#TeaParty v. #OWS: a tale of two movements

The Tea Party is a new iteration of a long-standing political tradition, classically defined as the "paranoid style" by historian Richard Hofstadter: a pot of conspiracy thinking leavened with a healthy dollop of nativism and covered with a poujadist lid. Far from being an independent political movement, the Tea Party is a creature of the Republican Party and has always sought its nirvana on the happy hunting grounds of right-wing conservative fears: fear of government, fear of a black President, fear of gays, fear of Mexicans, fear of Muslims. Establishment Republicans love the energy but loathe the substance of the Tea Party, just as level headed Republicans sought distance from the mania of Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.

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The #OWS crowd is the typical mix of left-wing and progressive causes one finds at any large demo. The symbolism of the mass gathering is, however, losing its efficacy as a carrier of political meaning. It is telling that only confrontations with baton-wielding and mace-spraying police (as opposed to Blackberry-wielding and derivatives-spraying financiers) have brought it wider attention: alas, the police don't run "Wall Street" or crash the Lehmann Brothers of the world. At some point, enlightened elements of the #OWS will figure out that engagement with the Democrats is the only means to bring about practical reforms. Clever Democratic politicians would be wise to leverage this left-wing angst. But short of an actual revolution, no new form of people's capitalism is likely to emerge and the youth of the nation must grow accustomed to conditions of scarcity that have beset most people at most times in history. The golden years of the housing and credit bubbles are gone forever.

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Life in a declining empire: get acclimated

the profits of character assassination

Republicans, and certain Tea Party leaders, who use words and images irresponsibly, know exactly what they're doing when they walk along the thin line demarcating civility and barbarism. They intend to incite passions and to demonize opponents, and they have been fairly successful on both accounts. The question that should be put to them, after the carnage in Tucson, is this: was it worth it?

contradictions of the insanity defense

The Tea Party and its fellow travelers will hit the “mental illness” explanation as hard as the alleged shooter’s likely legal defense team; which will be curious, since law and order Republicans will likely decry such a defense. Hence, we could witness the following display of doublespeak from Republicans and Tea Party extremists: the alleged shooter is insane, he is not part of the anti-government movement; but the alleged shooter is sane enough to face trial and, potentially, capital punishment. It will be interesting to see how these two opposed claims will be reconciled.

Sarah Palin's chickens...

have come home to roost. It comes as no surprise that reckless, anti-government rhetoric has inspired violent action.

“We’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list,” Ms. Giffords said last March. “But the thing is the way that she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that.”

I suspect Palin will turn this shooting into a political advantage. She'll make herself out as the victim of the "liberal media" for associating her with the attack on the Congressperson. She'll play the liberal media card while serving as a paid Fox News analyst, probably on Sean Hannity's program.

Meanwhile, Eric Cantor (the Republican House Majority leader) has wisely postponed debate on the proposed total repeal of “Obamacare,” which was the object of most of the Tea Party's symbolic violence. He's likely aware the extremist rhetoric that House Republicans -- newly infused by Tea Party supported members -- deployed last year would not play well with the American public under the circumstances. Who knows how the rhetoric will be reshaped.

the democrats' waterloo or the republicans' antietam?

Tomorrow’s mid-term election portends to be the end of American civilization.

Or not. It will be interesting to watch how these Tea Partysan candidates, who, paradoxically and unconsciously, are running for governing positions on an anti-government platform, will actually function once in government and seated among other governing Republicans. The anti-governmentarians will be a rump within the Republican caucus and they will either consign themselves to irrelevance by holding to their fantastical visions of democratic politics and to their “angry mob” symbolics (and one must consider how much of this anger is real and how much of it is show for the purpose of getting elected by a purportedly angry electorate, as depicted by emocons like Glenn Beck); or they will adapt to business as usual, which means governing according to the principle of compromise (i.e. according to an ethic of responsibility) rather than according to the principle of non-compromise (i.e. according to an ethic of conviction). I suspect they'll soon be fighting to distribute “pork” just like other piggish Democrats and Republicans have for quite a long time now.

However, it is interesting how much the war in Afghanistan is a non-issue, given its costs in human and economic capital.

