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The political lesson, worth pondering in these times of Tea Party rumbling, is that serious protest movements such as the Perot phenomenon or today’s Tea Party revolt never just fade away. They linger in American politics, sometimes largely unseen but sometimes quite overt, and exert a continuing tug on the course of electoral decision-making. Eventually they get absorbed into one major party or the other. In the process, they often tilt the balance of political power in the country, occasionally for substantial periods of time.

First, is this movement for real and is it enduring? The answer is yes.

The seething anger that seems to be an indigenous aspect of the Tea Party movement arises, I think, at the very place where politics and metaphysics meet, where metaphysical sentiment becomes political belief.

When it comes to the Tea Party’s concrete policy proposals, things get fuzzier and more contradictory: keep the government out of health care, but leave Medicare alone; balance the budget, but don’t raise taxes; let individuals take care of themselves, but leave Social Security alone; and, of course, the paradoxical demand not to support Wall Street, to let the hard-working producers of wealth get on with it without regulation and government stimulus, but also to make sure the banks can lend to small businesses and responsible homeowners in a stable but growing economy. 

Mark Lilla argued that the hodge-podge list of animosities Tea party supporters mention fail to cohere into a body of political grievances in the conventional sense: they lack the connecting thread of achieving political power. 

But it’s futile to insist on nuances of history and law when we’re speaking the language of “offense.” The mythical heartland Sarah Palin speaks from, or for, is full of these voiceless, downtrodden plain folk who are constantly being offended, for whom there is no end to the offenses, real or imagined, perpetrated against them: the Mexican immigrant speaking his native tongue, the Muslim at his prayers, the black man drinking from a public water fountain (oh wait, that one’s not offensive anymore . . .). One of the more charming stories in Budiansky’s history of Reconstruction concerns a Southern gentleman who wanted a freed slave whipped because he had the temerity to wish him “good morning” without being spoken to first. These offended people see with such dreadful clarity things that don’t exist, and so remake reality to suit their grievances.

In a late interview by turns confessional and triumphant, Lee Atwater, author of the strategy that turned the solidly Democratic, racist South into the solidly Republican, racist South, described the Southern Strategy’s metamorphosis over the years, “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.” Partly through Atwater, Republicans developed a kind of reverse means test, an economic version of the old “one-drop rule.” Policies that were likely to help blacks, even if they were also likely to help poor whites, because they were policies largely designed to help the poor, regardless of color, became issues to campaign against: welfare, health care, federal education funding, progressive taxation, clean air regulations, funding for public transportation, just about any “progressive policy” you can think of. Some whites would be hurt, but blacks would be hurt worse. This has proved true. African Americans as a group are still poorer than whites as a group, regardless of the achievements of this generation’s talented tenth and of the growing army of the unemployed of all colors.

Well, if the jury is still out on Tea Party hypocrisy, then let me make a few suggestions to those of you in the Tea Party to help you avoid being called hypocrites:1. Many Tea Party members (including some commenters here) oppose the $700 billion TARP bailouts. The Obama administration said last week that the projected total costs will come in under $50 billion, and that it could possibly make money for the government when it is fully paid back. Give the Obama administration credit for reducing the costs, and praise him if the costs reach $0 or if it pays for itself.2. After decrying the "generational theft" of deficit spending, the Tea Party seems to have no problem supporting the extension of the Bush tax cuts; even for the very wealthy. Tax cuts, were the single biggest factor adding to the deficit before the recession reduced revenues. You claim to worry about their children's futures, but they're putting their kids in debt to pay for the lifestyles of today's wealthy. Admit that at least some of the tax cuts have to go.3. If the deficit is the problem, then get serious about the defense budget. Last year defense spending costed more than social security entitlements, and more then medicare and medicaid, and far more than the stimulus or TARP. And on top of it, Americans get a very low return on their investment of tax dollars in military spending. Much of the benefit is realized directly by people in other countries who enjoy greater stability. Start supporting a downsizing of the military.4. Get off of your constitutional high horse. For a bunch of people who claim to support the Constitution, they sure were reluctant to support the First Amendment rights of Muslims who wanted to build a community center near the WTC site. Don't be so quick to anger when people are trying to exercise the freedoms that you claim to cherish so much. If you really love your freedoms, you should understand why people want to exercise theirs.5. Again, concerning the Constitution: stop picking candidates that know nothing about constitutional law. If you care so much about the Constitution, why are you listening to Sarah Palin, who could not have been more wrong when she claimed that the First Amendment protected her from criticism by the media? When running for vice president, she didn't know what the constitution said about the vice presidency. How about Christine O'Donnell, who couldn't name any recent Supreme Court cases last week? These are the people you chose to represent you and your respect for the US Constitution?6. If you want small government, then actively support same-sex marriage rights. Don't want the government telling you what to do? Then you shouldn't want the government telling you whom you can and can't marry. Small government does not regulate personal decisions about whom you spend your life with, and if you are serious about small government, then you should be out there protesting for gay marriage.7. If Congress is overstepping it's powers to regulate commerce with its healthcare mandate, then get out there and support the legalization of marijuana. Attorney General Holder recently stated that if California legalizes the sale of marijuana, then he will use federal power to prosecute marijuana users for possession of the drug. This should strike you as a gross abuse of federal power in violation of state rights. Come out against Holder's threat right now and get ready to protest if he follows through with it.8. Stop claiming that you have the Founding Fathers on your side, while assailing the educated elite. The Founders were the educated elite. They were all a part of the American Philosophical Society. Many of them were knowledgeable of physics and calculus--the cutting edge sciences of their day. Everyone knows that Benjamin Franklin was a scientist. So, stop the anti-science, anti-intellectual agenda. The Founders would never have stood for that.9. Admit it, you want another Bill Clinton. Sure, the Tea Party is nostalgic for Reagan, but he oversaw a large expansion of the deficit. Government borrowing started to decline under Bush Sr. but the deficit saw massive decline, leading to surpluses under Clinton. G. W. Bush turned those surpluses back into a gaping deficit. So, why do you vote Republican? Get over Reagan and admit that your party shouldn't have tried to impeach the most fiscally conservative president in thirty years.10. And yes, as Mr. Douthat has suggested, get serious about entitlements.

