When a gunman shot Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others in Tucson, some saw it as the beginning of the end for the Tea Party. Despite the lack of evidence connecting the shooter to the movement, some still do. by George Dance
(libertarian)
Monday, January 17, 2011
Is the Tea Party Over?
When a lone gunman shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others in Tucson Arizona, this month, some saw it as the beginning of the end for the Tea Party movement. Despite the total lack of evidence connecting the shooter to the movement, some still do.
Not that the movement's demise has not been foreseen before. If the Tea Party were a person, it could well have said several times (in Mark Twain's words) that "The report of my death was an exaggeration." (1)
Last February, with only 600 attending a much-hyped National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Dave Nalle of the Republican Liberty Caucus mused in print, "Is this the End of the Tea Party?" "While this event could have been an opportunity to unify protesters," wrote Nalle, " it is likely to have the exact opposite effect, and the Tea Party movement will remain a loose alliance with its members even more disaffected and disillusioned than they were before. Some will probably even become discouraged and leave the movement before the 2010 elections give them a chance to have a real influence." Nalle did, though, see a unifying force as well: "As sanctimonious leftists like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann mock the event and the "Teabaggers" in general, such does more to bring them together despite their differences than any misstep like this convention does to drive them apart." (2)
That June, after Tea Party candidates lost primaries through vote-splitting in Virginia (while winning in Nevada with a divisive candidate, Sharron Angle), the Washington Post quoted "self-identified tea party leaders" warning that "the movement may be in danger of breaking apart before it ever really comes together." Gloated Mother Jones magazine: "Well, that's just a damn shame, isn't it? Who could have predicted that a cranky, leaderless movement with no real goals and driven mostly by an inchoate sense of persecution, aggrievement, and Sarah Palin hero worship would eventually turn in on itself and splinter into a thousand embittered little pieces?" (3)
Early this January, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), who narrowly beat Angle in the November election, told Meet the Press: "The Tea Party was born because of the economy. The Tea Party will disappear as soon as the economy gets better and the economy is getting better all the time." He added: "I don't think the Tea Party had the vigor and support that people thought it would. You know, a couple of them won, but most of them lost." (4)
Then came the Tucson shooting, which many of Tea Party opponents saw as an opportunity to finally get rid of the movement. Their attitude and actions were best summed up by the anonymous "veteran Democratic operative" whose advice for the Obama administration was: "They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers. Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people."" (5)
While the Tea Party survived that attack, apparently with little damge, the newest argument, surfacing in the British newspaper the Guardian, is that the shooting has fatally wounded it. The difference in this newest prebituary is that it purports to be bolstered by historical analysis. Written by London-based American journalist Michael Weiss, it begins with setting a paradigm:
what the late historian Samuel Huntington, in an insight more valuable than his more famous one about a "clash of civilizations," once termed a "creedal-passion period" of American politics. That is to say, a cyclical phenomenon that occurs every few generations in Anglo-Saxon cultures and has its roots in the Protestant Great Awakening of the 1740s. Creedal passion periods, in other words, are manifestations of American Puritanism (6)
Weiss is referring to Huntington's 1982 book, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony, in which the author argues that there have been
four periods of activism ("creedal passion") in our history--the Revolutionary era, the Jacksonian period, the Progressive era and the 1960s and early 70s. "In sum, creedal passion periods involve intense efforts by large numbers of Americans to return to first principles," an "American creed" represented by vague and symbolic words like freedom, equality, justice, and individual rights, and marked by a pervasive "antipower ethic." (7)
The Tea Party movement, which Weiss sees as the newest creedal passion movement, does neatly fit the into the theme of such movements, "one that Huntington diagnosed as an "opposition to power, and suspicion of government as the most dangerous embodiment of power". When opposition and suspicion reach a fever pitch because of economic or social transformations a stock-market crash, a messy foreign entanglement or the integration of a previously marginalised minority the result is another creedal passion period."
However, the militia movement 20 of years ago fit that description equally well. And in both cases the timing is all wrong. Although Huntington believed that creedal passion movements occur roughly every 60 years, less than 40 years have gone by since the last one; and although he saw each such movement as lasting for about a decade, Weiss believes that the current one is already almost over:
What defenders of the Tea Party have failed to understand is that this movement, like every creedal passion before it, is liable to extinction by its own hand. This is never more so the case than when public curiosity morphs into public wariness and the movement gets defensive.
