The "tea party" movement

Starting in February 2009, a very small group of people held "tea parties" across the U.S. in a supposed attempt to protest the policies of Barack Obama. I strongly oppose these "parties" for all the many reasons listed below.

My issues with the tea parties fall into several main areas:

1. Their ideology is wrong.
2. They make little political sense.
3. Their methods are wrong.
4. Those behind the movement do not support good public policies.
5. Their priorities are wrong.

Those are to a certain degree independent; someone can agree with me regarding one or more and disagree with me on the others.

And, just to "help"/help, I've added:

6. How the subset of smart, non-Randroid tea partiers can achieve their goals
7. What the Democrats could do about them
8. Should the Democrats support the tea parties?

1. Ideology

While not all tea partiers support "objectivism" - the Ayn Rand philosophy - many do, including leaders of the movement such as Glenn Reynolds. Objectivism is even fringe within the libertarian movement, with the ultimate stage being to "go Galt", i.e., to take their marbles and go home by completely withdrawing from U.S. society. Here's an example of just how fringe objectivists are. Other leaders of the movement are simply libertarians, which in itself is a fringe movement. The parties can be seen as an attempt to mainstream libertarianism or at least extreme fiscal conservatism.

This is a real sign from a real Tea Party protest. It's not an "infiltrator": I took the picture from the Flickr feed of ardent Bush fan Matt Margolis ( peekURL.com/z865xsf ). Note that I obscured his face.

Whatever the underlying ideology, the events are not coming from peoples' better nature. Rather, they're coming from peoples' "lizard brains": the low-level functions involving territorial claims and the like. Instead of promoting good public policy, most of those attending are simply selfish people who want to pay as little tax as possible not due to any intellectual reason - such as limiting government intrusion - but simply because they're cheap. Their fringe ideology isn't even the defensible fringe but is instead focused only on completely self-centered and completely selfish financial matters. They have no interest in what's good for the U.S. as a whole but instead are only concentrating on their own self interest.

2. Politics

The tea party turnout on April 15th, 2009 represented about 0.1% to 0.2% of the U.S. population, despite wall-to-wall promotion on Fox News. That number is nearly insignificant and won't worry any national politician unless they're already very vulnerable. On the local level, their parties in deep blue districts have drawn similar amounts, and all those small rallies do is reassure the Democratic representative from that district just how weak their opposition is. Examples of that here, here, and here.

Further, their ideology is fringe enough that they will never attract a significant number of followers. While most Americans oppose profligate spending, the tea parties go well beyond that. Given that the great majority of Republicans support Social Security and similar programs, those who oppose or want to reduce such programs are never going to find widespread support. Rather than concentrating on a salient issue that - handled correctly - could find widespread support (such as opposition to illegal immigration), the tea partiers stand in opposition to the wishes of most Americans.

It's also useful to look at what the opposition has done. As of the end of March 2009, the mainstream media had largely ignored their movement and, most notably, had not done any hit pieces on them. That strongly indicated that those in a position of power weren't worried about their movement. Then, shortly after Fox News begain promoting their April 15 events, some hit pieces did appear. However, as of July 3, 2009 - just one day before their next round of events on July 4th - they're once again off the mainstream media's radar. As of July 3rd, 2009, Google Trends showed a spike of interest in mid-April, but interest remaining at a low level since then. Obama baited the partiers at the end of April, 2009, but he hasn't said a thing about them since.

There were very few Tea Party events on or about July 4, 2010 and nothing even came close to the preceding year's events.

In political terms, they aren't a concern to any politician because they just don't have the numbers or the innate power. And, as will be discussed in the next section, they aren't trying to obtain power.

Further, it's bad politics for relatively rich people to be complaining about taxation when millions of Americans are out of work. Some of the rallies have featured signs saying, "Don't spread my wealth..spread my work ethic", in effect calling millions of job seekers lazy welfare cheats. That's not just incredibly bad politics, it's not the American way.

