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Joe Queenan offers an amusing – but insightful – look at why the Democrats are having such trouble responding to the burgeoning Tea Party movement, which just held its first convention. Queenan succinctly sums up the crusade: "An 18th-century political movement is using 21st-century technology to persuade America to return to its bedrock 19th-century values. The 20th century – income taxes, going off the gold standard, abortion, hip-hop – was a mistake." But he's even better in arguing that traditional leftist counter-protests won't work this time.
A Populist Puzzle
By Joe Queenan
This weekend, the fledgling Tea Party movement has been holding a convention in Nashville, Tennessee. White, middle-class, contemptuous of Wall Street, Washington and academia, the Tea Party insurgents view themselves as the descendants of the militiamen who whipped the British at Yorktown. Ironically, with the exception of George Washington, most of the firebrands of the revolution were intellectuals: Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, John Jay, John Adams, James Madison, Samuel Adams. Only Paul Revere worked in retail.
The Tea Party insurgents have had a nice run recently, disrupting public hearings, shouting down elected officials, scaring the bejesus out of incumbents. They insist they are amateurs, that their movement is spontaneous, though critics suggest otherwise, insisting they are funded by those who wish to see Barack Obama fail. The Tea Partyers despise Obama, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, and the treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, and are fiercely opposed to the government bailout of Wall Street. They hate taxes, the stimulus package, the media and Hollywood, and believe they are the last remaining bulwark of democracy, preventing the US from slipping into socialism. They have put anyone running for re-election on notice that if they fail to toe the Tea Party line, they will walk the plank.
All this presents a huge problem for Democrats, because they haven't been able to figure out a way to hold spontaneous tea parties of their own. Traditionally, when populist rage erupts, the Great Unwashed descend on Washington for mass rallies. Such rallies are easily countered by even bigger rallies, the sort of thing Democrats have been good at. It's always been a snap to get young people and old movement lefties to turn out by the tens of thousands. These rallies contributed enormously to the triumph of the civil rights movement and bringing the war in Vietnam to an end. Even someone as contrary and insular as Richard Nixon couldn't ignore that many protesters. Tea partyers, by the way, are basically Nixon's silent majority in a less reticent mode.
Tea Party rallies are different. They are often quite small, and mostly conducted at the local level. They don't attract celebrities like Bruce Springsteen or Sting, as there is no such thing as a rightwing Sting, much less a libertarian Bono. And unlike the great anti-war rallies of the 60s, there is nothing "cutting-edge" or "hip" about Tea Party rallies. The Tea Partyers are mostly pasty-faced middle-Americans, holding the sorts of smallish, grassroots, inbred gatherings that could easily be ignored in the pre-viral era before cable television and the internet. No more. Now 212 angry white people shouting down a rattled congressman in rural Idaho can command as much media attention as a roadside bombing in Iraq.
This weekend, the fledgling Tea Party movement has been holding a convention in Nashville, Tennessee. White, middle-class, contemptuous of Wall Street, Washington and academia, the Tea Party insurgents view themselves as the descendants of the militiamen who whipped the British at Yorktown. Ironically, with the exception of George Washington, most of the firebrands of the revolution were intellectuals: Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, John Jay, John Adams, James Madison, Samuel Adams. Only Paul Revere worked in retail.
The Tea Party insurgents have had a nice run recently, disrupting public hearings, shouting down elected officials, scaring the bejesus out of incumbents. They insist they are amateurs, that their movement is spontaneous, though critics suggest otherwise, insisting they are funded by those who wish to see Barack Obama fail. The Tea Partyers despise Obama, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, and the treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, and are fiercely opposed to the government bailout of Wall Street. They hate taxes, the stimulus package, the media and Hollywood, and believe they are the last remaining bulwark of democracy, preventing the US from slipping into socialism. They have put anyone running for re-election on notice that if they fail to toe the Tea Party line, they will walk the plank.
All this presents a huge problem for Democrats, because they haven't been able to figure out a way to hold spontaneous tea parties of their own. Traditionally, when populist rage erupts, the Great Unwashed descend on Washington for mass rallies. Such rallies are easily countered by even bigger rallies, the sort of thing Democrats have been good at. It's always been a snap to get young people and old movement lefties to turn out by the tens of thousands. These rallies contributed enormously to the triumph of the civil rights movement and bringing the war in Vietnam to an end. Even someone as contrary and insular as Richard Nixon couldn't ignore that many protesters. Tea partyers, by the way, are basically Nixon's silent majority in a less reticent mode.
Tea Party rallies are different. They are often quite small, and mostly conducted at the local level. They don't attract celebrities like Bruce Springsteen or Sting, as there is no such thing as a rightwing Sting, much less a libertarian Bono. And unlike the great anti-war rallies of the 60s, there is nothing "cutting-edge" or "hip" about Tea Party rallies. The Tea Partyers are mostly pasty-faced middle-Americans, holding the sorts of smallish, grassroots, inbred gatherings that could easily be ignored in the pre-viral era before cable television and the internet. No more. Now 212 angry white people shouting down a rattled congressman in rural Idaho can command as much media attention as a roadside bombing in Iraq.
© 2010 Guardian News and Media Limited
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