Tea Parties Organize To Take Control
The one thing you have to give the Right credit is their ability to play the long game. They are quite happy to chip away at policy they don’t like and seem to understand that baby steps are still, indeed, steps.
Steve Benen lays it out, and we need to pay attention.
The Tea Party movement ignited a year ago, fueled by anti-establishment anger. Now, Tea Party activists are trying to take over the establishment, ground up.
Across the country, they are signing up to be Republican precinct leaders, a position so low-level that it often remains vacant, but which comes with the ability to vote for the party executives who endorse candidates, approve platforms and decide where the party spends money.
Calls to mind when Conservatives mobilized the take-over of School Boards – another low-level position whose impact wasn’t realized immediately. And isn’t that going well?
There’s nothing wrong with passionate citizens getting involved in the political process. But the American mainstream may not appreciate the fact that uninformed crazies — who think death panels are real, but global warming isn’t — intend to take over the Republican infrastructure, more than they already have…
…But that’s what makes 2010 dangerous — the mainstream doesn’t realize the radical nature of the Tea Party “movement”; Democratic voters feel underwhelmed by the pace of progress; and the electorate may very well reward radicalization.
The consequences of the rise of nihilists are hard to predict, but the possibilities are chilling.
Now, I’m not sure what can be done to stop this infestation, and that really is a Republican problem. What I can do is not take my eye off the ball. These people truly frighten me, and the idea of them in charge of anything that impacts my life is unacceptable. And that’s the choice that’s forming, and will continue to form as Tea Party members leave the fringe and infiltrate the mainstream. So while there are bad Democrats, who we should deal with, it doesn’t make sense to jettison them without a viable alternative to take their place. And the fact is… replacing bad Dems with Tea Partiers is not an acceptable choice.
And if we go down this path we could find ourselves living in a “Christian” nation and all that that entails.
Tags: Tea Parties
“The one thing you have to give the Right credit is their ability to play the long game.”
Totally disagree. The long game is doom for them. A growing Hispanic population plus global warming? Republicans are dinosaurs.
“A growing Hispanic population plus global warming”
Wow. Two myths in one sentence!
Tea Please, better zipper up, your ignorance is showing.
I do see them as trying to do something while so many progressive throw up their hands and say “I give up.” At least they recognize the way to make the party the way you like it is to do it from the inside.
I see the Tea party folks being the equivalent of 2004’s Deaniacs and 2008’s Obamunists. They talk a good game, make a lot of noise but, when it comes down to doing the day-to-day organizing and development of the party, they either can’t or won’t. That means that the power will, by default, remain in the hands of the same establishment figures as before.
I suspect you and most liberals believed taking control of Congress and the white house was an endorsement of the general population of liberal ideology. As we will see this Tuesday in Massachusetts, that was misreading what the people were saying in the last election.
As in any election, any Democrat or Republican will get 30% of the vote simply by putting his name on the ballot. Blind loyalist (most of the people on this web site) simply votes for the party even if they had a murderer on the ballot.
Independent voters did not vote for Obama as much as they voted against Bush and the Republicans. The Tea Party movement sprang up from the fact that they realize Republicans no longer stand for limited government. These people feel (correctly so) that no one represents them or that Congress and the President swear to up hold the Constitution and then spend the remaining years of their term ignoring it
Simply saying you will cut taxes and raise deficits is not small government. Cutting the size of government is small government.
Man made global warming is sooo 1990’s.
You were lied to, you believed it. It’s time to man up and be pissed at the people that lied to you.
I am one Liberal that thanks Sky Dad everyday for the tea baggers. The notion that Republicans lose because they are not conservative enough is the only thing keeping the incompetent Democratic party in the game.
Of course I’m pissed that Republicans lie so much and continue to lie.