3. Methods

Their methods - standing on street corners waving loopy signs - are like something the Kindergarten version of ACORN would do. In at least one case, they've even engaged in intimidation. Like Ron Paul supporters, they think that cheap stunts, playing dress-up games, and the like will carry the day. Their members seem unable to engage their opponents in any form of debate, preferring instead to shout demands and slogans. And, they don't seem to be able to figure out that the best way to defeat their opponents is to show that their arguments are faulty. They also can't figure out the difference between their ideology and their methods; they've closely linked their ideology to street protests and refuse to attempt to promote their ideology using more effective methods.

They also had no plan to deal with mainstream media bias, and some of them have a persecution complex causing them to whine about events that were cancelled due more to their own incompetence than to actions by their opponents.

In some cases, the partiers and I share a common opponent, from low-level hacks like Dave Weigel to organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center. The partiers are absolutely worthless when it comes to opposing people such as those; most will probably have never even heard of most of their opponents much less have a plan to counter-act them.

4. Those behind the movement

The movement wouldn't be anywhere today without support from inside the Beltway, specifically from groups like FreedomWorks, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, and groups linked to the Koch family (the "Kochtopus"). All of those support massive immigration. Not only does massive immigration lead to more spending, it also gives more power to the far-left. In other words, what those behind the movement support leads to the opposite of that which their followers want.

5. Priorities

Spending a trillion here and a trillion here is definitely going to have a delitirious impact on the U.S. However, that impact won't be permanent and is reversible. Meanwhile, the leaders of the tea parties and the vast majority of their followers are ignoring issues that aren't reversible or that will have serious long-term impacts. For instance, if Sonia Sotomayor is approved she'll have an impact on U.S. policies for decades to come. The tea partiers have no plan to block her; none that I've seen have even raised that issue. Likewise with massive immigration. By largely ignoring those issues, they're helping Obama.

In fact, considering all of the many factors outlined above, the Obama administration themselves might have had to create the tea party movement if others hadn't done it for them. The tea parties give Obama what every leader wants: a small and incompetent opposition.

6. How the subset of smart, non-Randroid tea partiers can achieve their goals

The much smarter, much more effective technique that the partiers could use would be to ask tough questions of politicians at their public appearances, get it on video, and upload it to video sharing sites. Please note that my idea of what is a tough question probably differs from many; rants, tantrums, and open-ended questions aren't "tough". I'm talking about the types of questions that a lawyer would ask of someone they were trying to show to be untrustworthy, the types of questions that could have an impact on a politician's career by showing that they're a liar or they can't think through the impacts of their policies. See the question authority page for a detailed description and a basic action plan.

Discrediting one national politician on video will have more of an impact than a thousand "tea parties". My repeated attempts to make that point to them have mostly fallen on deaf ears; like Obama cultists they reflexively dismiss anyone who opposes what they're doing in any way. For an unknown reason, the tea partiers glommed onto worthless street protests rather than trying to come up with better, smarter tactics.

7. What the Democrats could do about them

The response from liberals/Democrats has been predictable and boils down to just calling names, whether "teabagger" (Rachel Maddow example: peekURL.com/v22exsh ) or "racists" (see Janeane Garofalo). I have yet to see a liberal/Democrat actually try to present even a mostly valid argument. If the Democrats weren't what they are, they could point out that even as we have two wars going on and millions of Americans are unemployed and suffering through a recession, the tea partiers are whining about the relatively small amount of taxes they pay. They could mostly correctly portray the partiers as selfish, small-minded people who have little interest in the welfare of their fellow citizens and in good government. Instead of trying to catch partiers in gaffes, they could challenge them for actual solutions (which could then be shown to be faulty). Of course, that would require the Democrats to be something quite different from what they currently are.

8. Should the Democrats support the tea parties?

Yes. The partiers are to a small extent splitting the GOP and demanding purity rather than trying to expand the GOP base. Their ideas just aren't that popular and never will be. It makes political sense for the Democrats to ignore or covertly support the tea parties because they're in effect serving the interests of the Democrats. That doesn't, of course, mean that would be the right thing to do.