And that, Weiss argues, is what happened in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting:
The shooting of an American congresswoman by a man of doubtful mental health may have had nothing to do with the broadcasts of Glenn Beck or the unsuccessful senatorial candidacies of Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle. But the immediate suspicion [by whom?] that it might have, as well as its own rapid-response protests of innocence, are indicators of the Tea Party's actuarial odds. (6)
At the Spectator, Nick Cohen quickly took up the theme. He did quickly acknowledge that: "To date there is no evidence that Palin, the Tea Party or Fox News inspired the killer. American liberals say that she has blood on her hands. This allegation is not true." However, his argument is that the question of evidence actually makes no difference:
Its problem is that the first assumption of millions of people on hearing of the shooting was that the killer must be from the Tea Party. It seemed reasonable to think that his mind had been corrupted by the screaming accusations that President Obama was a Muslim, or a Mau-Mau from Kenya determined to turn America into a socialist state or whatever other lunacy was doing the rounds when he tuned into to talk radio. (8)
Cohen could be right about the millions of people' who assumed that the Tea Party was behind the shooting. A recent Rasmussen Report survey found 28% of Americans blaming the shootings on "political anger," while a second poll showed 45% concerned about President Obama's opponents turning to violence. However, in that second survey a clear majority (52%) rejected the idea that the president's opponents would resort to violence. (9); while the first found an even larger majority (58%) attributed the shooting to the work of a lone gunman,
Even President Obama rejected the idea of blaming the Tea Party, telling a memorial service for the Tucson victims: "the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind." While he did bring appeal to a Democratic talking point by calling for greater civility,' he explicitly refused to tie the incivility' to the shooting:
And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse," he said, "let's remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy it did not but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud."
The American Spectator noted: "The phrase "it did not" was not in Obama's prepared remarks, and it's to his credit that he felt the need to inject those words to make it abundantly clear that political rhetoric was not a factor in the shooting." (10)
The Spectator applauded Obama for managing to "finally live up to the promise of his candidacy and attempt to bring the country together". Without detracting from that, one can note that no president in modern times has ever acted (because none can act) without one eye on the polls. All that saved the Tea Party from sharing the fate of the militias were poll numbers like the above. And all that caused those poll numbers was only the massive pushback by the Tea Party and its sympathizers against the anti-Party campaign: the very defensiveness that Weiss notes. What Weiss sees as the sign of the Tea Party's imminent end, was probably all that saved it (for now) from such an end.
And so, once again, the reports of the Tea Party's death are an exaggeration. However, who knows when the next report will come in. It cannot be forgotten that there are millions' (as Cohen puts it) who want the movement stopped, some of whom will stop at nothing.
The movement was lucky this time: Had the assassin attended even one of their meetings, the Party could indeed be over. Even with that stroke of luck, without the rapid response from Tea Partiers and their sympathizers, the movement still could have been fatally wounded. Next time may be easier one can cry Wolf!' only so often but it must be remembered that there will be a next time. The enemies of the Tea Party are still there, still active, waiting for another opportunity. As always, the price of liberty will be eternal vigilance.
(2) Dave Nalle, "Is This the End of the Tea Party?", Blogcritics, Feb. 6, 2010. Web, Jan. 17, 2010. http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/is-this-the-end-of-the/
(3) Kevin Drum, "Beginning of the End for the Tea Party Movement?", Mother Jones, Jun. 12, 2010. Web, Jan. 17, 2011. http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/06/it-beginning-end-tea-party-movement
(4) "Reid: Tea Party Will 'Disappear' Once Economy Improves", FoxNews, Jan. 8, 2011. Web, Jan. 17, 2011. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/08/reid-tea-party-disappear-economy-improves/
(5) George Dance, "Pin this on the Tea Partiers", Nolan Chart, Jan. 11, 2011. Web, Jan. 17, 2011. http://www.nolanchart.com/article8259.html
(6) Michael Weiss, "The Tea Party: a creedal passion past its prime", The Guardian, Jan. 15, 2011. Web, Jan. 17,2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/14/tea-party-movement-republicans
(7) William E. McKibben, "The Uses of Passion", Harvard Crimson, Feb. 24, 1982. Web, Jan. 17,2011. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1982/2/24/the-uses-of-passion-pbcbolumbia-university/
(8) Nick Cohen, "The American Right's Problem," The Spectator, Jan. 15, 2011. Web, Jan. 17, 2011. http://www.spectator.co.uk/nickcohen/6619248/the-american-rights-problem.thtml
(9) "Most Americans View Arizona Shootings As Random Act of Violence, Not Politics", Rasmussen Reports, Jan. 12 2011. Web, Jan. 17, 2011. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/january_2011/most_americans_view_arizona_shootings_as_random_act_of_violence_not_politics
(10) Philip Klein, "Obama's Bullseye," American Spectator, Jan. 13, 2011. Web, Jan. 17, 2011. http://spectator.org/archives/2011/01/13/obamas-bullseye
When a lone gunman shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others in Tucson, Arizona, this month, some saw it as the beginning of the end for the Tea Party movement. Despite the total lack of evidence connecting the shooter to the movement, some still do.
