It's hard to believe that it is merely three years since the GOP cynically backed a bunck of naive radicals in the 2010 mid term elections. Since then, the loosely united mob that refers to itself as the "tea party" has wreaked havoc on the leaders of the party that recruited them. Along the way, they have shut down the Federal government (causing $20 billion in economic damage), and threatened the entire world economy with US default, not once, but twice! Only the rank arrogance and stupidity of the Bush adminstration when it was selling a trumped up case for war in the wrong country even comes close to this kind of political stupidity and irresponsibility. But the fight has not moved out of the home ring. After Mitch McConnell stated on national television that hostage taking was over and done, the "tea party" self appointed darling, Ted Cruz, contradicted him. Time was, no freshman Senator would dare attack the leader of his own party on national television. Time was, no Senator would be over in the other chamber whipping votes and promising the votes of colleagues that didn't exist. But Cruz respects neither the party he is in, the leaders he serves with, or the institution of the Senate itself. This has not set well with the Senate leadership. Nor has it set well with Wall Street, which has grown tired of watching the Republicans lurch from one self inflicted crisis to another. The Koch Brothers disavowed Cruz's efforts even before the default gambit collapsed. They had been bankrolling an intimidation plan against moderate Republican Congressmen for some time. But when it became clear to Wall Street that not only had Ted Cruz pulled the pin out of the grenade, he was perfectly willing to let it explode, something had to be done. The Kochs took their ball (and their cash) home, even before the game played out. The day after the GOP gambit finally collapsed (prolonged indecently by John Boehner's maneuvering to try and save his Speakership)., the US Chamber of Commerce, one of corporate America's stongest bastions, announced that it had had enough of the "tea party" and was willing to put its money into getting rid of it. The Wall Street Journal had an excellent article on the state of thinking out there in the lunatic fringe, and the clear message that the business community is sending back. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304799404579157472640303530 It's clear from reading about the neophytes and the snake oil salesman (Kibbe), that they have not learned from their defeat, and that the real power on the right is about to put them in their place.
I wonder if the Koch Brothers have sat little Teddy down and given him a talking-to. I guess not, because he's still off the rails.
The RINO's didn't recruit them. You must drink the red koolaid served up by that Pelosi (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) that claimed they were "astroturf", as if they were part of Clinton's rolling love-nest. The RINO's have repeatedly attempted to co-opt them and then go back to what they were doing before, killing America slowly, only to be dismayed that the Tea Party isn't going along. All you have to do is post some links to credible sites detailing how and when Hairy No Discernible Negro Dialect Reid became part of the Tea Party and your post won't look totally stupid, ignorant, and false. Oh. By the way, what condition did the House eventually put on their continuing resolutions sent to Hairy No Discernible Negro Dialect Reid? They were asking for a temporary delay to the MessiahCare Train Wreck and an end to special exemptions. What is King Obama and certain other RATS asking for, now that the MessiahCare Train Wreck is beginning to butt-(*)(*)(*)(*) millions and millions of people, while the corrupt back-deal firm that provided the website reveals what utter garbage you get when you let the government do something? Oh. That's right. King Obama and RATS are starting to request that their MessiahCare Train Wreck (they're calling it the ACA again, since King Obama doesn't want his own name on his own signature unconstitutional (*)(*)(*)(*) legislation now that people can see it's evil for themselves) get a delay...something that was "totally unacceptable" just two weeks ago. Hypocrite much, you people? Ah, you were required by law to include the "Bush's Fault" statement, weren't you?
No wonder I disagree with libs so much. They don't know their history. The GOP didn't back the Tea Party in 2010. Those old farts in the Washington Repub establishment were as surprised by the Tea Party success as the libs were.
Ouch! I agree with everything you wrote and yet even I winced at some of that. Harsh, but totally accurate. Also bloody brilliant! We all recall immediately after the 2010 mid term results a shaken President Obama admitting to the nation that he and the Dem leadership had just taken a political shellacking. What wasn't so very much bandied about, though, was that the tradition-minded GOP leadership received one as well, from the Tea Party Movement, which had not only gotten fed up with all those RINOsaurs, but did something about them. The GOP mainstream leadership (championed by the EVIL Karl Rove, by the way) were engaged in an all out battle for power and influence in this nation with disparate elements of the not even entirely unified Tea Party Movement . . . and had done some serious losing as a result. The mainstream GOP leadership hates the TPM much more than even Obama himself hates the TPers. People who actually paid attention to what was really happening, rather than just drank the Leftwing propaganda kool-Aid were aware of these things when they happened. I don't know what's in it for these leftwingers who start by lying to themselves about the nature of political realities before setting forth to lie to everyone else about them. But they must gain some sort of satisfaction from it.