One foreign policy issue does cut close(r) to home. Insofar as the Mexican diaspora is construed as a terrorist threat, I do expect the new Republican majority to get down to building a Great Wall on the southern border and to seek, at the national level, something akin to Arizona's SB 1070.

palling around with Paladino

Mr Paladino is the face of the new Republican Party, which has been infused by Tea Partysan resentment (the losers of recent American history). There was a time when Republican candidates would have expresses their various antipathies towards racial and sexual minorities (not to mention women) in indirect ways, using code words or euphemisms. But now that strategy is associated with the despised RINOcrats, the "weaklings" whom Tea Partysans seek to eliminate. Today it's good to be mavericky and to be rude and offensive, which is the form that "political correctness" takes for the Baggers: in other words, it's politically correct to be uncivil. Then, when the so-called MSM responds, one can always claim victimhood. It's a winning strategy: perp at one moment, victim of a media crime the next.

the year of reading tea leaves IX: the emocons

Regarding emotion, it is worth noting that a trend has emerged from the conservative milieu that may portend a new political orientation -- if not a new political style -- in American politics. Nine years ago, the "neocons" rose to power, bringing with them a confident and assertive view of America's place in the world. The "new American century" called for forceful action from the world's only superpower; and by pulling off the invasion of Iraq (a plan laid out in position papers during the 1990s), the new American centurions didn't allow a crisis to go to waste.

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A mere six years after the shock and awe of March 2003 and the triumphant days that followed the fall of Baghdad, the neocons and their grand vision have been swept away. However, a new group has stepped into the political void, a group that could be called the "emocons," whose affect-laden public discourse stands in marked contrast to the aggressive, self-confidence seen in the typical neocon performances of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, et al. The emocons have taken their place on the public stage in a variety roles, as politicians, as pundits, as police officers demanding public apologies, and even as ordinary citizens. The heartfelt emotion portrayed in the tearful performances of Glenn Beck is echoed by the Delaware “Birther” who cried out, during a public meeting, “I want my country back,” like a child who has had her favorite toy taken away (fortunately, the aggrieved Birther found comfort in a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance). Yet, it is the emergence of emocon politicians in recent months that has been most striking: from Die Leiden des mittelältlichen Sanfords, the South Carolina governor who found himself torn between two lovers, whose copious tears held viewers of his unscripted press conference riveted, and whose passionate emails to his “soulmate” from the Southern Hemisphere offered a modest challenge to the lyricism achieved by Goethe (or The Young and the Restless); to the pouting visage of Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R- Alabama) as he sat -- passive-aggressively -- in confrontation with a Latina who declared herself to be wiser than him; to Governor Palin’s star turn as a sympathetic (not empathetic) victim of the machinations of Hollywood (i.e., anti-hunting, anti-gun actors), of New York (i.e., The Media, also known as those who are “makin’ things up” about her), and of Washington D.C. (i.e., elected officials who are currently exercising the authority granted to them by “the People” -- as per the Constitution -- as a result of free elections). It is not clear whether the emocons have a common agenda or set of policy prescriptions apart from tugging at the heartstrings of the American public. But the pathos and bathos of this group is certainly fun to watch.

the year of reading tea leaves VIII: Palin

She's mastered the new political medium created by 24/7 cable news, blogs, etc., an over-caffeinated world in which half-truths, spin, winking falsehoods, and simmering status resentment constitute a fair and balanced communicative style. She is a celebrity, hence her life, her private life, is as much a part of her political brand as her policy positions and accomplishments in Alaska. Her propensity to respond to what appear to be trivial snipes, things ordinary politicians would ordinarily ignore, is a continuation of the persona that was presented in 2008: hockey mom, political maverick, and all-around western tough gal. She's anything but an ordinary politician. Her legend is enhanced by (1) the fact that she's a 'target' and (2) that she responds in kind (she's no weak-kneed libral). In the play book of contemporary Republican politics, if you're a target of ridicule in the mythical MSM, you are part of the real America, you are an authentic conservative (not one of those country club types who speak in sonorous tones -- and in complete sentences -- on the floor of the Senate), and you are a promising presidential candidate. I can easily imagine a Republican fantasy ticket of Palin/Prejean in 2012.

