pay down our national debt."

To Friedman, such an approach seems consistent with the Tea Party's purported goals -- taking a progressive approach to energy policy would help lessen our dependence on the Middle East, lower the deficit, improve our security goals, leave future generations with a better environment, etc.

Friedman isn't entirely naive. He concedes, "Yes, I know, dream on. The Tea Party is heading to the hard libertarian right and would never support an energy bill that puts a fee on carbon." And to be sure, on a substantive level, his suggestion has merit.

But I think Friedman, like many establishment observers, doesn't fully appreciate how ridiculous the Tea Party effort really is. John Cole summarizes the situation nicely.

They don't care about the deficit. They care that a Democrat (and a black "Muslim," to boot), is in the White House. They don't care about fiscal restraint, they care that a Democrat is in the White House. They don't, as some foolishly pretend, care about the Wall Street excesses. Certainly Cenk Uyger is not the only one who has noticed that the tea party bubbas could all be shipped to protest HCR, but the big money boys aren't running the buses to protest Wall Street. They care that there is a Democrat in the White House.

And those crowds of angry white old people screaming "keep government out of my medicare" and waving signs of "Drill, baby, drill?" They sure as hell don't care about the environment and are not going to become some sort of "Green Tea Party."

Well, no, of course not. If the right's rhetoric is any indication, we're talking about a crowd that often perceives climate science as a Marxist plot.

The so-called "movement," on the whole, doesn't seem to care about policy. It hardly even seems to care about its own purported goals -- this crowd not only applauded when Republicans added $5 trillion to the debt and decided to stop trying to pay for their own initiatives, they also took to the streets to complain about taxes after getting a tax cut.

Expecting far-right activists to move to the left on energy policy, just because it's wise and in their interests, is regrettably a fool's errand. Friedman isn't wrong on policy grounds; he's wrong to think unhinged conservatives who think the president is Hitler and the Affordable Care Act represents a "government takeover" can be reasoned with.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Tea Bagging, it's Klantastic!

Edited April 25, 2010 by IR5FORMUMSIE

[luckytxn 2,265]

Keep worrying about the perceived threat that the Tea party seems to be and when the true threat comes everyone will wonder why they didn't notice before.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

The article read like more liberal tomfoolery to me. I have a reason to smile every time a left winger puts down Tea Partiers. It means we are still taken seriously enough to be targeted for ** talking points, but not seriously enough to engage directly. Perfect!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The article read like more liberal tomfoolery to me. I have a reason to smile every time a left winger puts down Tea Partiers. It means we are still taken seriously enough to be targeted for ** talking points, but not seriously enough to engage directly. Perfect!

[Danno 1,228]

Steve Benen, Washington Monthly

One of the reasons I'm inclined to write about the Tea Partiers is that there are still many in the political establishment who believe the political mainstream should do more to take the Tea Party crowd and its hysterical cries seriously. This strikes me as silly -- most of the activists seem to have no idea what they're talking about. Why explore substantive challenges with angry mobs who reject reason and evidence? By all appearances, this hasn't quite sunk in yet with many observers. Thomas Friedman has a column today suggesting Tea Partiers strive to "become something more than just entertainment for Fox News." Specifically, the columnist recommends that these activists start taking energy policy seriously and endorse "a $10 'Patriot Fee' on every barrel of imported oil, with all proceeds going to pay down our national debt."

To Friedman, such an approach seems consistent with the Tea Party's purported goals -- taking a progressive approach to energy policy would help lessen our dependence on the Middle East, lower the deficit, improve our security goals, leave future generations with a better environment, etc.

Friedman isn't entirely naive. He concedes, "Yes, I know, dream on. The Tea Party is heading to the hard libertarian right and would never support an energy bill that puts a fee on carbon." And to be sure, on a substantive level, his suggestion has merit.

But I think Friedman, like many establishment observers, doesn't fully appreciate how ridiculous the Tea Party effort really is. John Cole summarizes the situation nicely.

