The
Tea Party in the United States has accomplished an extremely difficult task. It
has made politicians in Greece look positively statesmanlike. Whatever bumbling
and fumbling we have seen in Athens over the last several years has now been more
than equalled in Washington.
My
foreign friends shake their heads is dismay, confusion and anger about what
they have been seeing. What is this thing called the Tea Party? How can this group bring the world’s one remaining
super-power to the brink of implosion? They watch in amazement as the fanatics
in the Tea Party accomplish what no foreign power or terrorists have been able to do – create the impression of an incompetent
giant as much of a threat to itself as anyone else in the world.
The
best response I can come up with is that much of this nonsense is pure theatre
– nothing else. Not very good theatre, but still theatre.There is very little chance that the leading actors of this
far-right fantasy will ever get their hands on the levers of real power or
change the direction of the American government. The government is already so
big with so much inertia and so many vested interests in the status quo -- from
retired people, to local governments that desperately need federal assistance,
to farmers, to the military/industrial complex, etc, etc. -- that serious, fundamental change is almost
impossible. Maybe you can tinker at the margins, but that’s about all.
The Master Of Political Theatre |
No
less than Republican stalwarts like Ronald Reagan and George Bush came to power
claiming they would reverse the spread of ‘big’ government. They soon gave up that
quixotic effort. Just consider two major budget items, Social Security and
Medicare. Every conservative worthy of the name has railed against these two
programs and promised to ‘cut them down to size.’ Never happens. They soon
learn that threatening to touch these two is like touching the third rail in a
metro system – instant political death. And efforts to cut other government
hand-outs are instantly met with loud squeals of protest that can easily
transform into votes against the offending politician. Much easier not to rock
the boat too much.
The
Tea Party act may play well locally, but it weakens dramatically in state-wide
contests, and disappears from sight in national elections. The Tea Party is
such an appealing target in national elections that if it didn’t exist,
President Obama would have to create it. It is the perfect foil for the
Democrats, the perfect bogeyman that allows them to scare enough normal people
to vote Democratic to keep their benefits. We will probably find out in a few
years that the Tea Party poster child Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is actually on the
White House payroll.
Sen. Ted Cruz: Is He Secretly Working For The Democrats? |
Just
consider the national demographics to realize the futility of the Tea Party
protests. The so-called Red States are indeed Red and likely to stay so.
Trouble is not many people live in those places, and they don’t really count in
national elections. If I were a Democratic strategist I would easily give you relatively
empty Wyoming, Montana, and Utah in return for the heavily populated Northeast,
California, Illinois and Michigan. The Democrats could probably nominate Darth Vader for president in 2016 and
still win.
This
is not the first time this very bad play has run in the United States. Through
the relatively short history of the country from time to time some clever
politician, now aided by the very loud and pugnacious trolls on cable TV, taps
into an underlying streak of distrust, fear, and isolationism that runs
throughout parts of the US. Big government, big business, big anything, and
foreigners of all shapes and colours are blamed for what is wrong with the
country. If we get rid of the bums and
stick our heads in the sand everything will be all right and go back to the way
it was in 1955. The mythology underlying this trend is that the ‘Last
Honest Man’ lives anywhere outside corrupted urban areas in a permanent set
from the old TV show Leave It To Beaver.
The
ultimate cynicism, sell-out if you will, is that most of those Congressmen who rant
the loudest about the evils of Washington and other urban areas usually stay in
those cities when their political terms are finally over. The lists of
lobbyists and leaders of the ‘trade associations’ are filled with former
members of Congress who use their Rolodex to slide into multi-million dollar
jobs. Somehow the charms of Little House
On The Prairie fade in comparison to the seduction of the bright lights and
brighter bank accounts in Washington. Anyone who wants to rock this boat with
real political convictions is treated
like a charter member of Al Qaeda.
Just
consider the case of former Sen. Jim De Mint of South Carolina. Once a leading
light of the ‘We-hate-Washington’ Tea Party brigade he resigned his Senate seat
last year to become president of the conservative Heritage Foundation located
in, you guessed it, Washington. He claimed the move was to ‘expand’ the
conservative movement. Right. I don’t know about the expansion of the
conservative movement, but his financial situation certainly expanded with a
sharp pay increase.
For
a full explanation of the incestuous and seductive nature of Washington I
recommend Mark Leibovich’s recently published book This Town. It is an engaging tale of how Washington absorbs and
molds many who come there with fervent expectations and hopes to change the
‘Town.’ More often than not, it is the ‘Town’ that changes them.