I agree that the part of the Tea Party that is legit and not astroturfers set up, funded and directed by .1%, the Kochs and others should leave the GOP. However, I think you have it wrong if you think that corporate Dems have much to offer them. It is the left or at least folks who support strongly social security Medicare, the ACA, higher minimum wages and unions, all the things that supported the now declining middle class from which the Tea Partiers are made of. Your idea that any Dems support dependency, whether Obama or the "left" is just not true and part of the false narrative put out by the .1% that has fooled so much of the white working class Tea Partiers.
I'm with Dumbartonbass. The cognitive dissonance is painful. I don't see how anyone who has studied the policies put forward by Obama versus LBJ can claim that Obama is far to the left of LBJ. On domestic policy Obama is to the right of Nixon and not that far off as far as foreign policy goes.
I agree. And it is not unique to Obama. The entire Democratic party is about at where the Republican party was prior to Reagan.
When exactly did you lose your mind? How is the tea party anti government, anti minority, anti immigrant, anti gay, anti modern society message going to bamboozle Democrats into voting against their interests?
I think it was Karl Rove who said that the most positive legacy of Reagan and the subsequent rightward shift of Republican politics was a broader political shift of American political thought. We are a center-right country now and even our liberal party largely represents the point where Republicans once governed from. I think he's correct on that front. The only downside that he didn't forsee is that the move to shift the US to the right produced a Republican party so far out of the mainstream that it is rapidly killing its ability to win elections even though it shifted the overall state of American politics.
The "Tea Partiers" are composed of two main points. 1) the original organizers from the Koch front groups, the Fox News elitists and traditional elitist GOP organizers, and 2) white working class folks who are hurting and have not had wealth trickled down by free market fundie economics. I blame corporate Dems for not being sufficiently clear who has the second group's interests. These folks should be aligned with the Occupy folks. Every time a mild corporate Dem like Obama talks about cutting social security or medicare or is luke warm to say the least in supporting unions or higher minimum wage or tries to do secret free market trade agreements or let's Wall Streeters pay fines instead of going to jail for crimes he confuses this second group to the point where it is easy to say both parties are the same or blame their plight on folks who don't look like them.
I agree and disagree with various points you made. I agree those folks should be aligned with the Occupy mindset (as ill defined as that was/is), but instead of saying that it is the fault of the corporate dems for not providing a clear message, I would blame the corporate dems for truly not having that groups interest as its primary objective. They are certainly more concerned about them than the Republicans, but the post Reagan Democrats have been a corporatist/wall street controlled moderate (or even conservative) party. So, it is not that their messaging is faulty, it is that their policies are. The Republican's policies are worse of course, but if neither party has policies primarily concerned with positively affecting your standard of living, then I suppose you go with the party that at least you agree with more socially. edit -- thinking about your post more I think you may agree with a lot of what I just said, but I am not sure. To clarify my differentiation with your points -- I am saying that it is not bad messaging on the part of the dems that have failed to attract this group, but rather policies that are not favoring the working class enough to cause the working class to vote based on pocket book instead of based on social issues.
I have long held that the fundamental, driving force behind both the TEA Party and Occupy Wall Street is the same, with the people separated by the media they choose to consume. People got pissed off that Wall Street crashed the economy with their casino night, got bailed out by the taxpayer, didn't feel the pain of the crash like Main Street did, and then started paying bonuses like nothing had happened while America suffered through unemployment, stagnant wages, and a dramatic reduction in personal wealth. The thing is, for the TEA Party folks to be welcomed into the Democratic party, they would have to give up on all of the social wedge issues on which Fox, et. al. have been fanning the flames. If they can do that, we could actually come up with financial regulations that make sense, tax policies that work for America, and may even be able to see that the gains in the economy are shared more broadly. I have hope that it might change, but I won't hold my breath.
I remember reading an article during the Occupy movement about someone having discovered a leak from some sort of government agency with a series of memo points for concerns on the Occupy groups. One of the main one was trying to make sure they Occupy movement did not have any confluence with the tea Party movement. I am not sure how legitimate the article was (if I remember correctly, it was from a pretty spurious partisan online source), but I say in order to say I agree with you, and there is a lot of truth to what you say. The best the working class tea Party members can hope for is to be co-opted by the Republicans while shifting things to the right, and the best the Occupy attained to was to be co-opted by the Dems while shifting things to the left. But in both cases the same people who irresponsibly and selfishly wrecked wrecked the economy (on both sides of the isle) will still have power. Their friends in the banks and corporation will not be punished. And no reform that will bring radical change to the quality of life of the working people or to their prospects in the future will occur. So, I agree with you -- but I am not holding my breath either (maybe just pinching my nose a bit).
The problem with the tea party is that reality and facts have no bearing on the rank-and-files' political stances. This is how you get tea party signs that say "keep government out of my medicare." Look at the polling after the shutdown. The tea party is pretty much the opposite of the mainstream position. The shutdown was a good idea in tea party land. The only problem with it was that the GOP didn't get what they wanted. The tea party should be disbanded and never spoken of again. The idea that they will become democrats, and moderate democrats at that, is laugh-out-loud hilarious.
You cited two pro-Vietnam democrats and another who's been dead for 30 - 50 years. You're also disproportionately associating welfare with blacks, just like your Southern turncoat forebears who couldn't win integrated primaries.
And then organize (and arm) based on race and religion, like every other democracy outside of Western Europe.
Tea Party has helped elect Democrats by running in GOP primaries and getting nominated. Since they are insane the Democrats win in races that a moderate GOP candidate would now win. Folks like Thumbs realize that most of the time when they win a Republican nomination they are helping the Democrats. Now if they can win some Democratic nominations they'll be helping the Republicans which is closer to what they want anyway.