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Andre Agassi's tag line in the Canon ads "Image is everything" fits the new political reality. I think, at this point, Palin is famous for being famous and not much else. It is an open question of whether this "category" can sustain a presidential candidacy through the Republican primaries and debates. It appeared to me that the candidacy of Fred Thompson, which flamed out because he seemed to lack energy and interest in politics, was premised on being famous (a star of the big and small screens). Palin doesn't lack energy or a willingness to joust. It might come down to the question of which candidate is more likely to keep Republican primary voters awake during twenty two-hour debates: Romney, Pawlenty, or Palin? I'm betting on the former Alaska Governor.

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Outside of ultra-conservative chavs (who are not a majority among Republican voters . . . unless the birthers movement takes off unexpectedly), I don't see much support for Palin, going forward, in the Republican Party. She's anti-pork, so she would cut off the flow of milk to Alaska from the federal government teat. Could she even carry Alaska in a general election? She has a better chance of making a boatload of money using the media to bash the media, one of those performative contradictions that have marked her public persona since last August: she opposes the "politics of personal destruction" yet seeks to destroy her liberal opponents in a silly slurry of anti-American accusations; she's a fighter who nonetheless quits; a hockey mom who fancies Neiman Marcus; a momma Grizzly bear who protects her cubs, yet exposes them -- using them as political props -- to the harsh glare of the media; a family values candidate who publicly trashes the father of her grandchild; an avatar of abstinence, who allows non-same sex sleepovers under her own roof.

the year of reading tea leaves VII: violent tea

It could be that the USA is in the midst of conservative days of rage that recall the period of uncivil unrest that occurred in the wake of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Those Tea Partysans who are unable to contain their disappointment over a legislative defeat appear willing to cross over the line from a peaceful remonstration of grievances into violent opposition. Even “Pro-Life” conservatives have turned on other Pro-Life politicians who are now deemed “baby killers” because they wrangled an executive order banning the use of federal funds for abortion from a pro-choice President (and in the screwy logic of the contemporary conservative base of the Republican party, what would otherwise be treated as a victory is viewed as a defeat or, worse, as a traitorous surrender). The overlapping membership of the remnants of 1990s militias and the newly-minted extremists within the Tea Party camp could lead to the formation of groups analogous to the Weathermen/Weather Underground. Whereas the Weather Underground’s theory of the legitimate use of political violence was fueled by Marxist-Leninist theory, copious quantities of pot, LSD, and polymorphous perversion, today’s incipient Rogue Underground is driven by apocalyptic visions of death panels and hidden Muslim agents, Hitler and the Anti-Christ -- all embodied in the Affordable Health Care for America Act -- and fueled by a collective memory of rage that was stoked when the Branch Davidians were consumed in the cleansing fires of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’s secular purgatorium. Similar to the Weather Underground, which possessed a photogenic and charismatic frontperson in Bernadette Dohrn, a conservative Rogue Underground can already claim a candidate with similar qualities as the attractive face of its armed resistance.

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It would be interesting to know whether, and how deeply, the FBI has infiltrated the Tea Party organizations.

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Lacking moderate voices among their membership, the Republican party has only one option as long as it is out of power: total, absolute, non-cooperation. That is understandable, even rational. However, the way in which it pursues non-cooperation is curious, especially the use of slogans and distortions of reality that only invigorate the less emotionally stable segments of its political base. Republicans only paint themselves into a corner. It's been said many times before: if Republican legislators insists on describing the Affordable Health Care for America Act as a threat to American democracy and values, as a government takeover, and as socialist, then there's no way these legislators can contribute positively to such a piece of legislation, and the rhetoric will be impelled further into loon land. And the loons will come out to play.

