2008 was a dismal time for the Republican Party. They had sunk so low, and become so bound to Bush’s failed presidency, that they had to fragment their brand in order to achieve legitimacy again. Make no mistake: Dick Armey’s Tea Parties were a brilliant idea. They repositioned the Republican Party, turning back the clock from George W. Bush’s inarguably toxic ideas all the way to the 1980s, to Ronald Reagan’s imaginary small-government, populist conservative movement. The Tea Parties changed the conversation in a striking way and rebranded the monstrous Republican Party into something palatable for the majority of the electorate.
But now the hard work begins for the Republican Party. The most high-profile (which is to say crazily militant) Teabagger candidates were defeated last night, or (in the case of Rand Paul* and a few others) they were assimilated into the Republican mainstream. Now the GOP is going to have to convince the perennially outraged Teabagger voters who pushed them over the top across the country to come home, to re-graft the “renegade” Tea Party brand into the general Republican Party. Having gotten their base fired up about small government triggering a prosperous economy, they will have very little time to make good on their promises. I expect that the fired-up base will evaporate from disgust at the realities of the political process in the next few years, and they’ll withdraw from the political process, waiting for the next bullshit populist storm to hit in a decade or two so they can rain their vengeance down on the country again.
There will be more Tea Parties, of course, with the requisite signs and fist-shaking and outrage. The Republicans will try to stretch their sub-brand out, try to levy the Tea Parties into some genuine 2012 momentum, but the moment has passed. You can only run against everything for so long before the fury dries up. It was a one-time trick to involve every single possible Republican voter in America. I suspect that a lot of the voters who were suckered in by this brilliant marketing scheme will soon be overtaken by apathy once again. The Tea Party died yesterday in everything but name.
* It will be especially interesting to watch Rand Paul in the Senate—we’ll see if his Junior Dr. No schtick can work in the Senate as effectively as his dad has made it work in the House. People generally expect their senators to advocate for federal dollars for the state. If Paul tries to be as obstinate as he’s been advertising, he’ll quickly learn that what the people actually want and what the people say they want are two completely different things.
And of course, being of the highest integrity as they are; in two years when the incoming House Republicans have failed to “fix the economy,” no doubt the Teabaggers will vote all these newcomers right back out, right?
Right?
Just as not every self professed Dem is of high integrity (I would say very very few actually are) not all the Tea Partiers are crazed loonies. Yes, most of them are now because the GOP hacks infiltrated a truly grass roots movement very early on, utterly corrupting it. But Rand Paul is one of the good ones. Anyone against the Federal Reserve system is on our side, whether you think it or not.
If the good ones
* question the Civil Rights act of 1964
* want to abolish the Department of Education
* oppose the Fair Housing Act
* believe the BP oil spill was due to OVERregulation
I’d hate to see what the bad ones are up to.
I applaud his brave stance on opposing the PATRIOT act as a Republican, but the guy is flat-out nutty.
Look, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is a shill. She uses Paul’s opposition to the federal government dictating to the states — specifically, civil rights legislation handed down by the feds — to insinuate that he is a racist.
This is the same argument constantly used by Chris Matthews and others to portray states’ rights advocates as racists. It is part of the effort by the corporate media and government to label all opposition to Obama as the hateful ranting of white supremacists.
When Paul was on Rachel Maddow’s show, what he responded “yes” to was whether he could hear the audio feed, not “yes” to repealing all civil rights laws. But that is not how the media has spun the incident—it’s far juicier to say he wants to appeal all civil rights.
The Department of Education has increased in size and budget while test scores and scholastic performance have plummeted. All we ever hear from politicians is how under funded the schools are. More of our tax dollars should go directly to schools on a local level, not to the whatever curriculum the feds want to dictate.
As far as his position on the oil spill….well, I strongly disagree with that one.
But all these other issues, important as they may be, pail in comparison to the only issue that matters. Abolishing the Federal Reserve, and bring to power to issue currency and credit back to congress without interest. Both Pauls are strong, reliable advocates of this, and that is why the mocking bird media has declared all out war Rand Paul.
The Republican strategy was brilliant. Energize all the tea party nuts, have them come out and vote for all the Republicans that played along with them. Now screw them as the Republican victors continue to fund the corporations and get all the benefits that accrue from that. Yeah, Tea Partiers, you’re going to get even more pissed and you’ll have nothing left to do but worship your Christines, Sarahs, Joe Millers and Angles.
I feel sorry for the new Speaker of the House. He has to wrangle cats since 25% of the new Republican majority are freshman to the congress. Most of these freshman have never been in a legislative body. So they will be zombies for the first year, and since they are Tea Party they have to try and eat his brain.