Can the Tea Party Deliver?
"There are only two men in America who can fill Yankee Stadium on three weeks' notice," a friend instructed me years ago.
"Billy Graham and Louis Farrakhan."
Indeed, a decade ago, Black Muslim Minister Farrakhan's "Million Man March" brought a throng of hundreds of thousands to the Capitol.
But, last Saturday, Glenn Beck packed the Mall with a crowd that could have filled Yankee Stadium to overflowing five times over. As it stretched from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument, the estimates of its size ran to half a million.
This was twice the size of the crowd that heard Martin Luther King Jr. 47 years ago and matched the antiwar demonstrations of 1969.
Wisely, Beck dropped partisanship to convert his gathering into a God, country and Constitution rally, with speakers honoring the courage and sacrifice of America's military. Said Sarah Palin, a rally star, "Say what you want to say about me, but I raised a combat vet, and you can't take that away from me."
Al Sharpton, who organized a counter-rally that turned out a few hundred folks at Dunbar High, was his usual gracious self. Speaking of the half a million Americans on the Mall, the Rev. Al volunteered, "They want to disgrace this day."
President Obama, seeing that crowd on the Mall as large as the one that came to celebrate his inaugural, must understand what it portends. His moment may have passed.
For that enthusiastic and energetic assembly is the spear point of an army of millions headed for the polls to throw out the party he leads.
Nevertheless, as Obama raised hopes only to be perceived as having fallen short, so, too, Beck's believers and the tea party folks are raising hopes and expectations.
But can they succeed?
"We must not fundamentally transform America, as some would want," said Palin, in one of the direct challenges to Obama. "We must restore America."
But can we restore America, or is the old America gone forever?
Consider the issue that unites all on the Mall on Saturday—the need for the U.S. government to cut spending, to balance its budget and not to shove an immense burden of debt on our children.
Like last year, we are running a deficit of $1.4 trillion, almost 10 percent of the entire economy. With housing starts and housing sales plunging, jobless claims rising, the stock market sinking and economic growth slowing to a crawl, we will face a new deficit equally large in the fiscal year beginning in October.
Where are the victorious tea party Republicans going to cut?
According to USA Today, 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, and perhaps an equal number on Medicare and Social Security. Which of these three will tea party Republicans cut, when Republicans are already denying Democratic charges that they plan to raise the retirement age for Social Security?
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has a 600-page plan to reform Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the tax code, the work of a conscientious conservative. But only one in 16 House Republicans has signed on as co-sponsor.
Are Republicans going to go after other entitlements—veterans benefits, earned income tax credits, food stamps—which now go to 41 million Americans, or unemployment benefits that run for 99 weeks?
With the racial achievement gap on test scores returning, will the GOP abolish No Child Left Behind or slash federal aid to education?
The big remaining items in the budget are interest on the debt, which must be paid, and war and defense. But Republicans are more likely to be supportive of Obama's rebuilding a military ravaged by war, and staying the course in Iraq and Afghanistan, than are Democrats.
Obama's budget commission will surely come in with tax increases on personal incomes, perhaps also for Social Security and Medicare. But the GOP cannot sign on to these and go home again.
Indeed, how can Republicans cooperate with a president who has spent the campaign blaming them for the Great Recession and telling voters the GOP intends to drag us back to the dark past of Bush II?
And why would a "Party of No" that picks up 40 or 50 House seats by its Alamo defiance become a Kumbaya, "Yes-we-can!" party and work in happy harness with Barack Obama?
Can we really "restore America" as she once was?
According to The New York Times, Orange County, Calif.—birthplace of Richard Nixon, Goldwater Country, bastion of the John Birch Society, land of the "little old ladies in tennis shoes"—is today a place where less than half the population is Anglo and almost half speak a language other than English in the home.
Where Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter three to one in Orange County, Obama ran a near dead heat with McCain. And as Orange County goes, so goes California and so goes America.
Republicans and tea partiers are going to have a glorious fall.
But is this one of the last hurrahs?
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To me, the whole thing showed the rudderlessness of the conservative movement in America - all it really was was a big but ultimately pointless ecumenical prayer service led by a Mormon, honoring a man who would have denounced them all as Hitlerite.
This rudderlessness comes from the fact that the alleged figurehead of the conservative movement (Sarah Palin) does not have the intellectual capacity to fulfill her role, leaving an uneducated former disk jockey to substitute.
