If the two buttoned-down bankerlike agents provocateurs of the Tea Party phenomenon who appeared on MSNBC's "Hardball" last night were a true indication of its leadership's brain and brawn, then it seems we're looking at more of a quiet, and redundantly dull, palace coup than any upending, revolutionary assault on Washington's principal Bastilles.
Darn. I was hoping for something with a bit more bang in 2010 and beyond; but if the potential was ever there, it appears to be fizzling and fading.
This, I hasten to caution, is a purely personal and possibly contrarian take on all right-wing things insurrectionist, especially since only yesterday the Washington Post featured this above-the-fold Boo!: "The energized 'tea party' movement ... is preparing to shake up the 2010 elections by channeling money and supporters to conservative candidates set to challenge both Democrats and Republicans"; reactionary activists are "buoyed by their success in capsizing a moderate Republican candidate this fall in Upstate New York" and they "are unveiling new political action committees and tactics aimed at capitalizing on conservative opposition to" ... the real world.
That sounds deliciously ominous, right? Organized lunatics chaotically agitating with lighted torches for some sort of politically Gothic revival. But this morning my mind keeps trailing back to Chris Matthews' spearheading guests -- the presidents of FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity -- who were about as inspiring as a losing lottery ticket.
Populist movements like the Tea Party adventure require -- in addition, of course, to gullible swarms of Hofferian "True Believers" -- not a leader, but a Leader. Independent thinking is not your typical follower's forte; he or she must be told what to believe, otherwise the blank mental slate endures. Yet, as that "Hardball" segment rather disappointingly demonstrated last night, this particular movement's leadership lacks Leadership.
What a snooze -- although my impending slumber was, I confess, delayed by the riotously entertaining responses to Matthews' first direct question, put to FreedomWorks' prez: Who's your personified political ideal?
The FreedomWorks guy shot back without hesitation: Ronald Reagan. Matthews then instantly reminded this fawning yahoo that Mr. Reagan busted the federal budget like a party balloon and distended the size of government like a toked-up wastrel. His guest then hummed, then hawed, then stuttered and rambled into consummate incomprehensibility.
A genuine piratical Leader wouldn't have batted a patched eye; he instead would have launched, say, into a barbarous personal attack on Matthews' socialist impulses and anti-American bona fides, groveling as they do toward our current communist in chief. How dare he blacken the name of the Great Communicator, he who single-handedly vanquished the Soviet Menace and caused the sun to rise on America's "Leave It To Beaver" neighborhoods?
But the FreedomWorks guy fumbled. It was sad; so, so sad.
In the first place, he shouldn't have cited Ronald Reagan, who, within the iconography of right-wing extremism, is fading in disgrace, by modern comparison, as a liberal Republican. And in the second place, FreedomWorks' president grossly disappointed when he later pulled this platitudinous chestnut out of his fiery, on-air immolation: "We need to replace the Republican establishment with fiscal conservatives."
Yawn. Nod. Snooze.
The Americans for Prosperity dude -- whose heroes, by the way, are Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, who are the Republican establishment -- wasn't much better. He smiled a lot, and looked and sounded more like a C.P.A. than a motivating agent for street-fighting, bomb-throwing anarchism, which, I happily thought, was what Tea Partying was all about. Again, this -- he -- was a real disappointment.
If these gentlemen are the best the Tea Partying movement has got, then it had better draft the vacuous but inspirational star power of Sarah Palin, now. There was absolutely nothing revolutionary in what they had to say; they merely wanted to "work from within" the GOP to achieve a fiscal conservatism, and more cloned Jim DeMints, already internally triumphant.
Their insurrectionist argument was wholly consistent with modern Republican conventionalities -- thus wholly incoherent. And if that -- incoherent twaddle -- is all they're selling, what better Leader than Ms. Palin?
Aye, matey, it's time to release Carpenter from Buzzflash
Who cares about Palin, or Carpy?
not me
If the word "rouge", or Sarah, or Palin, is in the headline I stop reading. I change the channel every time some "news" show brings up the subject. The joining in on the media attachment to SP, just shows the difference between a journalist and Mr. Carpenter. Im sure the column was facinating for those of the dumbed down, celeb obsessed, infotainment consumers persuasion. I just dont understand why its appearing here on BuzzFlash, instead of on nightline or AC360. Whats next P.M.? An enlightening column on Tiger and his girls? Jeesh!
The "Baggers" and the Deficit Meme
I don't think most of the teabaggers have a clue why they teabag, but let me have a stab at it--I believe most of them--though they can't tell you why--innately understand that rich elites have sold the country down the river and that our country may be in a perminent state of decline. And it's getting "browner," which makes it even worse (see current occupant of the white house).
But all of this deficit bullshit, which is what it is--bullshit--is simply a metaphor; a metaphor for a country changing into something they don't recognize and are frightened by. Do you think these people give a crap what the national debt is? They certainly don't when a republican is in the white house.
So to the republican establishment, that's what this is all about. It's so simple as to be laughable. When republicans run things they spend money as fast as the fed can print it, and they spend it on themselves, their cronies, their friends, conservative establishments, and if the deficit happens to go up during that time--which it surely will--then ho hum who gives a fuck.
So when the dems are running things, republicans take it as their prime directive to make sure dems cannot spend money on their constituencies the way republicans do theirs--so they CRY BLOODY MURDER about the deficit--oh God the deficit--have you seen the deficit--spend, spend, spend, the democrats are spending, we're in a hole, deficit, deficit--and this will go on like clockwork for the entire 8 years (or however long it is) that a democrat occupies the white house, every time, bank on it, it's like clockwork.
Republicans throw taxpayer money at their friends and they want to keep democrats from doing it. This is why a young republican goes into politics.
To the extent that the teabaggers can be used by the establishment republicans to further a national meme that democrats are responsible for rising deficits, they are an asset to them. Controlling them is another matter.
I actually believe there is much common cause populist democrats can make with many in the teabagger movement. But it is the racists in the movement--and there are many--who will make sure that doesn't happen. If they could purge themselves of that element and find a real leader--one who could bring in populist dems to combine with the existing baggers minus the racists--you could see something that lasts and becomes a threat to the existing parties. But don't count on it.
Right now the "baggers" are rudderless, angry, barking at the moon and flailing at the wind. I'll be more impressed if this continues the next time a republican breaks the bank. Otherwise, they are proving to be a large crowd of racist, gullible dupes being used by the republican establishment to further a misleading meme of dems blowing a hole in the deficit when they know damn well it was them.
Nothing more.