Erick Erickson of RedState has said something that I actually agree with:
Let me be blunt: charging people $500.00 plus the costs of travel and lodging to go to a “National Tea Party Convention” run by a for profit group no one has ever heard of sounds as credible as an email from Nigeria promising me a million bucks if I fork over my bank account number.
The Tea Party Documentary has premiered and it seems that the framing of the issue is perfect… unless you’ve actually followed the tea party movement. From my favorite conservative blog, FrumForum:
…it seems highly likely that the documentary’s producers deliberately left out footage of controversial persons and signs. After all, had you only seen the movie, you would be under the impression that this is a completely reasonable group of people, out exercising their democratic rights. The crazies may not have been in the mainstream of the movement, but they were certainly commonplace enough that it would have taken a contrived effort to leave them out of this film.
From NPR/TNR:
One of the featured characters is a black Detroit native named Nate, who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 “from an upbringing that taught him to mistrust America because of the color of his skin,” but who has since seen the light. The camera follows him as he tells a rapper named Bonz about how the government is stealing money from his pocket. He then tries to explain black psychology. “If they can’t make it, they might as well let the government take care of them,” Nate says, as if to answer the question of why he’s virtually the only person of color marching in a sea of white faces on the Mall.
Revisionism has been a common problem with the tea party movement and its supporters. If you recall, media outlets battled over the total number of attendees of Glenn Beck’s 9/12 demonstration in Washington D.C. There has also been the problem of conservative blogs ignoring or even promoting questionable signs and actions of tea party attendees. Sure, there are probably a fare amount of reasonable people who attend, but they are letting the birthers, et al. ruin it for the rest of them.
Sarah Palin’s book tour has had me thinking about the differences between fringe support in the Republican and Democratic parties. I was planning to write about how the right not only accepts but embraces extremism in the Republican party and how the Democratic party seems to be wary of accepting liberal extremists. Somebody more reputable beat me to it.
Instead, I intend to discuss the legitimacies that the parties provide (or don’t) to their wings. In the Democratic party, perhaps the most famous example of the party not embracing its wing is of Cindy Sheehan:
I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on.
This was the post that alienated Sheehan from the DailyKos and eventually the Democratic party. She remains a force in liberal politics, but she is arguably quieter now that the Democratic roots are not allowed to support her.
On the right, we have Glenn Beck:
Glenn Beck is, of course, not exactly part of the Republican party, but many party members have lent their support. Notably, Chuck Grassley, Republican Senator from Iowa, appeared at a town hall event with the book. By Democratic standards, Beck would be well outside the mainstream, but when people like Senator Grassley support him, it lends him some serious legitimacy.
Herein lies the fundamental difference between the Democrats and the Republicans on this issue. Republicans build up a star that they know will not be accepted by the majority of Americans. By gaining support, these new stars attract criticism which, in turn, separates and strengthens their positions. Neither Glenn Beck nor Sarah Palin can be ignored any longer. Those who choose to seem more out of touch but those who engage risk setbacks.
I can’t say that I enjoy the analysis by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, but I have to give him credit for stirring up some less than mainstream points of view. Take the following quote as an example:
From Glenn Beck to the Tea Parties, much of the energy in the post-Bush G.O.P. is with people who have grasped, albeit sometimes in inchoate ways, that big government and big business are increasingly on one team, and the champions of free markets and limited government are on the other.
I think this is a fundamentally flawed perception–big business is on the team of whoever is in power–but I couldn’t stop thinking about it for three hours today.
Newsweek’s cover next week is Sarah Palin (Note: PDF embedded in a full screen iframe). The headline is a play on a song from The Sound of Music and RedState has wasted no time accusing Newsweek of supporting Nazis. It is no problem that the song was about Maria being frivolous, there were Nazis in the musical and they area clearly what Newsweek is referring to! As RedState puts it, “Sure, it was the nuns who sang the song, but the Nazis who [sic] were out to destroy her.”
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr has the four lessons that have clearly been learned from the election:
For Conservative Republicans: The America people reject Barack Obama and obviously want true conservative leadership. The Governorships of two states have switched to the “R” category, showing a grassroots conservative movement that is alive and well.
So liberals can be more intelligent IQ-wise than republicans. So what? The American Enterprise Institute’s American Magazine has an article on political intelligence and how it does not necessarily correlate directly to education. In fact, political intelligence may not be a very valuable commodity in the first place–experts can often be wrong.
Immediately following the election of Barack Obama just under a year ago, there was a great deal of talk about “bi-partisanship” or the more honorable “post-partisanship”. In building his cabinet, Obama gathered experts with a wide diversity of opinions with little regard for political party. The term “post-partisanship” has since become kind of a point of mockery among conservative pundits. Who knew that the Republican party would be the one forced to deal with post-partisan problems, not with moderates as Obama supporters were looking for but with the ideological right?
One of the reasons for success for conservatives in the past has been the ability to accept center-right members into a coalition with the farther-right. This does not appear to be the case anymore. The NY-23 race is shaping up to be a showdown between different grades of conservatism. With newly energized conservative activists, there is no need for a large political party or to include moderate donors because the money is coming from elsewhere. For one, Fox News’ coverage has definitely moved away from a flailing Republican party. Example: Glenn Beck. He’s angry at anybody that disagrees with his view of the world, regardless of party affiliation. He has also managed to orchestrate a number of respectable crowds at his 9/12 tea party protests.
This will not end well for the Republicans or the conservative movement as a whole. Opinion polls put Republican’s support at dismal levels just a year before the midterm elections. With their current direction, Republicans look to be headed toward self-immolation.
New York’s 23rd district is shaping up to have quite a fight over who should represent them from the right and will probably have some massive implications for the Republican party as a whole. The relevant candidates: Dede Scozzafava, the Republican, and Doug Hofmann, the Conservative. The instigators: conservative Internet activists. The inevitable outcome: a fractured and still weaker conservative movement.
The conservative movement has, at least for the last ten years, had difficulty coming to grips with any sort of dissent in their ranks. Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan advisor, became a famous pariah in the movement during the years of George W. Bush because of his criticism. The newest is former house speaker Newt Gingrich, who has come out in support of the moderate Scozzafava and apparently dashed all hopes of running for president in 2012.
Further evidence of the South Park Republican phenomenon.
The Heritage Foundation says no, but then goes on to list a good number of “wasteful” programs that cost taxpayers a good deal of money. After reading through the list, one must wonder how we managed to have $295 billion in cost overruns on Pentagon contracts that nobody is angry about?
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