"Orange County, Calif.—birthplace of Richard Nixon, Goldwater Country, bastion of the John Birch Society, land of the “little old ladies in tennis shoes”—is today a place where less than half the population is Anglo and almost half speak a language other than English in the home.
Where Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter three to one in Orange County, Obama ran a near dead heat with McCain."
What this demonstrates is the prevailing conservative notions and ideology could not,would not and will not conserve a darned thing --not even homes, counties and states. The experiment was successful and proved the Chronicles motto correct: Don't Put Your Faith In Princes. (As well as the Clyde Wilson corollary: "The Republican Party Must be Destroyed."
The Tea Party Movement, Glenn Beck and the millions of Americans concerned about the direction of the country are an inchoate, confused bunch, so much so that many at the Beck rally spoke enthusiastically about the late left-wing preacher, "Dr." Martin Luther King, a man who was at odds with the America that bred those who attended the Beck extravaganza. These "conservatives of the heart", as some would name them, are such an amorphous collection that certain political parasites have attached themselves to this conservative tribe. The libertarian Richard Armey, who condemns Tom Tancredo and Pat Buchanan for wanting to defend the border and historic national culture, claims he is a leader of the Tea Party. Bill Kristol presents the Tea Party as chiefly a patriotic defender of the American military struggles in the Middle East. However a movement that seems to want to defend the historic American nation can not have Dick Armey as a leader just as a movement which wants a smaller government, smaller deficits and Constitutional government can not have Bill Kristol as a supporter.
Yes, it appears that millions of angry conservatives will show up at the polls on November 2 and give the hated liberal tribe a fine hiding. Glory to a 60 seat House gain for the party of Lincoln, Nixon and Bush. But the Republicans will have few answers, most of them timid in nature, so that President Obama and the rump of Democrats in Congress will likely have the Republicans bouncing about like a flounder on an ocean pier by next autumn. At best, the Tea Party movement, the Beck movement, and the Republican Party will act as sands in the gears of the Obama Administration. Think of America as the drunk who hasn't hit rock bottom yet. America has a little ways to go before the abyss is achieved and revival is possible.
Can the tea party deliver? Not if it depends on the Republican Party.
The birthplace of JBS is now a Mexican over-run territory?
Oh man, is Robert Welch punching holes in his coffin.
It can be done. Clinton controled his budget by reforming welfare, slashing military spending and closing bases. Welfarism is creeping back in the form of anchor babies, etc. and the military-industrial complex is growing strong through congressmen refusing to axe bloated and useless projects that bring employment to their districts. An exhausted Europe opted for the welfare state and the social safety-net and therefore guaranteed a "nativist" low birth-rate and a huge influx of ignorant, begging gypsies (but let's be politically correct and call them "roma"), sub-saharan africans and muslims. Across the pond our socially enlightened and drug-craving democracy acts as a giant magnet for the detritus of central and south America. We can control our borders, we can reform our immigration and citizenship laws, we can slash government hiring and pension plans and useless departments (education, comes to mind). We can rein in our runaway judiciary stystem. We can go back to the ways of our remote ancestors and park mom and dad in our own homes rather than state-funded institutions. We can grow back our industrial base by imposing tariffs, stop making free-trade treaties and re-negotiating the ones we have made.
But we probably won't. Too much pain, too much hurt, too much downright meanness.
Boy no one ever misses a chance to dance on Welch's grave. He never let things get racial and Mexicans werent yet an issue when he was alive, so I dont think you know what youre talking about Mr Sanjay.
Sorry about that, but I merely wrote it on the understanding that JBS had an alarm over globalism and cosmopolitanisation of nation-states and whatnot?
Never mind, it's a little clumsy, but I found the fourth last paragraph interesting in the column.
Its alright; Welch is a constant cheap target here in America because of some of the nuttier conspiracy theories he had about Eisenhower in the 50s, but much of what people say about him and the JBS is false.
I'm convinced the Tea party if it actually exists is a cabal of idiots blowing in the wind. Beck's televanglist sermons were nauseating and Palin seemed just as phony. What ignorance to be carping about returning to the origins of the Constitution at the tempel of Lincoln, America's first dictator, and salivating over a 20th century Black Marxist as if he were the son of God.