Not that the movement's demise has not been foreseen before. If the Tea Party were a person, it could well have already said several times (in Mark Twain's words) that "The report of my death was an exaggeration." (1)
Last February, with only 600 attending a much-hyped National Tea Party Convention, Dave Nalle of the Republican Liberty Caucus mused: "Is this the End of the Tea Party?" "While this event could have been an opportunity to unify protesters," wrote Nalle, "it is likely to have the exact opposite effect, and the Tea Party movement will remain a loose alliance with its members even more disaffected and disillusioned than they were before. Some will probably even become discouraged and leave the movement before the 2010 elections give them a chance to have a real influence." Nalle saw a countervailing unifying force as well, though: "As sanctimonious leftists like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann mock the event and the 'Teabaggers' in general, such does more to bring them together despite their differences than any misstep like this convention does to drive them apart." (2)
That June, after Tea Party candidates lost primaries through vote-splitting in Virginia (while winning in Nevada with a divisive candidate, Sharron Angle), the Washington Post quoted "self-identified tea party leaders" warning that "the movement may be in danger of breaking apart before it ever really comes together." Gloated Mother Jones magazine: "Well, that's just a damn shame, isn't it? Who could have predicted that a cranky, leaderless movement with no real goals and driven mostly by an inchoate sense of persecution, aggrievement, and Sarah Palin hero worship would eventually turn in on itself and splinter into a thousand embittered little pieces?" (3)
Early this January, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), who narrowly beat Angle in the November election, told Meet the Press: "The Tea Party was born because of the economy. The Tea Party will disappear as soon as the economy gets better and the economy is getting better all the time." He added: "I don't think the Tea Party had the vigor and support that people thought it would. You know, a couple of them won, but most of them lost." (4)
Then came the shooting in Tucson, which many Tea Party foes saw as an opportunity to get rid of the movement once and for all. Their attitude and actions were best summed up by the anonymous "veteran Democratic operative" whose advice for the Obama administration was: "They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers. Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people." (5)
While the Tea Party survived that attack (so far with little damage), the newest argument, surfacing in the British newspaper The Guardian, is that the shooting has fatally wounded it. This newest prebituary, by London-based American journalist Michael Weiss, purports to be supported by a historical paradigm, "what the late historian Samuel Huntington ... once termed a 'creedal-passion period' of American politics. That is to say, a cyclical phenomenon that occurs every few generations in Anglo-Saxon cultures and has its roots in the Protestant Great Awakening of the 1740s. Creedal passion periods, in other words, are manifestations of American Puritanism" (6)
Weiss is referring to Huntington's 1982 book, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony, in which the author argues that there have been
"four periods of activism ('creedal passion') in our history -- the Revolutionary era, the Jacksonian period, the Progressive era and the 1960s and early 70s. 'In sum, creedal passion periods involve intense efforts by large numbers of Americans to return to first principles,' an 'American creed' represented by vague and symbolic words like freedom, equality, justice, and individual rights, and marked by a pervasive 'antipower ethic'." (7)
The Tea Party movement, which Weiss sees as the newest creedal passion movement, does neatly fit the into the theme of such movements, "one that Huntington diagnosed as an 'opposition to power, and suspicion of government as the most dangerous embodiment of power'. When opposition and suspicion reach a fever pitch because of economic or social transformations -- a stock-market crash, a messy foreign entanglement or the integration of a previously marginalised minority -- the result is another creedal passion period." (6)
Yet this summary of Weiss's cannot be correct. Are "creedal passion movements" the "result" of stock market crashes? Then why was there none in the 1930's? Are they the "result" of messy foreign entanglements? Then why was there none during the Korean War? Or are they the "result" of "integration of a previously marginalised minority"? Then why was there none during and after the American Civil War?
