I made a slightly shocking realization this weekend – I could be a member of the Tea Party, if I was angry enough, disliked the government more, and really hated both political parties in some way. And yeah, it’d probably help if I was actually Conservative. That aside, the Tea Party and I agree at least on a few things – the economy sucks, Congress isn’t perfect, I’d really rather not live in George Orwell’s 1984, thank you very much. But the degree to which we feel Congress is having issues and how we express it is where we strongly diverge. At least that's what I believed until I heard exactly what some Tea Party members were saying.
The video of the Tea Party rally in DC that Jordan sent to us (thanks for that, by the way) really interested me. I’ve heard (from Fox News) how peaceful the protests are and there’s no littering and no threatening. So I’ll admit that I was a bit shocked to see the piles of garbage, the passive-aggressive signs (“Keep pushing us and find out what happens”) and rhetoric that I would expect more from the Westboro Baptist Church, including one man saying, “9/11 was our warning” and calling for people to repent (quick blurb about Westboro Baptist Church: they’re the organization that protests military funerals and believe 9/11 occurred because we allow for homosexuality to exist in our country). One man in the video even claimed that the Bible “deciphered in its content” expresses that Barak Obama’s name means Anti-Christ. But just because a few people at a rally have some crazy ideas doesn’t mean they actually have that much in common with extreme groups like Westboro, or that they’re typical members of the Tea Party. To quote Zernike, “…this fringe did not define the Tea Party.” This is just one representation, and they didn’t talk to everyone there. Maybe it’s just a fluke a lot people with odd opinions were more prominent.
So to get another perspective, I found this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1CLPhz0DHM. I was especially interested to watch it after hearing (and getting pissed off at) the 9/12 rally about how most abortions are done on black women and thereafter noticing that everyone who interviewed seemed to belong to the category of “white American.” The members of this rally appeared more diverse and also had better comebacks to the questions presented (perhaps because it was made by supporters, perhaps not). The rally itself even seemed different – a calmer tone, a more welcoming atmosphere, somewhat less insulting signs. This seemed more like the Tea Party Glenn Beck has been promoting – and the one that is supposed to be the majority. But again, this was made by supporters; it could have been staged. Plus it didn’t help that the last guy said he didn’t even belong to the Tea Party.
And because I wasn’t yet satisfied, I had to drag in Sarah Palin and watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH8YABbht_I. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here, but I’m only going to focus on parts of it, otherwise this post will never end. Palin made some beautifully Hegelian comments about Egypt (about who’s side we should be on) and also makes some interesting political moves regarding Bush. Judge Napolitano, the host of the show, opened by saying we should take a cue from Egypt and not let big government control us, as it has in the past with the USA PATRIOT Act (fun fact: did you know that that’s actually an acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism?” Blame my roommate, Sarah, for knowing that little gem). Palin goes on to echo this, saying we should move away from Bush’s form of government (as he signed the PATRIOT Act) which is interesting, considering when Democrats said Obama was inheriting a lot of issues from Bush, Republicans tended to say that it wasn’t Bush’s fault but the Democratic Congress in the last two years of Bush’s term. So now Republicans want to blame Bush? I’m a bit lost.
Palin got me interested in seeing what other politicians think of the Tea Party (especially since two prominent Republicans, probably running for President, are from Minnesota – Michelle Bachman and Tim Pawlenty). This article from the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cpac-20110213,0,4410538.story) shows how members of the GOP are trying to appeal to Tea Partiers. But if the Tea Partiers are as angry at Congress and the government as polls say they are, will this do any good? Maybe. Though the stats from the CBS-NYT poll show that 96% of Tea Party members disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job, only a slight majority disapprove of representatives from their district (49% vs 40%). Maybe it’s easier to hate a public official you have no personal connection with – it’s easy to blame Congress in general but maybe not so easy if you’ve actually met a representative in person. But the polls from the general public showed similar results; so maybe it’s not such a Tea Party specific sentiment. Palin, however, believes having Tea Partiers in Congress is a major step forward to appeal to the desires of people who are dissatisfied with the way our country is being run. Yet having the Republicans go Tea Party seems to make this more complicated – aren’t the Partiers supposed to be pissed at both Reps and Dems? If I were a Tea Partier, I’d be pissed if the Congress suddenly started trying to curry favor with me. If I distrust the government, why would I trust them just because they started trying to agree with me? Besides, what exactly do they support? Zernike mentioned how some Partiers want to avoid social issues like abortion, while according the LA Times, some delegates are upset that these issues are being down-played.
Finally, I ended up at a Tea Party website (http://www.summit11.org/) where a friendly-sounding woman on a video tried to convince attend Tea Party Summit in Phoenix (the video for this summit is on the left-hand side of the page, if you’re interested). Out of everything I found, I think this video freaked me out the most. By attending this summit I would be able to “write the first pages of a new chapter of American History” (oh, hai Hegel) and spend time in a town that was “born in the ruins of a former civilization” (they pair this with a clip of a Navajo dancer. I screamed when I watched this bit). Promoted as a movement for ordinary people, I thought it was interesting that the video advertised all the fancy resorts and spas that one could visit while attending the summit, so during the day you can worry about fiscal responsibility then head off for a nice luxury massage afterwards. Yeah, makes perfect sense…The kindly-voiced woman continues to condemn big government but mentions a reform plan that will last for decades. “We shook up the establishment in just two years – imagine what we can do in forty!” she says at the end. That sounds kind of… well, big government-y.
I can see why Beck likes the Tea Party – it’s a lot like him. In the words of Ardorno, about Thomas: “… Thomas uses the vagueness of his image of himself to leave room for any kind of fantasy on the part of the audience. He presents himself as a kind of empty frame which can be filled out by the most contradictory conceptions on the part of his listeners.” The Tea Party, though they have a strong basic opinions, seems to be expressed in a numerous different ways, so much so that when I watched the Tea Partiers and the Anti-Tea Partiers one after the other, if it hadn’t been for the sound, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between the two. If people who hate government health care and people who support Medicaid are part of the same movement, then exactly how does one define what the Tea Party does? Each rally and politician’s opinion adds a different dynamic and with no sound platform for the Party. One person could easily jump in, run with a basic idea that the Party supports and ultimately become its voice, completely redefining it. I mean, there's enough contradiction between people in the same rally, I feel like it'd be easy for anyone to step in and say, "Yeah, awesome, the government sucks right now. I only agree with about 10% of you, but that's cool." If that happens, what becomes of the Tea Party then? Will expand our political parties for the better? Or will it become like the 3rd Reich?
Yeah, Godwin’s Law, I know. Sue me.
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