They don't care about the deficit. They care that a Democrat (and a black "Muslim," to boot), is in the White House. They don't care about fiscal restraint, they care that a Democrat is in the White House. They don't, as some foolishly pretend, care about the Wall Street excesses. Certainly Cenk Uyger is not the only one who has noticed that the tea party bubbas could all be shipped to protest HCR, but the big money boys aren't running the buses to protest Wall Street. They care that there is a Democrat in the White House.

And those crowds of angry white old people screaming "keep government out of my medicare" and waving signs of "Drill, baby, drill?" They sure as hell don't care about the environment and are not going to become some sort of "Green Tea Party."

Well, no, of course not. If the right's rhetoric is any indication, we're talking about a crowd that often perceives climate science as a Marxist plot.

The so-called "movement," on the whole, doesn't seem to care about policy. It hardly even seems to care about its own purported goals -- this crowd not only applauded when Republicans added $5 trillion to the debt and decided to stop trying to pay for their own initiatives, they also took to the streets to complain about taxes after getting a tax cut.

Expecting far-right activists to move to the left on energy policy, just because it's wise and in their interests, is regrettably a fool's errand. Friedman isn't wrong on policy grounds; he's wrong to think unhinged conservatives who think the president is Hitler and the Affordable Care Act represents a "government takeover" can be reasoned with.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

Jeez how silly and out of touch can the writer be?

The first chuckle came when the old liberal answer to every problem appeared..... (add another tax on Oil to solve the spending problem)

It's also comical how those who are -free from seeing the color of skin- are obsessed with counting faces in the crowd..... unless it's a Pro amnesty rally of course.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Jeez how silly and out of touch can the writer be?

The first chuckle came when the old liberal answer to every problem appeared..... (add another tax on Oil to solve the spending problem)

It's also comical how those who are -free from seeing the color of skin- are obsessed with counting faces in the crowd..... unless it's a Pro amnesty rally of course.

they also don't see color at pro-abortion or climate change rally. Oh, and violence at illegal lover rallies goes unnoticed, as well. Only the right is fermenting violence, no?

Edited April 26, 2010 by Sofiyya

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Fox News disproves itself: Network's own poll finds Americans favor 'IRS' over 'Tea Party'

After months upon months of enthusiastic, cheer-leading coverage of any rally that involved tea, tea bagging or tea partying, the Fox News network has miraculously disproved itself by producing a new poll that finds Americans think more highly of the Internal Revenue Service than they do the vocal conservative minority.Atop the fourth page of a Fox News Opinion Dynamics poll released April 8, the questioner explains that respondents would be read a series of names and asked whether their opinion is positive or not. The most popular among the names is Barack Obama, who scored a 50 percent approval rating. Second was the Internal Revenue Service, at 49 percent.

Down below Democrats and even below Republicans is the "Tea Party," at 36 percent approval. This particular poll's questions reference the "Tea Party" as though it were a unified group, akin to a third party actor, instead of what it really is: a disparate collection of middle to fringe right wing groups that originally came together as an organizing platform for Congressman Ron Paul, but were popularly coopted and briefly organized by old guard Republicans into a series of loud and angry

demonstrations against the health reform laws.

link

Edited April 26, 2010 by El Buscador

[alienlovechild 75]

They don't care about the deficit. They care that a Democrat (and a black "Muslim," to boot), is in the White House. They don't care about fiscal restraint, they care that a Democrat is in the White House. They don't, as some foolishly pretend, care about the Wall Street excesses. Certainly Cenk Uyger is not the only one who has noticed that the tea party bubbas could all be shipped to protest HCR, but the big money boys aren't running the buses to protest Wall Street. They care that there is a Democrat in the White House.

A tariff on foreign oil would reduce consumption but it has little to do with the deficit which is rooted in too much Federal spending. Washington raises taxes but it usually ends up expanding government instead of tackling the debt problem.

Most of the quoted paragraphed could easily apply to the Democrats who've dumped talk about the deficit and sought to extend more money to Wall Street under the guise of regulating Wall Street. The same is true for the peace movement with petered out once Obama was the fellow in charge.