Is the Tea Party fading away?

If the GOP really wants to win in 2012, they need to ditch the Tea Party now and let them stand on their own feet. The fact that its a party within a party is going to cause a civil war and let Obama just coast into re-election. Tea Party will not fade away any time soon. They have too much of a ground movement, so they will have a lot of local offices around middle America and the deep south. Where the problem lies is in federal field, where big money talks. They might have alienated too many people this summer so big money donations might night be around.

This is going get ugly by Super Tuesday because there is going to be a giant swing to the right that will have a lot of independent voters just not agreeing with what ends up having to stand to get elected in the general elections. Most likely to happen is that the general public is going to vote a slightly right of center candidate for office, and the Tea Party thinks they are too much of a RINO, so they will back a very right of center candidate to split the ticket in two.

 

The Tea Party proved that they can elected in Republican-leaning House districts in an off-year (non-presidential) election. And the election was more a referendum against the Democrats and about one issue -- jobs, not debt reduction, not smaller government, not privatizing Social Security and Medicare, not an isolationist foreign policy.

Do the Tea Party folks even have a long-term economic policy, other than spending cuts and restoring the "free market" (eliminating regulations)? I sure havent seen a well articulated policy.

There is no evidence that they have broad appeal and what appeal they did have has diminished since the election last fall.

I agree with the above that the country is marginally right of center, but the Tea Party is much farther right on the core issues that matter to most voters. I dont see any how they bring a winning formula to the table that will attract centrists who flirt back and forth between Ds and Rs and are more interested in consensus building over ideology.

 

All I have to say is I hope so. Would love to see more people running that are interested in actually doing something besides making a stance on an ideology that 2 seconds of thought will show doesn't work.

 

Redux has it right. Winning Republican districts in a very "anti-incumbent" mid-term election doesn't mean much.

And it's becoming increasingly obvious that the freshmen Tea Party Reps have no fucking idea what they're doing. I can't imagine their approval rating will go up much, and have a chance of hitting single digits if they block Obama's upcoming jobs bill

 

I hope to high hell they go away. I'm so sick of ignorance and idiocy as a means of politics.

 

I hope that is true. Our own tea party governor Rick "Free Market" Scott has an abysmal approval rating.

I think it's possible (and interesting) that the Christian Right appropriated the Tea Party movement to improve their reach and reputation, but instead ended up ruining the reputation of the Tea Party, too.

thank you, god.

 

The Christian Right didn't need to appropriate them, they started them. If you look at the candidates and stances they've been taking sense they first showed up, they have always been God Freaks. How they ever managed to sell themselves as being anything other then christian extremist nut jobs I'll never know.

 

well, I have to be honest and admit that I don't know anything about the origins of the tea party.
they've always seemed like a bunch of reactionary fools to me. so afraid of words. 'socialism' 'welfare' 'taxes' 'shari'ah law.' so they willingly allow their wealthy benefactors to continue sucking the middle class dry, totally ignorant of what is in their own best interest. it's appalling. and embarrassing.

for instance, I have an aunt and uncle. They used to be wealthy, but they pissed it all away and made some really bad choices. They are and always have been staunch republicans. My aunt developed a tumor in her throat and medicaid has been paying for her medical care for the last couple of years. well over $200,000 worth of care now. It has literally kept her alive. But the two of them, still broke, on medicaid, on food stamps and other government programs, still sit around bitching about big government and having their taxes raised like a couple of idiots. Sorry, they're family and I love them, but they're idiots.

my stepfather is a former republican. not for a long time now, but he is so infuriated with what is going on these days that he can't even talk about it without blowing a gasket. and he is a traditionally laid back and not particularly political person. if this is getting to him, then you know it's serious.

 

i had a conversation with my pal the bond trader last night. he's an old-line republican--kinda patrician-looking, given to wearing cartoony preppy gear--stuff like turned up collars on izod-lacoste polo shirts that otherwise i would never have known are still produced and loud sweaters tied around the shoulders. the kind of guy who you might see in a country club bar, were you to stumble into one by mistake, that'd reduce you to saying things like "really?....no. wait. really?" despite the garb, which i assume is some kind of punishment inflicted on him by his tennis-obsessed wife that is either ineffective because he likes it or that he endures in the interest of social peace, he's a smart and interesting guy to talk to, particularly about economic questions (policies aside). and he, like a lot of his republican comrades he says, views the tea party as anathema, the ugly flipside of being-conservative, one that substitutes, in his view, "idiot belief" for thinking. most of the republicans i know personally are moderates, though--different configurations of moderate, republicans for different reasons. we may not agree but at least we can talk to each other. the tea party people i know are a mixed bag of folk. some are like the tea party was advertised---neophytes in political terms, people who are afraid of something bad they see as happening---but its really really hard to talk to them beyond hi how are you i am fine nice day would you like a beer ok thank you help yourself to food ok nice place thank you well bye ok bye---because they slip into this angsty incoherence. others are scary reactionaries. strangely, the conservative libertarians that i know---and i do know some because i am quite different from roachboy, really, and like talking to people and sometimes even manage to not treat them as speciments (not always)----most conservative libertarians that i know think the tea party full of idiots.

so even amongst the peculiar little cross-section of massachusetts republicans that i happen to know, the tea party brand is toxic.

my sense beyond that is basically in line with redux's above.
i think the debt ceiling debacle may have been their pyhrric moment.