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Also curious is the way the once staid, emotionally controlled presentation of the Republican Party has morphed into an uninhibited expression of feelings and a political style that exhibits the characteristics of a new form of secondary narcissism. In The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch described the shift in the type of patient who presented him/herself for psychoanalytic treatment: "Psychoanalysis, a therapy that grew out of experience with severely repressed and morally rigid individuals who needed to come to terms with a rigorous inner 'censor,' today finds itself confronted more and more often with a 'chaotic and impulse-ridden character.' It must deal with patients who 'act out' their conflicts instead of repressing or sublimating them." Todays Republican politician, no less than the Tea Partysan that is her de facto mirror-image, now presents similar characteristics. The Republican politician reacts impulsively to disappointments, and "acts out" against the agency (whichever one is found to be handy at any given moment: "liberals," Obama, ACORN, unions, Pelosi, "Hollywood," "illegal immigrants," the "mainstream media," etc.) that is perceived to be the source of disappointment through the use of disparaging language that reaches for the worst metaphors of political degradation. The emocons of today are no longer able to sublimate frustrations and anger, and their rage boils over on the floor of the House ("baby killer"), in town hall meetings, at Tea Partysan gatherings, and on voice mail left for members of Congress ("I hope you bleed ... (get) cancer and die"). None of this is new, of course: paranoid style rage against the changing political cultural circumstances is older than McCarthyism, the clinic bombings, and Tim McVeigh. What is new is the open embrace of a discourse of victimhood, of victimization, from the conservative milieu. The fear of victimization is the emotional anchor of conservative politics today, a sense of victimization conservatives enable through their refusal to participate in the political process like responsible legislators and citizens.

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Individuals identifiable with the Tea Party-Patriot tendency now feel entitled to attack governmental authority using symbolic and physical violence (if necessary). This new violence entitlement, often claimed in the name of Jesus, the Second Amendment, or Ayn Rand, has, unfortunately, been given comfort by mainline Republicans (who should know better) and by rogue conservatives (who don't know any better).

the year of reading tea leaves VI: Republicans

The Republicans' main recommendation for reducing deficits is to ban earmarks. However, they did talk a good game about cutting government spending, making government smaller, etc., when they had control of the White House and Congress. This has earned them the reputation as being the party of small government. Or was that just Ron Paul? Anyway, the Department of Homeland Security wasn't created on their watch.

Tea Partysans use this apparent hypocrisy of the establishment Republicans as a rallying cry and allegedly this is a sign that they are not simply the shock troops of the Republican Party (although they welcome establishment Republicans to their rallies and national conventions and pay at least one of them – the prodigal, former Rogue-Governor – handsomely). They would happily rid the nation of the FDA, FBI, CIA, Social Security Administration, Medicare (although it seems most of the Tea Partysans are receiving it), Homeland Security, FCC (because they don't care whether porn films are shown at 7pm on all networks), etc. Back to 1790, when a muzzleloader and the Bible were all the government one needed.

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I think coherence (such as it is) will come in the form of votes for Republican Party candidates. Now these Republican candidates, running as "rogues", will appeal to already existing incoherent Tea Partysan "ideals". Once in office, these rogue Republicans will make symbolic gestures towards this new base fraction, such as speeches about succession, the introduction of Constitutional amendments that have no chance of passage (for example, one that would abolish the IRS or abolish the 17th amendment) and the like; the same sort of thing Reagan did to appease his social conservative base (i.e., support a pro-life amendment in words, but not in deeds). But they'll vote with the establishment Republican bloc, will attach earmarks for their districts and states. Business as usual, American democracy in action.

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The following passage in Steinfels's old book on The Neoconservatives seems apt as a description of the present state of contemporary American conservatism (as it is manifested by the Republican Party and its Tea Partysan allies).

In our time the classic statement of the benefits to be secured in taking one's political adversaries seriously -- and in having political adversaries worthy of being taken seriously in the first place -- is found in Lionel Trilling's preface to The Liberal Imagination. Trilling begins with the observation that has since become the commonplace we already noted: 'In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition.' Such a situation poses two dangers. First, the absence of conservative or reactionary ideas 'does not mean, of course, that there is no impulse to conservatism or to reaction.' It simply means that such impulses do not 'express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.' They may do worse, for 'it is just when a movement despairs of having ideas that it turns to force.'

