The tea party may just be an emotional outburst of anger and denial. Charles Blow of the NYT nails it:
The right has seen the enemy, and he is the future.
We never would've had tea parties if not for Obama. Tea partiers are afraid of Obama and what he represents--a changing future, one where a Latina can be a Supreme Court Justice, where black people can be President and a transgender can be a Commerce official. The nation is changing and they are not, and that is really scary for them.
The attack on the Republican establishment by the tea party folks grabs the gaze like a really bad horror flick — some version of “Hee Haw” meets “28 Days Later.” It’s fascinating. But it also raises a serious question: Are these the desperate thrashings of a dying movement or the labor pains of a new one?
My money is on the former. Anyone who says that this is the dawn of a new age of conservatism is engaging in wishful thinking on a delusional scale.
There is no doubt that the number of people who say that they are conservative has inched up. According to a report from Gallup on Thursday, conservatives finished 2009 as the No. 1 ideological group. But ideological identification is no predictor of electoral outcomes. According to polls by The New York Times, conservative identification was slightly higher on the verge of Bill Clinton’s first-term election and Barack Obama’s election than it was on the verge of George W. Bush’s first-term election.
It is likely that Republicans will pick up Congressional seats in November partly because of the enthusiasm of this conservative fringe, democratic apathy and historical trends. But make no mistake: This is not 1994.
This is a limited, emotional reaction. It’s a response to the trauma that is the Great Recession, the uncertainty and creeping suspicion about the risks being taken in Washington, a visceral reaction to Obama and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness and loss.
Simply put, it’s about fear-fueled anger. But anger is not an idea. It’s not a plan. And it’s not a vision for the future. It is, however, the second stage of grief, right after denial and before bargaining. Read more at the NYT
The NYT Sunday magazine also has a
story by Mark Leibovich discussing the tea party and its effect on the GOP. Gov. Charlie Crist, running for Senate, is loathed by the tea party. Why:
Tea Party rallies are filled with such purists, whose populist icons — Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News’s Glenn Beck — tend to be unburdened by the pressures of governing through a recession.
The republican party is being pulled in many directions:
Other than a contempt for the president — portrayed in signs as, among other things, a racist, a communist, a Nazi, a Muslim and someone who should “Go back to Kenya” — the most palpable resentment here for any individual was for Crist (“Obama’s BFF,” said one sign under a photo of “The Hug”). And after Palin, Rubio was the unmistakable angel of this crowd. I spotted several Rubio stickers and signs (and none for Crist). “Marco Rubio is the future of the conservative movement in this state, if not this country,” said Eileen Blackmer, a patient advocate who drove two hours from St. Petersburg. She wore a hat with six Lipton tea bags dangling from the rim and an “Ask me about Marco Rubio” sticker.
“Charlie Crist’s time has passed,” Blackmer said. “And Rubio’s support is strong and growing and committed.” She noted that Florida’s August primary will be “closed,” meaning that independents and Democrats who like Crist will not be able to vote. “Rubio’s support is hard core,” she went on to say, positing herself as an example. Blackmer will walk door to door and work booths and do anything she can to help a campaign that remains a skeletal operation with only six staff members across the state. “I don’t need to be paid, either,” she said. “We’re not Acorn.”
The so-called Republican establishment is under great duress, if not siege. “I do believe that our party has people trying to pull it in different directions,” says Jim Greer, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party. I spoke to him before the Republican dinner in Pensacola. He was sitting in a holding room before Crist arrived. NYT