One other thing that signals the delusional nature of the "tea party" mob is the core belief of its adherents that they thought this up on their own. We know our history quite well. In fact, there was no tea party movement until after the election of the current president, and the movement that emerged then was entirely a product of right wing poltical operators, lobbyists and oil interests. The party leadership was looking for a way to re energize the Bush dead enders (one of the posters on this thread was one of those, although he denies it now) Every one of the tea party organizations listed in this article had its origins on K Street, not Main Street. All the money, the busses, the pre printed signs, the phone banks and the websites came ready made from DC public relations operatives. And nearly all of the money came from fat cats in DC. Outside of Ron Paul, from whom the name tea party was stolen, not one of the movements adherents ever expressed any concern about fiscal responsibility or debt before the current president. This is all very well documented. It's not worth the trouble to keep denying it. But once the GOP had used the tea party groups it set up to take Congress, they abandoned the movement they helped create. The money dried up. Websites went dark, the busses stopped running. The problem for the GOP is that core messages in the tea party mish mosh resonated in red state America. Parochial nativism have been a hallmark of the red states since the days of William Jennings Bryan. Racism, is there too. Not promoted by the DC men behind the curtian (although race baiting has always been one of Roger Ailes' themes, even before Fox). It is not universal, but it appears so often at tea party events that it's ridiculous to deny. The naive belief that you can run a global technological power like some sort of agrarian Jeffersonian myth also goes way back. The tea party has no plan, and not much of a coherent platform. But they do have a set of rigid, but not very practical platitudes that they cling to. They also have no idea how government works, and no practical plan for making one work. Tea partiers can tell you what they're against, but they can't describe what they are four (beyond a few sentances) or how that's going to work. And the tea party audience is very fickle, rushing off to declare their collective allegience to a constant series of crackpot candidates. K Street has come back, though. Mainly because the recognize that they can make a lot of money pandering to this group. It makes of the core of Fox New's ageing white audience, and the networks panders to their slavish loyalty by promoting white resentment, a core theme of Fox for its entire existance. Websites like NewsMax, WND, Daily Caller have learned that tea partiers are a treasure trove to be exploited for cash. Fake groups like TeaParty.net and Tea Party Nation are outright frauds, run by operators who pocket the proceeds. The GOP has already learned that it can't do much beyond control the House of Representatives with this mob. It can't elect a President. In that respect, Ted Cruz is a perfect candidate. He shows every sign of being as obtuse as his current followers. Fox will give him air for the ratings. NewsMax will raise money off of him. But his chances of being anything more than another right wing media celebrity are just about nil.
You would have a point if that were actually true. But it isn't. Of course it wasn't bandied about on Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh or Fox News. None of these people have anything to gain by presenting honest analysis to an audience that has repeatedly shown that it has no interest in being told anything that it doesn't want to hear. In the smarter poltical journal, magazines and places like the NYT and the Post, this was very much a topic of conversation. We saw the tea party mob wagging the inside the beltway GOP dog. They deserve it.
I have grown very tired of being called a RINO by the rabid extreme right children known as the Tea Party. In my opinion this label fits far better plastered on their fore head than upon mine. Basically I do not wish to be associated with these people, and if that means abandoning the (R) completely.....I will do so.
I'm way ahead of you. I left the party in 2007, although I had not voted for a Republican in a national election since 1992. What did it for me was the rise of Gingrich, Limbaugh and Fox, all pandering to nativism and white resentment. After Gingrich shut the government down in 1996, I found it very hard to support polticians who would do such stupid and irresponsible things. I didn't vote for Bob Dole because I didn't think he had the stomach to stand up to these people. And without someone to stand up to these people, the GOP was headed to a very dark place. And so it has. They went from a government shutdown in 1994, to a trumped up impeachment in 1998, to the serial corruption of the Abramoff/De Lay era. By 2008, the party has so little respect for its followers that it put a tabloid reading, publicity seeking lightweight on the national ticket almost entirely because of her looks. After that, cynicism knew no limit. The GOP leadership got what it wanted when it pumped up the tea party mob in 2010. Now, it's getting what it deserves.
Psst . . . Delay's conviction was recently overturned and the court system concluded wellllllllllll after his political career had been destroyed that -- oops! -- he actually hadn't been -- you know -- guilty . . . after . . . all. Oh and aside from that your Tea Party rants have already been thoroughly bebunked -- yet again -- by at least two different posters this morning. What does it take, eh?
I think the Democrats will crap their collective pants, if the Tea Party makes big gains in 2014 at the expense of the "go along to get along" Rinos. You can gauge the fear by the level of venom being used. Do you guys hear much Democrat venom directed towards McCain these days?