Trilling’s vision of the character of opposition to the dominant liberal tradition captures almost exactly the current reaction to the liberal political order of the moment: "irritable mental gestures” which only vaguely resemble ideas sums up the Tea Party movement. However, one should notice an additional element in the current reaction against the liberal tradition (or, rather, the reaction within the liberal tradition). The motive force behind these gestures is religious, not in the sense of organized religion or any particular body of faith, but rather in the structural sense of actions motivated by the force of a collective idea that is not susceptible to the test of (its) reality. Today's conservative and/or Republican political vision is fundamentally chiliastic. And even if the predicted doomsday never arrives, the fundamental faith in fear is not shaken. The Tea Party charivari blithely staggers on.

the year of reading tea leaves V: political style

What I think distinguishes my analysis from that of Hofstadter and Lipset (but primarily Hofstadter) is that I think there is a reasonable element in economic and social status anxiety. One is not a kook, a paranoiac, or an extremist for worrying about one's present and future in economic and social terms. Where the Hofstadterian analysis is useful, I think, is in characterizing the modality through which these otherwise rational concerns are articulated. And, hence, the lack of interest in genuine debate is a telling sign of something like a paranoid style. The demonization of political opponents is also a sign of this style.

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So whereas randomly sampled Republicans may identify with some of the opinions expressed by the Tea Party, they are not necessarily likely to turn up at a rally with a poster that refers to the President by a racial slur. However, the activists in the Tea Party (and some segment of its rank and file), who may not be identical demographically with the individuals sampled by the NY Times poll, appear to be more extreme, open to expressing their concerns in extremist images and words. And more disturbing to me is the presence of Republican politicians who also seem willing to engage in (if not incite) the same mode of symbolic violence that pops up during Tea Partysan events.

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Why does the anxious, white, middle-class college-educated male not argue in favor of an expansion of Medicare, a peace dividend dedicated to funding library construction, and amnesty for the immigrant underclass that services his comfortable lifestyle? I think the key factor here is that not all individuals of this sort react in this manner or hold these views. However, those who do also have a party identification that is Republican. They have an ideological framework (a justice frame) within which to make sense of their predicament: government is to blame. This has been the conservative mantra since Reagan. Government is given faces: Pelosi, Reid, Obama. These three individuals by themselves have created all sorts of problems, some of which will arrive on a Day of Reckoning, the national domesday that will occur at some unspecific point in the distant future. Why is this happening? Because Pelosi, Reid, and Obama are socialists.

Continue a bit further down this rabbit hole and one winds up at a Tea Party event, cheering Palin, Bachmann and Beck, wearing a silly hat, and holding a poster with a misspelled, uncivil message.

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The Tea Party is clearly more than a tax rebellion, given the Partysans' obsession with birth certificates and other symbolic phenomena that reach far beyond the vagaries of deficit spending and the income tax. It is part poujadisme, and part classic American paranoid style, the latter of which is manifested in the Chicken Little Syndrome that infuses Tea Partysan and Teapublican rhetoric. If one were to turn over some of the Partysans, old-fashioned Dixiecrats would crawl out.

the year of reading tea leaves IV: tea-mography

I wonder if it's true that wealthy, well-educated Republicans are the ones seen at Tea Partysan events bearing signs equating Obama with Hitler, etc. On the one hand, if it is true, then we should be very afraid, because it would show that such extremist forms of political expression are now part of the mainstream Republican thinking of mainstream (i.e., wealthier, better educated) Republican voters. On the other hand, one might be encouraged by the profile of the average person who is an adherent of Tea Partysan activism: it means people who are not male, not identified as a Republican, and who are under age 45 (which would be the majority of all Americans) are not now and are unlikely to be persuaded to drink the Tea.

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"Better educated" usually translates into a measurement of years of schooling (i.e., educational attainment), which does correlate with (but which does not mean causes) different levels of wealth attainment. The Statistical Abstracts of the United States shows this pattern descriptively. The less interesting statistical analysis involves the relationship between educational attainment and wealth (which typically means income, not assets). The more interesting statistical analysis would involve the relationship between educational attainment, wealth, and ideological disposition. In this particular case, the research questions would be: (1) are individuals with higher levels of educational attainment and income more likely to identify with the ideology (inasmuch as one exists) of the Tea Party than individuals with lower levels of educational attainment and income? And: (2) are identification with the Republican party, being a male, being "white," and being over 40 years old, the most significant variables in a statistical model that includes educational attainment, income, and Tea Party ideology? A reasonable guess is that Republican Party identification, being male, being "white", and being over 40 carry more weight than educational attainment and income as a predictor of identification with Tea Party ideology.

