Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
The New York Times has a rather bizarre op-ed claiming that the Tea Party's problems are due to their relentless push on social issues. No examples of this relentless push are given, as John Podhoretz notes in his critique "High-Flown Nonsense About The Tea Party."
But what I found interesting from the op-ed was this:
Americans have moved in an economically conservative direction: they are more likely to favor smaller government, to oppose redistribution of income and to favor private charities over government to aid the poor.
With the media's obvious bias against these ideas and the people who promote them, it can be difficult to remember the success these arguments are having.
If you could have favorable ratings for the "Tea Party" or support for a government limited in size and scope, which would you rather have?
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Mar '11
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.:
If you could have favorable ratings for the "Tea Party" or support for a government limited in size and scope, which would you rather have? ·
Eh? The whole point of the "Tea Party" is support for government limited in size and scope. The social issues are a very distant second - at least at the Tucson events I have been to.
Edited on Aug 17, 2011 at 8:42amSep '10
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
I can think of no more certain sign of success than to be the target of a distorting and mendacious op-ed in the New York Times.
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
How about outright contempt for the Tea Party and a government ACTUALLY limited in size and scope, Mollie.
And BIZARRE is right. (Or left in this case.) This is the "scientific" way they went about finding out who Tea Partiers really are:
"Beginning in 2006 we interviewed a representative sample of 3,000 Americans as part of our continuing research into national political attitudes, and we returned to interview many of the same people again this summer. As a result, we can look at what people told us, long before there was a Tea Party, to predict who would become a Tea Party supporter five years later."
And their findings from these "representative Americans"?
"So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do."
No where did these egg heads say they actually TALKED to Tea Party members. I guess that would be considered dangerous field work.
Apr '11
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
Spengler Dons Pajamas
Apr '11
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
The problem with favorable or unfavorable ratings for the Tea Party is the said group is not a "party" in a sense like Democrats, Republicans, or even like the Moral Majority of the past. There's several claims as to who started them, but there's a large number of groups with varying ideas. Moreover, those with a bias against ideas supported by the Tea Party as a general whole tend to paint a poor picture of the group.
Thus I'm glad that the ideas are gaining support, and that, to me, is more hopeful than waxing support for the Tea Party.
Feb '11
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
We're so desperate for even a tiny victory that we understandably focus on these ideological wins. But we're a loooooong way from actually seeing a federal budget that is smaller than the previous one. We're arguing about slowing the rate of growth of spending with the hopes that that will translate into actual reductions later.
I know a lot of moderate swing voters who would never conceive of a world without Medicare. We're not winning the debate. But at least we've entered it. We've got a long way to go, and I suspect we're late and therefore doomed.
Mar '11
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
Just so we have some context here, primarily because this appeared in the NYT, Robert Putnam, one of the authors, is definitely not your conventional Leftist ideologue. Much of his published work has focused on the dearth of civics education, the collapse of trust in institutions, the fragmentation of society and the moral crisis that he sees at the heart of these social problems. These, I would say, are all 'socially conservative' fields of study in the broad sense. His book, Bowling Alone, is very much in this vein.
As regards this particular article, there does seem to be a heavy underlying distate toward the Tea Party, which is admittedly off-putting. But trying to put that aside, I suspect the polling data is what it is because of some of the personalities that have gotten the most attention as "The Leaders of the Tea Party". Its not the agenda that people find offputting (interestingly), but it is the identity politics.
Which brings me to Podhoretz's article with which I have some sympathy. But, John, there's no evidence that the Tea Party has put forward a socially conservative agenda? Um, exhibits A and B: Bachmann and Perry?
Feb '11
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
[duplicate post]
Edited on Aug 17, 2011 at 9:16amSep '10
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
No where did these egg heads say they actually TALKED to Tea Party members. I guess that would be considered dangerous field work.
In the next installment of The New York Times anthropological exploration series of investigative reports called Conservatives In the Mist, watch as the Gray Lady hires the ghost of Marlin Perkins and special correspondent Jim Fowler to watch, film and possibly trap the elusive and oft times dangerous conservatives in their natural habitat -- throwing hand grenades at the poor, beating confessions out of visible minorities who have not been read their Miranda rights, and blowing up abortion clinics all over the lower East side of Manhattan.
Jul '10
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
The Tea Party is the means, limited government is the end. If the New York Times were singing the Tea Party's praises, either they or the Tea Party would have become something fundamentally different than what they are today.
As for Tea Party credentials, I find little in the national Tea Party chatter to suggest that Perry is accepted by the Tea Party as Tea Party. The concerns on the Gardasil vaccination issue (best articulated by Michelle Malkin here), his support of in-state tuition benefits for illegal aliens, and his conduct in eminent domain battles related to the Trans-Texas Corridor, a toll highway project to better connect Texas cities. The Corridor project was targeted by anti-NAFTA and anti illegal immigration factors. There are also the usual fog of corporate crony accusations. Those require serious delving to assess, anyone accomplishing anything in public office can be plausibly accused of cronyism at some level somewhere. Malkin's piece makes the case on the Gardasil issue.
He lost on Gardasil with the legislature and the Corridor effort died of expensive federal environmental concerns in 2010.
Is there a governor in the nation that can achieve consensus Tea Party support?
Oct '10
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
Isn't that a bit like saying the NRA is pro-life because some high-profile candidates endorsed by them also hold that stance?
Perhaps I'm just romantic in still believing that the Tea Party is just folks, and all the "Tea Party Leaders" and "Tea Party Candidates" are self- and/or media-selected figureheads.
It's this perspective that makes me relatively sanguine about the media and elites hitjobs on the Tea Party - there is no organisation to cripple, no infrastructure to undermine, no leaders to drive away. All you have to do to be a Tea Party member is believe Tea Party stuff. If the label 'Tea Party' is fatally poisoned by the propagandists, well, start using a new one - you'll still be believing the same stuff, and no-one is really credibly attacking the ideas...
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
Crow's Nest:
Which brings me to Podhoretz's article with which I have some sympathy. But, John, there's no evidence that the Tea Party has put forward a socially conservative agenda? Um, exhibits A and B: Bachmann and Perry? · Aug 17 at 9:14am
Both of these candidates preceded the the Tea Party movement but I don't see evidence that their social conservatism is being "put forward" by the "Tea Party." In fact, I'd say it's closer to the opposite. Tea Party rhetoric emphasizes the size and scope of government and the out-of-control deficit and spending. Certainly Tea Party adherents might share other traits but that doesn't mean those other things are being put front and center by the movement.
Mar '11
Re: Tea Party Ideas Are Winning
Mollie: There's absolutely no doubt that the first issue on the plate of the Tea Party has been the size of government and of the debt, and that it is a broad coalition that is more united on size of government than social issues.
Where I take issue with John is this langague: "This analysis is, in a word, preposterous, as the fact that they can’t point to a single instance in the past year in which the “Tea Party” has pushed a socially conservative agenda attests."
Now, if what John means is that the Tea Party didn't coalesce in late 2010 around the repeal of DADT, but rather years earlier on spending issues, then he is correct. The Tea Party has not put social issues before economic issues, or pushed major socially conservative legislation.
But the notion that it is preposterous to talk about a socially conservative agenda within the Tea Party, when Michele Bachmann (a very conservative Christian who has been very vocal about her evangelicalism) is the most visible incarnation of it nationally (including leading the caucus of that name in the Congress and thereby appropriating the label herself) is plain wrong.