Mass following of Beck, King and Lincoln worshipping is sign we are near the bottom of the abyss, I hope. I for one want to complete the fall so we can begin the rebuilding process.
"What ignorance to be carping about returning to the origins of the Constitution at the tempel of Lincoln, America’s first dictator, and salivating over a 20th century Black Marxist as if he were the son of God."
Yes, it is rather ironic that millions of Americans were glued to this spectacle to watch their Mormon television preacher instruct them before the "tempel of Lincoln, America’s first dictator, and salivating ...."
A real poet would have siezed this ending moment with music as you have done with prose. Here is the theological side of what you describe by John Senior
Murder in the Cathedral
They held the poet's reading
at Saint Cod's Cathederal--
with concern for dolphins' breeeding
and forestry reseeding,
very ecumenical.
What did the sacristan disclose
when bells for Matins rang?
Bare ruined choir boys
where late the sweet bards sang.
“There are only two men in America who can fill Yankee Stadium on three weeks’ notice,” a friend instructed me years ago.
“Billy Graham and Louis Farrakhan.”
Indeed, a decade ago, Black Muslim Minister Farrakhan’s “Million Man March” brought a throng of hundreds of thousands to the Capitol.
Am I the only traditional conservative who finds Farrakhan entertaining and even enjoyable to listen to in regard to his critique of feminism, zionism, and the middle class family? He sounds very similar to Patrick Buchanan- if Buchanan were a black muslim marxist.
Father Couglin was a great populist who could really draw a crowd. He was no antisemite either, not anymore than Pat Buchanan, or Ron Paul. I have been watching some of his speech's his on U-Tube. I saw him comdemn Hitler, the Federal Reserve, Roosevelt, the Hollywood elite, the plutocrats, and of course Stalin, and the Communist butchers in Spain and Mexico in the 30's. He also was a loyal son of the Church who followed his bishops orders faithfully. Farrakan is a lot of fun. Of course he is crazy as a loon, but very entertaining.
You guys encouraged me to look up Louis Farrakhan on YouTube.
The man doesn't look quite - as you describe - black? He has a bit of a Libyan look, like Muammar Gadaffi. Or maybe olive skinned like Alexander Dumas.
Is he really African American? Or is he a white man with some mixed blood?
Mr Sanjay,
Im sure he has some white ancestry, just like the infamous Jeremiah Wright does. Many blacks in this country do.
Some good points. But out here in Orange County, things aren't quite as bad as Pat paints it. As recently as 2004, Bush got 60% of the vote in O.C.
Obama did so well in 2008 in O.C. because Bush spent eight years wrecking America with his wars, his debasement of the dollar, his deficits, his debt, and his police state. People finally were completely disgusted with him. He closed out the election year with the Panic of 2008.
Bush's TARP bailout was backed by McCain, showing the latter's background as a Keating Five senator owned by the Big Banks. McCain actually was leading nationally, following his pick of Palin, when the TARP bailout occurred, and the self-described "Maverick" could have led the anti-TARP rebellion into the White House. Instead, he sold out and lost; and the anti-TARP rebellion grew into today's Tea Parties.
Unfortunately, now the Republicans are going to benefit from Obama's own disastrous two years, giving the GOP another chance in power to sell out the Tea Partiers.
I think that the tea party followers have the right instincts. I have run into a couple of their rallies and most appear to espouse positions such as limiting government and taxation. Even here in San Diego, which is a giant military base surrounded by civilian communities that are gradually being transformed by illegal immigration and progressive brainwashing in the public schools, I heard little nothing about 'keeping America strong' and other claptrap of the military industrial complex. The Tea Party movement is reactionary rather than proscriptive and of course has been captured by the demagogues like Beck, Kristol and Palin for their own selfish purposes and of course the country club GOP establishment, who wants power back no matter the vehicle or cause. The frustration of a minority of the people is starting to be heard concerning the dominance of the Dems and GOP ruling establishment which is socially progressive, One World oriented and focused one serving Wall Street and its various oligopolies. However by tying itself to the GOP it is doomed and most of us would be more optimistic if it had focused its energy in helping create a new political party with a constitutional and traditional focus. Yes, the GOP will be successful in November, but it will help the progressives in the long term as the GOP flounders in 'power' over the next two years and become Obama's punching bag in 2012.