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Despite all of the claims that the Tea Party is comprised of political independents, the Tea Partysans have always pursued their prey on the happy hunting grounds of the Republican tribe. It is no accident that the Tea Partysans target Democratic politicians for defeat and support candidates whose platform is indistinguishable from Republicans or candidates who are Republicans. The Tea Party demographic is basically Republican voters of a certain age, gender, race, educational attainment level, and income level who are facing a decline in their economic status (due to macro-economic trends and the financial crisis of 2008), which has implications for their social status. This reasonable economic and social status anxiety is exaggerated (i.e., raised to a fever pitch) by the presence of a liberal President with a strange name and a democratically-elected Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress. Hence, despite Ross Douthat’s fantasies, the Tea Party activists are nothing more than the shock troops of the Republican party, a new set of shock troops who will replace deployments of aging, economically less successful and less educated social conservative shock troops who have manned the barricades against secular liberalism (read godless socialism) since the mid-1970s. In other words: the Tea Party phenomenon is the Newest New Right, following in the footsteps of McCarthyite Anti-Communism, Goldwater Conservatism, and Moral Majoritarianism.

zwischenbetrachtung: the seduction of Ross Douthat

In an Op-Ed “The Seduction of the Tea Partiers,” Ross Douthat complains that “House Republicans have adopted the atmospherics of the Tea Party movement, but they’ve evaded its most admirable substance.” He describes the Tea Partysans as follows:

The Tea Party is a grass-roots movement — wild, woolly and chaotic — which sometimes makes it hard to figure out exactly what it stands for. But to the extent that the movement boasts a single animating idea, it’s the conviction that the Republicans as much as the Democrats have been an accessory to the growth of spending and deficits, and that the Republican establishment needs to be punished for straying from fiscal rectitude.

The Tea Partiers have a point. Officially, the Republican Party stands for low taxes and limited government. But save during the gridlocked 1990s, Republican majorities and Republican presidents have tended to pass tax cuts while putting off spending cuts till a tomorrow that never comes.

Douthat asserts that “Conservatives have justified this failure with two incompatible theories. One is the “starve the beast” conceit, which holds that cutting taxes will force government spending downward. The other is the happy idea that tax cuts actually increase government revenue, making deficit anxieties irrelevant.” He expends a fair amount of newsprint attacking the case Republicans make for tax cuts. In his view, they are simply coopting the Tea Partysan message for political gain that will not bring about reduced government spending.

But having maligned Republican arguments for tax cuts, what does he offer in support of the Tea Partysans?

Their eccentric elements notwithstanding, the Tea Parties have something vital to offer the country: a vocal, activist constituency for spending cuts at a time when politicians desperately need to have their spines stiffened on the issue. But it’s all too easy to imagine the movement (which, after all, includes a lot of Social Security and Medicare recipients!) being seduced with rhetorical nods to the Constitution, and general promises of spending discipline that never get specific.

So far so good. But Douthat never gets around to explaining the Tea Partysan’s case for spending cuts. For good reason: they have none. It seems that the absence of a rationale for spending cuts is preferable to having a rationale, even if a failed one, for tax cuts. The Tea Partysans have no political theory to back their position. Douthat has been seduced by the mere gestures of a movement that lacks substance. The eccentric wheel gets Douthat’s journalistic grease.

the year of reading tea leaves III: love and hate

The German language is unfairly maligned when the worst phrases are said to sound better in it. Certainly "We need to purge the weaklings" (said Tea Party Express 3 Chairman Mark Williams of the RINOs: Republicans In Name Only) would have sounded better in the original Blubo (Blut und Boden) German of the NS-Zeit. But if we are not bound to the pessimism of Adorno concerning the fascist debasement of language, and the barbarism of writing poetry after Auschwitz, one could just as easily say the obsession with weaklings or others said to undermine the community or nation is as American as apple pie and Father Joseph Coughlin. Nonetheless, the integrity of language can be restored (albeit with difficulty) no matter how debased it becomes in the hands of the political entrepreneurs du jour.

