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The Tea Parties: A Truly Progressive Movement?
Igor Volsky, Reporting for the progressive journal Think Progress learned something about the Tea Party movement by actually attending a Tea Party rally (something many critics of the movement don't seem to find it necessary to do before passing judgment). He learned that the Tea Parties represent a fundamental shift in the conservative movement in America that should make any honest self-described liberal welcome them, instead of demonizing them as a bunch of racist, homophobic, Bible-thumping (etc.) Teabaggers. Volsky wrote:
During a recent trip to Concord, New Hampshire, to cover a Tax Day Tea Party sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, I asked attendees how the state’s 2009 same-sex marriage law has affected the state or their private lives. New Hampshire Republicans have promised to repeal the law next year and conservatives in the state have promised to turn the marriage issue into a litmus test for potential 2012 presidential contenders.
But at Friday’s event, not a single Tea Party activist told me that expanding marriage to gays and lesbians has undermined their relationships or in any way changed the state. In fact, everyone I spoke to insisted that changing the marriage law was not a priority:
- “Have I seen any changes?…No, not really.”
- “No, not really, it hasn’t really effected me. And I don’t think that this is a priority right now for most people.”
- “It’s not an issue for me. Love is love, I don’t care one way or another…we have much bigger problems to worry about than that.”
Did you catch all of that? You see, this is not Karl Rove's Republican Party anymore. In 2004 the most active groups within the Republican Party were rabidly anti-gay and pro-state regulation of private social issues like marriage. Today's most energized faction of the Republican Party is the Tea Party movement, and what do they think about social issues? "Love is love, I don’t care one way or another… we have much bigger problems to worry about than that." There's your teabagging bigot, Rachel Maddow. You honestly want to keep hating on the Tea Parties?
And not only is this new kind of conservative uninterested in regulating our private social lives, their focus on economics isn't the same tired old "let's get these welfare queens off the dole" kind of economic conservatism. Tea Party goers and their leaders were first galvanized by the TARP bailouts-- a transfer of money from poor and middle class working Americans to rich Wall Street banks, and continue to vocally oppose corporate welfare-- money taken from the poor and middle class to subsidize wealthy corporations-- as one of America's primary fiscal problems.
In the last few months, you have heard an awful lot of complaining about "tax cuts for the wealthy" from elected progressive Democrats who voted to directly take your money and give it to the wealthy. Any honest self-described liberal should have opposed those bailouts from the start (kudos to Michael Moore), and supported the Tea Parties for their single-minded tenacity in opposing that kind of morally bankrupt steal-from-the-poor-to-give-to-the-rich policy.
Yet opposition to the Tea Parties from establishment "liberals" has been vicious and deranged. Why? Maybe, just maybe, most allegedly liberal talking heads don't care at all about the policies they profess to care about, but instead, like their allegedly conservative counterparts, simply parrot the party line and will oppose anything at all that threatens the influence wielded by a gang of policymakers with the "correct" letter next to their name. Tories all.
During a recent trip to Concord, New Hampshire, to cover a Tax Day Tea Party sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, I asked attendees how the state’s 2009 same-sex marriage law has affected the state or their private lives. New Hampshire Republicans have promised to repeal the law next year and conservatives in the state have promised to turn the marriage issue into a litmus test for potential 2012 presidential contenders.
But at Friday’s event, not a single Tea Party activist told me that expanding marriage to gays and lesbians has undermined their relationships or in any way changed the state. In fact, everyone I spoke to insisted that changing the marriage law was not a priority:
- “Have I seen any changes?…No, not really.”
- “No, not really, it hasn’t really effected me. And I don’t think that this is a priority right now for most people.”
- “It’s not an issue for me. Love is love, I don’t care one way or another…we have much bigger problems to worry about than that.”
Did you catch all of that? You see, this is not Karl Rove's Republican Party anymore. In 2004 the most active groups within the Republican Party were rabidly anti-gay and pro-state regulation of private social issues like marriage. Today's most energized faction of the Republican Party is the Tea Party movement, and what do they think about social issues? "Love is love, I don’t care one way or another… we have much bigger problems to worry about than that." There's your teabagging bigot, Rachel Maddow. You honestly want to keep hating on the Tea Parties?
And not only is this new kind of conservative uninterested in regulating our private social lives, their focus on economics isn't the same tired old "let's get these welfare queens off the dole" kind of economic conservatism. Tea Party goers and their leaders were first galvanized by the TARP bailouts-- a transfer of money from poor and middle class working Americans to rich Wall Street banks, and continue to vocally oppose corporate welfare-- money taken from the poor and middle class to subsidize wealthy corporations-- as one of America's primary fiscal problems.
In the last few months, you have heard an awful lot of complaining about "tax cuts for the wealthy" from elected progressive Democrats who voted to directly take your money and give it to the wealthy. Any honest self-described liberal should have opposed those bailouts from the start (kudos to Michael Moore), and supported the Tea Parties for their single-minded tenacity in opposing that kind of morally bankrupt steal-from-the-poor-to-give-to-the-rich policy.
Yet opposition to the Tea Parties from establishment "liberals" has been vicious and deranged. Why? Maybe, just maybe, most allegedly liberal talking heads don't care at all about the policies they profess to care about, but instead, like their allegedly conservative counterparts, simply parrot the party line and will oppose anything at all that threatens the influence wielded by a gang of policymakers with the "correct" letter next to their name. Tories all.
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