Tea Party leaders: GOP should ignore social issues (TP "Patriots", Tammy Bruce)

Leaders of the Tea Party "Patriots" and the New American "Patriots" - together with the gay group GOProud and Tammy Bruce - have written an open letter (link) to the GOP urging them to avoid "social issues". Instead, they want the GOP to concentrate on their message of "economic freedom".

Obviously, what they want is incredibly poor strategy and in line with all the other stupidity surrounding the tea parties movement.

1. Social conservatives make up a large part of the GOP coalition, and if the GOP won't offer them something many of them won't bother to vote, many will vote for fewer GOP candidates than they would otherwise, and they might even consider forming their own party.

2. The teaparties message of "economic freedom" only applies to and resonates with a small percentage of Americans, what I've called the "country elite". That is, the richest folks in small and medium towns. Their message of "economic freedom" doesn't apply to those who aren't relatively well-off (but who aren't the real rich). "Economic freedom" might sound good to some but then what they say when you start taking away their benefits. The Libertarian Party has been pushing "economic freedom" for decades with little success. Social issues are salient; fiscal issues are not: only fringe teaparty/libertarian extremists get red in the face over economic issues and the same isn't true of social issues.

3. People have long shown that they'll vote against their economic interests over social issues. It would be in the economic interests of many Americans to vote for the Democrats yet they vote for Republicans instead due to the Democrats being associated with the coastal elites who sneer at them.

4. In their letter they mislead (another Teaparty hallmark) when they claim "Poll after poll confirms that the Tea Party's laser focus on issues of economic freedom and limited government resonated with the American people on Election Day." Actually, what resonated with people was the teaparties as a challenge to entrenched DC interests, not fiscal conservatism which is as unpopular as it always was [1]. The teapartiers form a subset of the Republican party and their ideology isn't making in-roads beyond that subset (link, link).

5. Some "social issues" are where the establishment is weakest: immigration, the sneering mentioned above, affirmative action, race-baiting, and so on. The teaparties almost completely ignored immigration for over a year, with some of them considering it just a "social issue". That's despite the fact that it's more fundamental than spending and it's the area when the Democrats and the establishment are most vulnerable.

6. From the teaparty perspective, ignoring social issues makes them extremely vulnerable to social issues being used against them, which the Democrats have done by constantly playing the race card. I could care less about any damage done to the teaparties by the Democrats' toxic race-baiting, the problem is the impact of the race card being played on the country as a whole. The teaparties have increased racial tension in the U.S. and would continue to do so.

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[1] From this:

Three-quarters of Americans believe that entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security “will create major economic problems” over the next 25 years. But two-thirds are opposed to addressing these challenges by reducing benefits, and 56 percent are against raising taxes... The poll results are from a new USA Today/Gallup survey, but they track other recent research...