The headlines “Tea Party Draws Hundreds to Participate” or “Patriots Defy Government” don’t necessarily seem to fit with our modern age. Indeed, some would even deem such publications anachronistic by nature. However, they actually describe events from the last year rather than the famous act of protest that took place in Boston more than 200 years ago. Today’s modern-day “Tea Partiers” are members of a far-right grassroots organization dedicated to a purer American republic, a return to the principles of democracy as set forth by the founding fathers. The popular organization Tea Party Patriots describes their own mission statement as: “The impetus for the Tea Party movement is excessive government spending and taxation. Our mission is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy with our three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, and Free Markets.” Drawing thousands of members to regional organizations across the country, the Tea Party movement has gained traction over the last year in response to President Obama’s deficit spending and costly legislative agendas including TARP and healthcare reform. As the Tea Party movement’s leadership as well as a band of loyal followers gathered in Nashville, Tennessee beginning February 5th for a national conference, this once small band of conservatives staging ironic protests has now become a political force in terms of fundraising, mobilization, and volunteer organization.
Announcing at the beginning of their conference the formation of a political action committee (PAC) labeled “Ensuring Liberty,” Tea Party organizers are preparing themselves for a massive fundraising drive with campaign management potential in support of approved candidates across the United States. Tea Party spokesman Mark Skoda remarked in the New York Times with regard to his organization’s expansion into the financial arena of American politics, “Let us not be naïve here. The notion of holding up signs does not get people elected.” Given such a vehement statement, it is easy to see how some pundits have characterized the apparent rise to power of the Tea Party movement as potentially beginning a new age in American politics marked by a powerful third-party. While such ideas remain, for the most part, speculation and are even denied by organizers, the radical swing of the Republican Party to the far-right is clear. Take for instance the primary loss of New York assemblywoman, Dede Scozzafava, who, though a self-proclaimed Republican was attacked by a third-party Conservative candidate who split the republican vote. Along with Tea Party radicals and even the rise of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin to prominence, the Republican Party does seem to be establishing a new political base in the far-far-right.
Actually, the intersection of Tea Party supporters and so-called “Palin-Republicans” is closer than you might think. Palin, who was amassed an impressive number of speaking engagements since her loss to President Obama in November 2008, spoke at the Nashville organizing conference February 6th—reportedly a main factor in the over $500 admission fees to the conference. Now directly influencing 1.3 million Facebook fans on a daily basis as well as endorsing Republican candidates across the United States and writing the occasional newspaper column, Palin is positioning herself for an unknown but assuredly successful future. Recently contracted as an analyst for Fox News, Palin is fueled by daily briefings from an experienced political staff that has remained with her following the 2008 Presidential campaign. The New York Times writes of Palin’s popularity that, “Ms. Palin represents a new breed of unelected public figures operating in an environment in which politics, news media, and celebrity are fused as never before.”
The question then remains whether or not the Tea Party movement and the ascension of Sarah Palin to a yet-to-be-defined role in conservative politics illustrates a broader trend among the American people. Are Americans simply more “Republican” then they were in 2008? Did the election of Republican Scott Brown to the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat represent a referendum on President Obama’s healthcare program? Personally, I feel that they demonstrate two separate things: a growing pragmatism across the country and the failure of Democrats to effectively market their agendas.
Facing unemployment hovering around ten percent and a growing distrust of Wall Street investors, I believe most Americans are retreating to what is seemingly a fiscally-minded party without taking the time to research the actual policy positions espoused by the candidates. Granted, some will always believe in the theory of tax cuts after tax cuts to stimulate the economy. However, an overwhelming fraction of economists agree that the deficit spending President Obama pushed through Congress to combat this recession is exactly what an economy as large as ours requires, in fact, Nobel Prize-winning economist and professor Paul Krugman has even declared that he believes TARP to have been too limited. The American populace forgets that Reaganomics has not led this country to prominence on the world stage. In fact, the most economically stable period in recent history was under the Clinton administration. The presidency of George W. Bush alone can serve as a glaring indicator that Republican administrations that pledge to cut costs and give money back to “the people” are in fact successful.
Secondly, it appears that Democrats across the board are failing to instill in Americans the reasons their agendas are necessary. They have not connected on a personal level to the electorate in order to persuade them of the absolute necessity of universal healthcare. Gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia were unable to sell economic efforts on the part of national democrats to revive a sluggish job outlook. However, I still do not believe that all is lost for the Democratic Party. Is it incredibly important that Democratic agendas succeed, at least partially, before the 2012 Midterm elections? Yes. Is there time for at least a moderate recovery? Yes. In my opinion at least the country has a lot more too lose in the face of rising conservative banter from Ms. Palin and the Tea Partiers than from the current Democratic administration. Limiting the rights of women, eliminating the power of the federal government, and ignoring the division of church and state Sarah Palin could be a much wore President than Obama anyday.