Posted by
Patrick Henry on Tuesday, August 23, 2011 10:16:15 PM
The American left is presently venting its full fury on the Tea Party and its supporters.
Calling them "terrorists," "hostage takers," and "a disease," they now seek to blame
not only the debt ceiling confrontation but everything that ails America on what they
see as a small group of congressional extremists. In so doing, they ignore the first law of
politics, that "elections have consequences," while at the same time misidentifying their
real enemy.
So what are the Tea Party's sins, in the eyes of the left. First, a bunch of them went
and got themselves elected to congress in the 2010 tsunami of backlash against failed
Democrat policies. They, of course, are entirely to blame for this, rather than the
millions who voted for them. Second, elected by those wanting stable taxation and
drastic cuts in the size of government and federal spending, they had the temerity to
actually go to congress and stand up for precisely those values. Third, they threatened
to (and actually did) withhold approval if real spending cuts did not match the amount
of the requested debt ceiling increase. Can you imagine the nerve of them?
So Democrats and their allies on the left have pulled out all the stops to vilify the
Tea Party out of existence, bringing out all their big guns including the president, the
vice-president, select congressional loudmouths, MoveOn.org and the unions, and
are spending millions to accomplish their goal. It is a strategic blunder that ignores the
lessons of context and will wind up costing them dearly.
Who is the Tea Party? It is a loosely knit but vast number of Americans who believe
that government is out of control, and that if the profligate spending in Washington is
not stopped the security if the United States will be compromised. Surveys showed
that as many as 71% of Americans opposed any hike in the debt ceiling, and that
more than 60% oppose the congressional compromise that finally emerged. Now,
Americans sometimes take contradictory positions, like telling pollsters they want
the debt reduced while telling the same pollsters they don't want their entitlements
adjusted, even though those entitlements are well known to be principal drivers of the
debt. And a NY Times poll suggested that today the popularity of the Tea Party ranks
below that of Muslims and illegal aliens. It makes no sense.
Why abandon legislators for going to Washington and trying to do exactly what you
said you wanted them to do? It is because of the national naivete of "nice." We want
what we want, and we'll fight like hell if we're pushed, but we'd rather that everyone
just get along. Surely voters were not dumb enough to think that the leftist champions of
tax-and-spend were simply going to roll over and agree to drasatically reduce the
bloated government that comprises the citadel of their socialist utopia. When they sent
principled fiscal conservatives to Washington they didn't risk a fight. They guaranteed
one. For years, conservatives have "played nice," while the creeping tentacles of the
cradle-to-grave nanny state leeched up every dime of taxpayer money. And when
that was gone, presidents from LBJ through Bill Clinton gradually bloodsucked away
the entire social security trust, creating utterly phony budget surpluses to feather their
political campaigns while ripping the guts from the legacy promised to senior citizens.
Then came the binge spending of Bush and the mega-binge spending of Obama and
now the coffers are empty. The social safety net is insolvent. That's what comes from
"all just getting along." "You let me do this, and I'll let you have that."
Today, over all the Democrat protestations, the Tea Party electees remain a force
in congress, and two Tea Party supporters are running 3-4 for the Republican
presidential nomination. Republicans outpoll Democrats 46-38 in the generic
congressional races, one candidate has a two point lead on the president and another
is in a dead tie with him. To all evidences, while some might say the politically correct
thing, they nevertheless plan to vote conservative. As a broad brush to smear the GOP,
the attack on the Tea Party seems to be an epic fail. Why?
It's because the Tea Party is, in reality, Americana. No, we didn't all sign up, or get
a membership card, or attend a rally, carry a poster or wear a ribbon. But a huge
majority of us went to the ballot box and said, "Enough is enough!" So when Black
Caucus leftist Maxine Waters tells her supporters that, "as far as I'm concerned the
Tea Party can got straight to hell," she's actually telling American voters to go to hell.
She's ranting at every man and woman who wants the entitlement society curtailed and
radical spending reforms in Washington. There will be a sterling opportunity for us to
tell her and her party where to go in November 2012. The left has declared war on
the American people -- on you and me, and it is a fatal error.
In the next post we will consider the nature and consequence of political compromise
in its modern American context.