The demise of the Tea Party is simply wishful thinking on the part of the OP. Once the full devastation from Obama Care is felt, he needs to worry far more about the Democrat party and it's upcoming disappearance. We heard the same cheer-leading before the 2010 mid-term and they still lost 69 seats in Congress, only gaining 10 back in 2012.
That's a long dissertation Tom. The Tea Party has certainly gotten your attention. The Republican establishment did not create the Tea Party except in the sense that ordinary Americans have had enough of business as usual in Washington. Clinton, Bush, Obama and democrats and republicans in congress created the Tea Party by their rank incompetence.
I left because of Gingrich, I really liked Pres Bush Sr, especially Sec State Baker, even think Cheney was one of the best Sec Def. Republicans have fallen from their perch because of Gingrich's policies and tactics, and with the likes of Armey and Delay, it has only become worse to the point of being unrecognized by the right today.
Unfortunately the employer mandate was delayed....Just wait until those policies start getting cancelled.
Hey Liberals, was it not the Tea Party which called Obamacare an unworkable abomination before everyone else joined the chorus? The way I see it, you Liberals owe Tea Party an apology, for it is working hard to save you from yourself
That's the huge irony, isn't it? In meaningful terms the Tea Party has been telling leftwingers the truth from the get-go while Obama and the Dem Leadership have been deliberately lying to them about Obamacare. Sweet!
I suppose if Hilarity gets the job next, we can look forward to another 8 years of divisive shenanigans and accusations of bigotry, but this time misogyny instead of racism, from the Tea Party and anyone who happens to agree with them. It's fun being held back politically by so-called progressives.
If you "know your history well", you would know the tea party movement started long before the election of the current president. Here's a reference to just one article, from October 1991: 'TEA PARTY' PROTESTS TAXATION, BUT DON'T EXPECT A REVOLUTION And another from 2007 Ron Paul raises millions in today's Boston Tea Party event Since you don't know your history well, the rest of your assertions are garbage.
Some day though the no longer quite so young and idealistically gullible aging leftwingers who once worshiped Obama as a demi-god while in college will start thinking about (just as a 'for instance') the differences between the way in which stable citizens Tea Party people actually conducted themselves as compared to how they are currently being TOLD that the TPers conduct themselves and then finally conclude, "Oh man, Obama and the media of the day and the entire Dem leadership flat out LIED to us!" Instant new conservatives.
Why would they? The Koch brothers and Ted Cruz are conservatives. The people off the rails and the true extremists are the liberals who only make up 21% of the country.
There is so much left wing propaganda and lies in this piece it's laughable. What is sad is that some of you posters actually buy this garbage. Stop! Radicals??? Really? First off "Radical" is a leftist term. "Reactionary" would have been the proper choice, even that is ridiculous. "Radicals" is an ignorant word choice. It is not "radical", "reactionary", or "extreme" to try and bring your country to fiscal responsibility. The RINO Establishment Republicans and the Liberal Democrats have run up a $17,000,000,000,000 National Debt with no plan to address it and with only a desire to RUN IT UP EVEN MORE! Now that my friends is EXTREME! What that does to our economy, future generations, and our ability to meet our obligations is EXTREMELY RADICAL. The desire of leftists to apply labels like this to the TEA Party just tells me that have no desire for an honest exchange as I will prove in my next entry. You establishment parasites that have supported the run up of the National Debt to more than $17,000,000,000,000 want to actually cry, whine, and get upset about the "$20 Billion dollar economic damage"? Are you serious? What a stupid talking point creating for "willing idiots" to repeat and believe. By the way, with the shut down the nation was NEVER in danger of not paying it's debts. We still take in $200,000,000,000 a month in tax revenue. We could have easily met our debt obligations. The rate down of credit we received was not because of the shut down. It was because establishment parasites REFUSED to make a plan to address the $17 TRILLION debt. That rate down lays solely at the feet of the establishment Democrats and Republicans. The lack of responsibility they have shown on fiscal matters is damaging our nation in significant ways. The next time anyone calls the TEA Party: Extreme, Radical, Reactionary, Terrorists, Arsonists, Spousal Abusers, or Extortionists.... let's all remember who actually got this nation to this economic death spiral and who actually has a solution to recover from it. PRO TIP: The establisment Democrats and Republicans have NO PLAN to deal with the National Debt. However, the TEA Party has endorsed the Mack Plan which will reduce just .01 of every dollar of the budget each year and balance the budget in 6 short years and have real impact on the National Debt. If we can throw out the Democrat and Republican "Extremists" who are work for Crony Capitalists, Big Unions, and Special Interest groups our nation has a chance of a huge turnaround and a return to being an economic powerhouse.
