To my fellow republicans (or anyone for that matter), I want to hear in your own words, what is wrong with the Tea Party? Why do you think it is some how detrimental to the GOP?
There's nothing wrong with the Tea Party other than the fact they don't want the GOP to be identical to the Democrats.
The Republcian party is an institution. The tea party is a mob. It's the same mob that the Republcian party and its allies in conservative media play like a violin for decades. It's the mob that is the core audience for Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Roger Ailes started it back in 1971, when he sold Richard Nixon his "Southern Strategy" It gained steam with the Moral Majority, and accelerated with the decision of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell to use the electronic pulpit to push the GOP. It gained more steam, as an entirely divided political culture began to evolve, led by Newt Gingrich on the political side, and Limbaugh and his imitators on the media side. The message has always been a combination of Archie Bunkerism laced with old fashioned televangelism. GOP operatives like Karl Rove, Ralph Reed and Grover Nordquist learned early on that they could punk this audience pretty easily, by regularly playing to a few hot button issues; uber nationtionalism, isolationism, fear of big city "elites" (even though the guys carrying the message are big city elites), social conservatism, a backwards and simplistic world view, and of course (but not for everyone) race. Those are the core elements of any day's episode of any number of right wing radio shows, and the stock in trade of Fox news. For two decades, the GOP could reliably turn out this far right base by playing these cards, and the base would turn out, and then go home,never seeming to care that the politicians they voted for stopped even thinking aobut right wing issues the day after the elections. As it became obvious that the Iraq war was a disaster, Rove needed a way to get the public to forget about it for the 2004 election. He played the right wing base card, and made the election about gay marriage. It worked, and Bush saved his job. The GOP immediately forgot about gay marriage. But the Iraq disaster, coupled with a marathon of serial graft, and an economic collapse caused in no small party by GOP policies, doomed the permanent GOP majority. The party, having spent the last thirty years ginning up the base in the hopes that it could use them to tip the balance, played the same card again with Sarah Palin. Palin was a perfect far right candidate. All looks, little substance, but huge ambition. She cared more about celebrity and money, and not a whit about public service. To an audience used to buying style over substance, she was ready made. To the rest of us, she was a walking expression of the cynicism of GOP leaders. Next was the invention of the tea party. Invention, in the sense that the dominant tea party groups of today have nothing to do with the little group of Ron Paul supporters after which they are misleadingly named. That tea party was a genuine group with some quaint views. The are fiscal conservatives, isolationists, and many of them are conspiracy theorists and gold bugs. This is not the group that TeaParty Express, TeaParty Nation,or Americans for Prosperity are a talking to. In fact, these people wish the Ron Paul people would go away. They do provide convenient cover,though. All the tea party groups taht suddenly appeared full blown out of nowhere in 2010 were corporate and consultant backed. All of them were, and still are, front groups for lobbyists and corporations. The Ron Paul crowd did provide cover in the form of their fiscal stance, and the corporations have used that as a prop for the base they are selling to. None of these people really care about fiscal responsibility. They all sat silent on the topic when Bush and Reagan together multiplied the national debt by a factor of six. Fiscal responsibility is a phrase that will completely disappear from the political dictionary the minute the GOP regains power. Look at any tea party site, and you see the same combination of appeals to simple minded patriotism, fear of anything that is not white, fear of urban "elites", a 1950's view of the world, social conservatism, and some race baiting thrown in for good measure. This isn't a recipe for success in a changing world. And many of the elites know that, and are now using the tea party for profit. Right wing organs like NewsMax and WND are constantly trying to think of new ways to get the base to part with its money. Prominent right wing politicians are now giving up public service to front these groups. Dick Armey got paid $800,000 in go away money to leave Tea Party Express, and Jim DeMint quit the Senate leadership in order to cash in on a multi million dollar deal to lead a Heritage Institute backed tea party front group. When party leaders abandon public service for easy cash, it's hard to hold a party together. And while the outlines of the tea party base are as easy to see as the crude signs at their rallies, they don't constitute anything more than a mob. Mobs only move nations during revolutions. And, with poll numbers in the low 20% range, the tea party isn't likely to have anyone standing with them. And the people who control the tea party message are all corporate elites, or conservative political elites, revolution is the last thing on their minds.
In 2008 a crazed non-thinking, but passionately emoting, MOB flung aside anything remotely connected to common sense to vote a first term U.S. Senator with zero meaningful national experience and no leadership or management experience into the most complex, challenging, and exhausting executive position on Earth of the most powerful nation in the history of humanity simply because he had a wide grin, an exquisite baritone, a ready quip always at hand, and because he routinely stole the thoughts of statesmen and claimed them as his own. Don't lecture the Right of Center poster NOR Centrists regarding the effects of cynical manipulation or long term propaganda efforts on mobs or mob mentalities. Just don't.
