American Missive

“Frankly, I’m mad as hell,” said businessman Doug Burnett at a rally at the Iowa Capitol, where many of the about 1,000 people wore red shirts declaring “revolution is brewing.” Burnett added: “This country has been on a spending spree for decades, a spending spree we can’t afford.”
—April 15, 2009

ATLANTA— You know a political movement is successful when it befuddles the liberal movement and forces them to resort to their three-pronged approach for addressing anything they don’t fully understand: 1) marginalize, 2) mock, and 3) dismiss.   By some estimates, the Tea Parties on Wednesday drew up to 200,000 people nationwide- with rallies held in all 50 states.   The shear size and pervasiveness of these open protests of Barack Obama and his spending policies seem to have jarred the progressives.   And a litany of printed and video media is coming out from their side, trying to downgrade the status of what could be a significant and powerful counter-balance to Mr. Obama’s left-leaning overreaches.

For my part, I loved the movements.  Granted, some of the interviews I’ve watched with tea-party goers have been less than stellar.  As frequently is the case in emotional protests, the interviewees were inarticulate and sometimes off-topic.  But who cares?  Once the emotions settle down, it’s obvious what these people are protesting. 

These people are angry at the government bailouts for multi-national corporations, for individuals who spent beyond their means on housing, and for bloated state governments.  These people recognize that, despite the fact that Mr. Obama gave paltry, short-lived tax relief to the middle class, long-term, he is going to have to raise taxes on everyone to finance his reckless budget proposals, which if not addressed through taxation, will codify unending, trillion dollar deficits into law.  That is unsustainable, as even one of Mr. Obama’s cabinet members has so eloquently stated.  

These tea parties are like the grass-roots uprisings against the Iraq War.  In 2002, they looked anti-American. By 2005, whether you liked them or not, they looked pretty prescient- and ultimately drove a change in George W. Bush’s policies in Iraq for the better.

Here are some examples of the confused, liberal counter-attack to the tea party protests:

1. Marginalizers:

a. Joe Conson: posting on RealClearPolitics, Mr. Conson marginalized the movement by trying to link it to Dick Armey and FreedomWorks, which he called fringe (a link which is not entirely true). He then proceeded to bash it by saying Republicans had been inconsistent on spending issues in the past.  He completed his marginalization by pointing to Mr. Obama’s poll numbers, suggesting poll numbers in the mid-to-low 60’s are something that Republicans will have trouble overcoming.  (Interesting notion, given Dick Cheney had similar polling numbers in April of 2000).

b. Susan Roesgen of CNN had a widely-viewed meltdown while interviewing Tea Party goers in Chicago.  Granted, I would have been frustrated with these people’s responses, too, as they came off as uneducated and way too emotional.  Nonetheless, Mrs. Roesgen lost her composure and resorted to bashing everyone there as anti-government, anti-CNN, and basically out of touch with America.

2. Mockers:

a. Rachel Maddow on MSNBC went nuts using lewd sexual innuendos to bash Tea Party goers, suggesting they were too uptight and conservative to know what “tea bagging” really meant.  Rather than address the issues, she resorted to mindless bashing.

b. Marc Cooper writing in the L.A. Times described the Tea Parties attendees as insane and blamed FoxNews for overblowing the coverage.  Again, the principal argument was a bash- not something more substantive.

3. Dismissers (these are the progressive heavyweights):

a. Paul Krugman dismissed the Tea Parties as ill-informed and embarrassing, and wrote in the New York Times that they are astro-turf, fake grassroots movements that are really the workings of a vast-right wing conspiracy, backed by fringe elements of the Republican Party.  His conclusion was that they would likely have little impact and would have to be avoided by the Republican Party, if that Party hopes to regain national significance.  (Really?  This remains to be seen, Mr. Krugman).

b. Robert Reich, writing on TPM, gave perhaps the most cogent liberal response I have read, offering a well-articulated six prong counter-argument to the root arguments of Tea Party goers.  He ultimately dismisses the parties as filled with “kooks and demagogues.”

For my part, I love the liberal response.  This tells me the tea parties stung them where it hurts.  These are grassroots movements that have sprung up after only 3 months in office for their “wildly popular” messiah, Barack Obama.  It was not surprising many of these guys tossed around Mr. Obama’s poll ratings at various points in trying to prove their point that these events were fringe and out of touch.  Unfortunately, they forgot to address the polls that show 55% of Americans believe the government is spending too much and that 75% of Americans want the government to extract itself from the economy, once the recession ends.  They ignore Rassmussen polls, in which 57% of Americans believe their  childrens’ economic futures will not be as bright as their own, poll numbers that have been trending upward over the last several months.

In my mind, we are living through a blip in American history, in terms of Barack Obama’s popularity and in terms of the leadership progressives seem to be enjoying.  It is similar to the blip of Lyndon Johnson’s popularity in the 1960’s.  Mr. Johnson’s vision of an expansive, progressive government was partially realized through the enactment of MediCare (which now is threatening to bury us with $10s of trillions in unfunded obligations).  But his vision precipitated the economic misery of the 1970’s and the fundamental rejection of many statist economic policies by 1980.  

I fully expect Mr. Obama to have a similar effect on the nation.   His statist policies are going to bury this nation in mounds of debt and taxation.  After this current recession bottoms out by the end of the year, I am predicting we will endure further contractions by the end of 2010 and into parts of 2011, as a result of higher long-term interest rates caused by too much borrowing, growing inflation caused by too much spending, and the threat of taxes caused by a bloated and inefficient progressive government that Americans will come to loathe.

Like the Iraq War protestors in 2002, the Tea Party goers are fairly prescient in my mind.  We will all be Tea Party goers, after four years of progressive leadership.