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Perhaps one should not hold the neue Tee-Patrioten up to standards they can never meet, such as honesty, ethical consistency, and echt constitutional patriotism. Of course, they can be charged with being self-serving, with representing a false claim of universality, or wilfully neglecting the fact that the political process remains legitimate even when one's side "loses" and loses badly (perhaps they were cutting class during the lesson on "majority rule" in 10th grade civics). This self-serving rationalization of failure elevates personal loss to the level of national crisis: one needs look no further than the Hatepalooza tours of Governor Palin for an object lesson in projection. There is no impending Chicken Little Moment as much as people like Cheney wish for one (i.e., wish for an attack on the USA to prove that enhanced interrogation techniques were necessary). Republicans warn of a divided nation, which only proves they can help bring about their own self-fulfilling prophecy through the use of Us-versus-Them rhetoric pitched in the delusional terms we have grown accustomed to hearing: death panels, government takeovers, and, Armageddon (thanks to Republican National Committee Chairperson Michael Steele for that one). What goes hand in hand with the disaster movie plot structure of the political imagination of the conservative base is a pathological view of the most ordinary, mundane political action: the idea of compromise in the course of the legislative process sends our Tea Partysans into convulsive spasms that are becalmed only by amassing a stockpile of ammunition. All of this makes me long for simpler days, when the lunacy that found its way into common political discourse centered around the benign figure of Joe the Plumber, a wondrous P. T. Barnum exhibit for the 21st century. Where have you gone Joe the Plumber, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you...

Well of course he lent his voice to various gatherings of conservatives around the country, including the Tea Partysans. He's also adopted the discourse of victimhood that is so familiar among conservatives (from Palin upward) to account for his relationship to John McCain.

"I don’t owe him s—. He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it," Joe -- aka Samuel Wurzelbacher -- said of John McCain in an interview with Pennsylvania public radio correspondent Scott Detrow.

"McCain was trying to use me. I happened to be the face of middle Americans. It was a ploy."

the year of reading tea leaves II: political theory?

Some random thoughts: what does "government" mean? From the standpoint of "liberty," I could be quite happy to be unburdened of certain tasks so that I have more free time to do what I want. That would be a justification for such "government" as a standing army, or police and fire department, or FDA/USDA. I don't feel I'm giving up any "right" to make decisions for myself when I trust others to do things (like inspect/monitor the quality of the produce I eat). So here "government" are institutions that unburden ordinary citizens of a lot of tasks that would impinge on their liberty.

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That's not the only meaning government could have. "Government" can mean a set of procedures that (ideally) bring about an orderly, rational, and fair decision making process. Government here means "governing." Roberts Rules of Order is a procedure for "governing" meetings or a parliamentary body. Insofar as individuals must enter in cooperative relations with others to achieve collective and individual ends, this notion of "government" is unavoidable.

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Compared to these simple propositions, the Tea Partysans have an anemic political philosophy. They seem to react to random problems associated with "government" without offering any vision of what "government" should be. To assert that government should be "small" or "limited" doesn't cut it.

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Another matter: if government is to shrink, what are the criteria for deciding what should stay and what should go. You are ok with the military but not ok with HUD or the Dept of Education. What are the criteria for this distinction? Do Tea Partysans make any distinctions on what should stay or go? One person's idea of "excessive government intrusion" is another person's idea of a "necessary function."

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Corporations and government: yes, there is a "problem" (for some people) with the influence of corporations on legislative outcomes. But what is the solution here: get rid of government or contain corporate influence? If one argues that the growth of government (and its intrusiveness) goes hand in hand with the increase of corporate lobbyists, then one would have a more robust analysis of the situation and a better platform with which to support criticism of government.