Certainly the Tea Party is suspicious of "government as the most dangerous dangerous embodiment of power" -- but so was the militia movement of 20 years ago, and no one ever called that a "creedal passion movement." Of course, in that case the timing would be off completely, but so it is for the Tea Party. Huntington found creedal passion movements occurring roughly every 60 years, but less than 40 years have gone by since the last one ended in the mid-70's.
It sounds as if Weiss's characterization of the Tea Party as a "creedal passion movement" is based more on wishful thinking than on any non-superficial analysis. Try as he may, he fails to slot the movement into Huntington's paradigm.
That failure is even more apparent in Weiss's next point, the main point of his article: Although Huntington saw "creedal passion movements" lasting for roughly a decade, Weiss believes that the current one is already almost over:
What defenders of the Tea Party have failed to understand is that this movement, like every creedal passion before it, is liable to extinction by its own hand. This is never more so the case than when public curiosity morphs into public wariness and the movement gets defensive.
Just that, Weiss argues, is what happened in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting:
The shooting of an American congresswoman by a man of doubtful mental health may have had nothing to do with the broadcasts of Glenn Beck or the unsuccessful senatorial candidacies of Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle. But the immediate suspicion [by whom?] that it might have, as well as its own rapid-response protests of innocence, are indicators of the Tea Party's actuarial odds. (6) [stress added]
At the London-based Spectator, Nick Cohen quickly took up the theme. He did quickly acknowledge that: "To date there is no evidence that Palin, the Tea Party or Fox News inspired the killer. American liberals say that she has blood on her hands. This allegation is not true." However, his argument is that the question of evidence actually makes no difference:
Its problem is that the first assumption of millions of people on hearing of the shooting was that the killer must be from the Tea Party. It seemed reasonable to think that his mind had been corrupted by the screaming accusations that President Obama was a Muslim, or a Mau-Mau from Kenya determined to turn America into a socialist state or whatever other lunacy was doing the rounds when he tuned into to talk radio. (8)
Cohen could be right about the "millions" who assumed that the Tea Party was behind the shooting. A recent Rasmussen Report survey found 28% of Americans blaming the shootings on "political anger," while a second poll showed 45% concerned about President Obama's opponents turning to violence. However, in that second survey a clear majority (52%) rejected the idea that the president's opponents would resort to violence; while the first found an even larger majority (58%) attributing the shooting to the work of a lone gunman. (9)
Even President Obama rejected the idea of blaming the Tea Party, telling a memorial service for the Tucson victims: "the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind." While he appealed to a Democratic talking point by calling for greater 'civility,' he explicitly refused to tie 'incivility' to the shooting:
And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let's remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy -- it did not -- but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud." (10)
The American Spectator noted: "The phrase 'it did not' was not in Obama's prepared remarks, and it's to his credit that he felt the need to inject those words to make it abundantly clear that political rhetoric was not a factor in the shooting." The magazine applauded Obama for that outreach to the right, for managing to "finally live up to the promise of his candidacy and attempt to bring the country together." (10)
Without belittling Obama's presidential moment, one can note that no president in modern times has ever acted (because none can act) without one eye on the polls. All that saved the Tea Party from sharing the fate of the militias were poll numbers like the ones above. And all that caused those poll numbers was only the massive pushback by the Tea Party and its sympathizers against the anti-Party campaign: the very "rapid-response protestations of innocence" that Weiss sees as signs of the coming end. The very things that he considers fatal were probably all that saved it this time.
And so once again the reports of the Tea Party's death are an exaggeration. However, who knows when the next such report will be filed. It should be forgotten that there are 'millions' (as Cohen puts it without exaggeration) who want the movement stopped, some of whom will balk at nothing.
The movement was lucky this time: Had the assassin attended even one Tea Party rally or meeting, the Party could indeed be over by now. Even with that bit of luck, without the rapid response from Tea Partiers and their sympathizers, the movement still could have been fatally wounded. Next time may be easier -- one can cry "Wolf!" only so often -- but it must be remembered that there definitely will be a next time. The enemies of the Tea Party are still there, still active, waiting for another opportunity. As always, the survival of the movement will depend on eternal vigilance.
