Post by the sandman on Aug 16, 2011 10:07:40 GMT -5
....at least not in its current incarnation.
Reason 1: It was founded by fraudulent means.
The Tea Party movement is certainly a movement, but that movement was in no way a "grass roots" one as is claimed. The Tea Party was founded and sparked by the efforts of big, very wealthy, very conservative political action committees in an effort to derail what they saw as increasing Democrat control in national political thought. The Tea Party movement was primarily started by the direct efforts of Dick Armey and his FreedomWorks organization. This was not "grass roots." It was not "of the people." It was not a spontaneous uprising of citizens. It was the deliberate manipulation of circumstances by a very, very wealthy PAC.
The Tea Party simply has no solid roots.
Reason 2: It has no leadership.
Now, the Tea Party can certainly be deemed a political party, no one is disputing that, but it is a rather unique one in that it has no leadership or national organization. I don't know if FreedomWorks and the other PACs who spawned it lost control or just never really bothered to assert control or if they never wanted control. (Hell, they may consider the Tea Party a disposable, fire-and-forget political weapon.) I do know that there are many people vying for "leadership" of the Tea Party, everyone from Bachmann to Palin seems to be trying to assert that they were the "founder" of the Tea Party, or that they have "always supported the Tea Party" or that they "were there at the start." None of them were; these people are just trying to hijack the Tea Party for their own political purposes. It is mercenary philosophy at its finest.
With no real leadership, and those who could become leaders fighting each other for the dubious right, the Tea Party lacks the organization to be long term relevant.
Reason 3: It is a political movement based on anger.
You can get a lot of stuff done in politics when you get people pissed off at something. What you can't do is maintain that long term. Political motivation by anger is a lot like shock comedy, you have to keep topping yourself in order to keep the momentum going. What all shock comedians eventually discover, and what the Tea Party will eventually discover, is that you can't keep escalating things forever. Eventually you will get to the point where you simply can't go any further without appearing genuinely insane even to the most hardened of your followers, and the momentum falls apart.
In order to keep the anger-momentum going, the Tea Party has been reduced to incitement, exaggeration, and bald-faced lies to keep people pissed. Everything from "death-panels" to Obama "not being born in the USA" to Obama is a "socialist" to the blatant lie that Americans are being taxed to death. None of it is true, but that doesn't matter. The Tea Party "leaders" don't even care if these things are true, that's not the point. The point is that these lies can be used to keep the rank-and-file Tea Party member frothing at the mouth with righteous fury.
The Tea Party is based on anger, and while this is effective in the short-term, is impossible to maintain in the long run.
Reason 1: It was founded by fraudulent means.
The Tea Party movement is certainly a movement, but that movement was in no way a "grass roots" one as is claimed. The Tea Party was founded and sparked by the efforts of big, very wealthy, very conservative political action committees in an effort to derail what they saw as increasing Democrat control in national political thought. The Tea Party movement was primarily started by the direct efforts of Dick Armey and his FreedomWorks organization. This was not "grass roots." It was not "of the people." It was not a spontaneous uprising of citizens. It was the deliberate manipulation of circumstances by a very, very wealthy PAC.
The Tea Party simply has no solid roots.
Reason 2: It has no leadership.
Now, the Tea Party can certainly be deemed a political party, no one is disputing that, but it is a rather unique one in that it has no leadership or national organization. I don't know if FreedomWorks and the other PACs who spawned it lost control or just never really bothered to assert control or if they never wanted control. (Hell, they may consider the Tea Party a disposable, fire-and-forget political weapon.) I do know that there are many people vying for "leadership" of the Tea Party, everyone from Bachmann to Palin seems to be trying to assert that they were the "founder" of the Tea Party, or that they have "always supported the Tea Party" or that they "were there at the start." None of them were; these people are just trying to hijack the Tea Party for their own political purposes. It is mercenary philosophy at its finest.
With no real leadership, and those who could become leaders fighting each other for the dubious right, the Tea Party lacks the organization to be long term relevant.
Reason 3: It is a political movement based on anger.
You can get a lot of stuff done in politics when you get people pissed off at something. What you can't do is maintain that long term. Political motivation by anger is a lot like shock comedy, you have to keep topping yourself in order to keep the momentum going. What all shock comedians eventually discover, and what the Tea Party will eventually discover, is that you can't keep escalating things forever. Eventually you will get to the point where you simply can't go any further without appearing genuinely insane even to the most hardened of your followers, and the momentum falls apart.
In order to keep the anger-momentum going, the Tea Party has been reduced to incitement, exaggeration, and bald-faced lies to keep people pissed. Everything from "death-panels" to Obama "not being born in the USA" to Obama is a "socialist" to the blatant lie that Americans are being taxed to death. None of it is true, but that doesn't matter. The Tea Party "leaders" don't even care if these things are true, that's not the point. The point is that these lies can be used to keep the rank-and-file Tea Party member frothing at the mouth with righteous fury.
The Tea Party is based on anger, and while this is effective in the short-term, is impossible to maintain in the long run.