Let's see...... First term senators who went to the White House... John F Kennedy Harry S. Truman Barack Obama was not elected by a mob. He was elected by a very strong majority of Americans. And in his first four years, he managed to check quite a few boxes on his list of campaign promises. People evidently agreed, as they voted him back in by and even larger margin. Right now, people are nervous. They have no faith in the GOP leadership and they see the tea party as a bunch of dangerous backwards nuts. They're worried about the economy and health care. They will find that they're not going to suffer over health care, and they might be primed to vote for Democrats, since they know that the GOP won't lift a finger to deal with the shortcomings of Obamacare. The GOP would rather watch people suffer in the cause of right wing ideology, than make the system work. We have the 35 GOP states that refused to set up exchanges as evidence of that. The tea party, at least the mob we see here and on talk radio will be irrelevent in 2016. They're trying again in 2014, backed by a literal mountain of Koch Brother's cash. If this succeeds in continuing the polarization of the GOP, then people have a lot of good reasons to be nervous. After all, the only thing that the US has to show for the tea party victories of 2010 are a near default and a government shutdown. People who live in opposition, and lack clear leadership, or a coherent program, have nothing to offer when the time comes for them to step up and do the work.
I just about lost it on this one. He blew his wad on a healthcare bill no one wanted, and left himself politically bankrupt. What the hell are you talking about?
It's going to be funny watching you moan and cry after the tea party candidates Deebo the democrats and traitorous republicans in the coming election.
He extracted us from Mr Bush's war. He got the stimulus bill passed (dispite the best efforts of the GOP) He got the Affordable Care Act passed (and most Americans DID support health care reform). And he killed Osama Bin Laden. What has the tea party done?
They won't. Since the tea party mob is all white and all right wing, you'll only see them in Republican races. They may drive the GOP even further into dysfunction than it is now, but that's about all, they'll do. A movement with no leaders, no ideas, and no plan is worthless when its time to govern. We have four years of experience with elected tea partiers now as evidence.
The tea party is a bunch of fat old white republicans that because they were too lazy to mow their own lawn and clean their own house brought immigrants in and gave the future national politic to the democrats.
The Tea Party is hated for being for more freedom and less government (the perception is that the welfare state is in jeopardy and the lives of the entitled with it) but the Left wants us to think they should be hated for being a bunch of bigots. We could be speaking of a purely secular pro-free market organization that supports abortion and gay rights and the left would still hate them. How do I know? Mention Ayn Rand in any thread and see what happens.
Ok, lets look at the Tea Party. Many on the Left want t make them out as racist. Lets look at their signs and see just how racist they are and what they want. http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bl-tea-party-signs.htm Click on picture to change signs. These are called the 10 most offensive Tea Party signs by Left leaning Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/16/10-most-offensive-tea-par_n_187554.html#slide=more1398 They sure do look like a angry racist mob don't they?
Yes, they do. Not all of them are racists. But there are a lot of racists in the tea party. We see it here every day. I addressed the difference between the Ron Paul tea party and the one that we see here all the time. They aren't the same thing, although the latter group tries to pretend they're part of the former group. - - - Updated - - - This is what the tea party stands for: View attachment 25132
I'm not a GOPer but the problem isn't with your beliefs, it's with the fact that nothing gets done. Now to be fair this isn't the tea party's fault, it's the actions of a few people. But in the end we can say that the tea party is edging them on.
I just posted the most rediculas and the most offensive Tea Party signs the Left came up with. Next to none were racist. Most of the people were young Whites, not fat old White people. Their big message was don't tax us to death, live within our means. Don't rob Peter to pay Paul.How bad is their message? Listening to the Democratic Party, you would think the Tea Party was nothing but a bunch of big, fat White Racist Party that wants to do the country in. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
There is a good explanation why there are few Blacks in the Tea Party and most are Democrats? If you give it a little bit of thought, it isn't hard to figure out.
See? That's your problem. You only THINK we elected him because of a wide grin, an exquisite baritone voice, a ready quip always at hand, etc. etc.! LMAO! If he would have had management experience, you guys would have moved the goal posts and claimed it wasn't enough. So go play your games with less smarter people! - - - Updated - - - Yes, its not hard to figure out that blacks like democrats because democrats like them back.
Your post also included a lot of Mexihate rants and a few racist dog whistles as well. - - - Updated - - - Oh no! Please explain it to us.
Taxcutter says: The only box he genuinely checked off was "Energy prices will necessarily skyrocket."