(2) Dave Nalle, "Is This the End of the Tea Party?", Blogcritics, Feb. 6, 2010. Web, Jan. 17, 2010. http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/is-this-the-end-of-the/
(3) Kevin Drum, "Beginning of the End for the Tea Party Movement?", Mother Jones, Jun. 12, 2010. Web, Jan. 17, 2011. http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/06/it-beginning-end-tea-party-movement
(5) George Dance, "Pin this on the Tea Partiers", Nolan Chart, Jan. 11, 2011. Web, Jan. 17, 2011. http://www.nolanchart.com/article8259.html
(6) Michael Weiss, "The Tea Party: a creedal passion past its prime", The Guardian, Jan. 15, 2011. Web, Jan. 17,2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/14/tea-party-movement-republicans
(7) William E. McKibben, "The Uses of Passion", Harvard Crimson, Feb. 24, 1982. Web, Jan. 17,2011. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1982/2/24/the-uses-of-passion-pbcbolumbia-university/
(8) Nick Cohen, "The American Right’s Problem," The Spectator, Jan. 15, 2011. Web, Jan. 17, 2011. http://www.spectator.co.uk/nickcohen/6619248/the-american-rights-problem.thtml
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Posted By: Bill Gee
Date: January 18, 2011 07:36:30 AM
Nice article. Indeed, the Tea Party cannot be declared "dead" until its leaders decide to abandon ship, and its followers decide that the label has become too "toxic" to the American political environment.
When reading about the possible demise of the Tea Party, I am reminded of the death of Ross Perot's Reform Party. When Ross was running the show, the Party was poised to be the most successful Third Party of the late 20th Century. Unfortunately, when Ross refused to run of President in the 2000 election and instead the Party selected ultra-conservative Pat Buchanan as their candidate, the Party was over.
The Tea Party is more clever than that. Instead of forming a Third Party, they have a fairly effective strategy of concentrating their resources on Primary Elections so that their candidates can win the "base" and then give the more moderate Republican establishment no choice but to support their candidate. This worked for Rand Paul, but backfired for Chris O'Donnell and Sharon Angel. However, I wonder what the Tea Party would be if they ever lost Sarah Palin as their leader? Would it fall apart or does the Tea Party have enough Grassroots support to keep going?
Posted By: Bentree
Date: January 18, 2011 10:41:37 AM
A line in H.G. Wells time machine where the lead actor asks one of the potential victims why they didn't fight back? The answer,“If you fight back they take you first” the same question was asked of former POW's held by the Japanese during WW2. as well as the Jews in WW2. The Americans had surrendered and therefor were beneath contempt. The Jews had been demonizes as subhuman by Nazis propaganda. The Eloy, they were the subsistence for the dependent Morlock being controlled by the intellectual elite. The elitist white man vs the inferior black man, making one suitable for slavery the other for master. This is a common theme of subjugation. The progressive elite vs the mean nasty vindictive ignorant ill informed conservative gun loving murderous supporters of the Tea party. Bill Press the propagandist and the right wing Stalin, incredible. Press
Could this be the modus behind the vilification of Sarah , Rush, Glenn, Etc. Or whats about to happen to Tea Party members of Congress for that matter. Will they chose the carrot or be willing to endure the stick for their principals and the Republic? Time will tell.
Posted By: George Dance
Date: January 18, 2011 11:00:44 AM
Hmm ... I think your question has inspired me to write another Tea Party article, Bill; even though I got into it a bit in my first article in Jan., "The 2 Faces of the Tea Party." I see the TP as essentially two factions, stemming from two phenomena in 2008. One is Ron Paul's supporters; they're younger, more libertarian (legal drugs, cut defense, non-intervention) conservatives. The other is the Religious Right (the 'base') that mostly sat on its hands during the primaries, but came out in force after McCain picked Palin; they're older, socially conservative, hawkish in foreign policy. All they agree on is the fiscal agenda: balancing the budget but without raising taxes (we're Taxed Enough Already). It's an unstable coalition, and for either side to push either its agenda (social or foreign policy) or its leader (Paul or Palin) on the other would mean a split; the other group might even try a third-party bid. The only thing stopping that is that no one wants that split to happen -- not even the establishment GOP, which is bluntly trying to use the TP, but which needs them. I saw that happen in the Republican Party once (when I was too young to know what was going on), when the conservatives of that day nominated Goldwater and the moderates sat the campaign out.
I wasn't following the Reform thing, but I conjecture that's what happened in the Reformers too: the Buchananites were a faction in the Reformers, so it wasn't an outside takeover, but the other factions saw it as a takeover and left. That wouldn't kill the GOP, the way it killed a small party; but they have to be very careful in 2012.
Then came the shooting in Tucson, which many Tea Party foes saw as an opportunity to get rid of the movement once and for all. Their attitude and actions were best summed up by the anonymous "veteran Democratic operative" whose advice for the Obama administration was: "They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers. Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people." (