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Finally, there is an interesting situation for some (maybe not all) Tea Partysans that they respond to the electoral results of last fall as if it were illegitimate; they are then rejecting the democratic rights of the majority and holding their own view up as not only superior but also non-negotiable. Here I find a fundamental disrespect for democratic processes, a disrespect that could be labeled "un-American" or "unpatriotic" (but I won't do that). If they don't like majority rule (with respect going to minority rights), then they should do some homework on constitutional design and come up with an alternative deliberative and electoral procedure as opposed to ranting about socialism or depicting the President as Hitler or engaging in some other ridiculous and regressive street agitprop. I believe there is a streak of Leninism in the Tea Partysans, they seem to believe they are a vanguard party that knows better what America is and what America needs and are unwilling to subject their ideas and principles to a democratic process in which their ideas may "lose."

the year of reading tea leaves I: milieu

Die grosse Frage die niemals beantwortet ist und die Ich trotz dreissig Jahre langer Erforschung der Menschenseele auch night beantwortet konnte, lautet: Was wuenscht sich die Tea-Partierei?

When I hear the argument for “less government” from the Liptoners, I wonder what these people are willing to give up. The military is a big government bureaucracy, shouldn't we start chopping it down or just let it go? Wouldn't a private army, with corporate logos on uniforms, be less costly to tax payers? What about the FDA or USDA? Who needs meat and produce inspected or new drug applications tested? If I can save $4 of my income tax that (hypothetically) goes to staffing the USDA, should I be willing take my chances with tainted meat? Perhaps so, but is this what Tea Partysans believe? Would less government include removing all government restrictions on abortion? Hey why not! The FCC? Why can't kids watch porn at 8pm on my local Fox channel if they want to and if Murdoch wants to broadcast it?

*

In the end, the Tea Partysans are weak in political philosophy and strong on a type of nativist populism that can be described as conservative in a relational sense (not in a principled ideological sense). If it were just a matter of opposing the Wall Street bailout, I could see that as “non-partisan” (even though I think there is no such thing as a truly non-partisan position in politics: non-partisan implies opposition to a partisan position, which is partisan). Everyone hates finance bankers! (except the family members of bankers). However, when the complaints about big government are represented through terms like “socialist”, then I think it is a movement that is cathected to a conservative (i.e., traditionalist) milieu. If it turns into an organized political force, I am pretty sure it will do so within the Republican Party. It is no accident that the Republican Party is welcoming the energy of the Tea Parties: it could replace the flagging energy of aging social conservatives.

the year of reading tea leaves: prologue

Leave It to Teavers

June Teaver: Wally, where are you going?

Wally Teaver: I'm going over to the rally to slur Hussein Obama.

June Teaver: That's no way to talk, this is Sunday.

Wally Teaver: You're right, I'll wait 'til tomorrow and slur him in the cafeteria.

*

Wally Teaver: Gee Dad, how come you know so much about Socialists?

Ward Teaver: Well, Wally, as unbelievable as it may seem they did have Socialists in my younger days.

Wally Teaver: Nixon?

*

Ward Teaver: It's that friend of Beaver's. You know, the one who always talks like he was just frightened by something.

June Teaver: Glenn Beck?

Ward Teaver: That's it.

*

Theodore “Beaver” Teaver: How come Obama's such a creepy guy?

Wally Teaver: He’s a Communist.

*

Wally Teaver: Did Obama hit ya?

Glenn Beck: No.

Wally Teaver: Did he arrest ya?

Glenn Beck: No.

Wally Teaver: Then why ya cryin'?

Glenn Beck: Sometimes things get so messed up, crying is the only thing you can do.

*

Wally Teaver: Boy, Beaver, wait'll the guys find out you voted for a Democrat. They'll really give you the business.

Theodore “Beaver” Teaver: But gee, Wally, you voted for Democrats and the guys don't give you the business.

Wally Teaver: Well, that's because I'm in high school. You can do a lot of stuff in high school without getting the business.

*

Wally Teaver: Obama is a pure socialist and on the verge of communism.

Theodore “Beaver” Teaver: Gee Wally, that's swell.

*

Theodore “Beaver” Teaver: Hey Wally, I carried a sign that reads “You're a president, not a dictator. Go back to Kenya” to the Tea Party rally.

Wally Teaver: What a dumb thing to do. I bet you wouldn't have done anything like this if Mom and Dad were here.