 

The tea party has always basically been about being pissed offed. Many are just flat out racists, not all but many. They've been effectively riled up by the usual suspects and have had false info and misleading numbers thrown at them ad-nauseum. Which they repeat ad-naueum, often while shouting, Everyone I've ever spoken with who proclaims tea party affiliation is heavy on ideology and emotion and extremely lacking on facts. Everything from who was POTUS when TARP was passed to who ran up this massive debt. In Iowa the other day Obama was confronted by two tea party type, I'm sure if you search out Youtube or other site you can find the video. In it you can hear the woman claim "you know most domestic terrorism is done by the left." Really? This woman's never heard of the Oklahoma City bombing, the countless women's health clinic bombings/fires or the shootings of doctors who preform abortions... etc... etc.. etc...?

The tea party has been wrong on just about ever fact they've ever put out. If they fade away I think the US has a chance to turn things around. As long as they're running around screaming about being over taxed at a time when our nation debt is at all time highs and the tax rates are at all time lows we're pretty much fucked.

 

People like this blow my mind-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwpBLzxe4U

 

There's definitely a part of me that would take no small amount of evil delight in seeing many of these 'small government' types get exactly what they've wished for.

 

Yeah the only problem is they're dragging the rest of us to the breadline with them. Well, least let's hope there's a breadline.

 

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/aug/17/ohio-goes-letter-tea-party-country/

 

In Texas, the tea party are just all flat out shouting with no logical mission. They want lower taxes, they want "Barry" or "Bo No Mo" out of office, and they want unions all but wiped out. Yet they complain the roads need repair, they complain about massive debt and two unpopular wars, and they complain about working 7 hours without a break or lunch. dumbasses.

They been screaming that its impossible to get rid of bad teachers and that schools need to run solvent. Yet spend $80,000,000.00 on a new high school football stadium. They complain I45 is a nightmare to drive down during rush hour. Yet scream that switching out the HOV lane, which has park and ride stations down the whole length every few miles, to a mass transit rail would be "dumb and cost money".

They complain about social security and how its a waste, but where up in arms when the President says if we defaulted, we might not be able to send out those checks right away. They complain off the top of roof tops about illegal immigration reform, yet hire maids and lawn service that is full of illegal immigrants. They will pick up day labor all day every day. Then complain they are gathering too close to where they live. And my favorite from the last few months, they scream "NO COMPROMISE, NO SURRENDER!!!" Then turn around, "WHY HAVEN'T THEY GOTTEN A DEAL DONE YET?! THEY ARE FUCKING UP OUR COUNTRY!!"

The faster the Tea party goes the better, but for this country to really be in a good political position, they need at least three full parties working together.

 

i really dont think the problems the us finds itself confronting are a function of the single party state with two right wings issue alone--it's just as much (or more) the priorities that are in place. it is ridiculous that over 40% of federal outlays go into defense/surveillance. it's even more ridiculous that the tea party has fuck all to say about that. basically the tea party started out as a reactionary populist movement brought to you by fox news and it ended up being an instrument for the rather cynical powers that run the show that is the right to be used in a rebranding attempt. turns out that the rebranding is a disaster for the right at this point. but they control repetition channels and have a LOT of money behind them...and people like liking what they're told they like to like in the main...so many bad things are still possible despite the brand toxicity that the tea party has managed to create for itself.

beneath the above is that the united states is presently in the middle of a wholesale failure of imagination.

 

as usual, you manage to hit the nail squarely on the head.

 

I must be looking at this completely backward all I see is successful imaginations running wild. They've successfully imagined where Obama was born, what the HCRA will cost and do, who pushed for and signed off on TARP etc... Imaginations isn't the problem in my mind it a successful understanding of the facts and rational thought.

 

but those things are not imaginative. they've all been constructed and given to people. consumed.

my thinking on imagination is more like 'vision.' although I hate what the world of business has been done with that word.
we cannot imagine or envision ourselves outside of these narrow parameters we live in. we can no longer imagine how what we do impacts the rest of the world. and we certainly cannot imagine what to do about the decline of the western hierarchy and our inevitable displacement as the superpower.
--- merged: Aug 20, 2011 11:37 AM ---
therefore we have these 'movements' born out of anxiety that speak mainly to matters of pride, nationalism, individualism and morality rather than adjusting to a changing world with wisdom, patience, tolerance, humility...if there were a god, this might be a test. which we are failing.