----- Original Message ----- From: "George Friedman" To: "Analyst List" Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:18:35 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's house 3/27 The economics of this is far less important than the social and political implications of the response. The lack of civility on TV has now spilled over into the streets. Physical attacks on people and places you don't agree with has become acceptable. The fundamental and absolute principle of a democratic republic is that while your position may be defeated, and you can continue to argue your point, you do it without demonizing your opponents and without ever threatening harm. Whether this is a small fraction of the movement or large is unimportant to me, as is the argument about healthcare. This behavior is more frightening that the largest deficit I can imagine. We use fascist and communist casually, but he definition of each was that it did not absolutely abjure political intimidation. I have not seen anything like this since the segregationists in the south and the anti-war movement in the 1960s.

Both triggered massive political counteractions fortunately, and the segregationists and anti-war movement was politically crushed. I certainly hope that the Tea Party has the same fate. You are both supposed to be students of geopolitics. Approach this geopolitically. You are living in a country where disagreements degenerate into massively uncivil behavior. Yet you are both still arguing the issue. That issue is trivial compared to the way the losers are responding. I find the language they use offensive in a civilized polity, and the intimidation tactics of some of them is monstrous. You should both be far more worried about the political dimension than the economic. We will survive the economic. We can't the political. And as a practical matter, this is the best friend the Democrats have. I'm pretty hard right and I'm offended. Imagine how people more moderate than me look at this. These people are guaranteeing Obama's re-election.

After he switched to the Republican Party in 1962, Ronald Reagan famously quipped: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.”

At Tuesday morning’s meeting of the House Democrats, caucus chairman John Larson rallied his colleagues for the day’s debt-limit debate by playing an audio recording of the 40th president.“Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility,” Reagan says in the clip. “This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the federal deficit would soar. The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations.”

Tea Party Republicans say they would sooner default on the national debt than raise taxes; Reagan agreed to raise taxes 11 times.

I see the rise of religious fundamentalism and the emergence of purely symbolic, policy-free movements to "take our country back" as partly psychological expressions of loss in the face of modernity's complexity and diversity. And I think a core divide within conservatism today is between those conservatives who have an Oakeshottian/Burkean view of the necessity and adventure of social change and those who have a Thomist/Straussian view of timeless, eternal truths and cultures that must be defended in every single respect against their enemies. 

Although tea partier Mattos said she brings her grandchildren to see the manatees, she doesn’t see a point in the Save the Manatee Club. “If some of these environmental movements had been around in the days of the dinosaurs, we’d be living in Jurassic Park now,” she said. So, one is a fat, dull-witted, ponderous herd of creatures, and the other is the manatees. Got it.

For classical economists, it was impossible to understand politics without economics or economics without politics.

The use of the term “economy” by itself did not begin until the late 19th century.

Maddow spent about 20 minutes last night quizzing Paul about his views on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and he and the Republican Party have spent the last 24 hours cleaning up the mess.

He's added to his newsworthiness by claiming his campaign is at the vanguard of the Tea Party movement. That gives him a higher profile still.

You can find fault with the Tea Party’s prescription for balancing the budget—most economists do—but if they hadn’t come to Washington last year, Congress would have waited for a real bond crisis, five or 10 years from now, to create its super committee.

We will know, at the close of the next round of negotiations, which game the Tea Party has been playing: Balance the Budget or Kill the King.

Those arguing that the Tea Partiers aren't really anything new tend to point out that the vast majority of them are Republicans. But by itself, that isn't really surprising or conclusive. This new chart from Gallup, on the other hand, documents that the political concerns and priorities of Tea Party supporters are virtually identical to those of Republicans:

On the second day, after a 7 A.M. choice of Catholic Mass or Bible study, the political analyst Charlie Cook gave a sober presentation about current demographic trends, demonstrating that the Party was doomed unless it started winning over Asian-Americans, Hispanics, and younger voters. He also noted that forty per cent of the electorate is moderate—and Republicans lost that constituency by fifteen points in 2012. Thanks to congressional redistricting, Republicans were able to hold on to the House of Representatives, and Cook said that the Party could probably keep it for the foreseeable future, but he warned that the prospects of winning back the Senate, and the White House, would require dramatic change. There are only twenty Republican women in the House, and Kellyanne Conway, a G.O.P. pollster, gave the overwhelmingly white male audience some advice: stop talking about rape.

Cantor is the House Majority Leader, which means that he is responsible for the mundane business of managing the schedule, the House floor, and committees, where legislation is generally written. He has used his position to transform himself into the Party’s chief political strategist.

while the Bush administration took wise and bold steps to correct the disaster, the unpopularity of its Troubled Asset Relief Program bequeathed the Obama administration a political disaster alongside the economic disaster.

If Republicans are to act effectively and responsibly, we need to learn more positive and productive lessons from the crisis.

It is time to go populist.

Liberals console themselves, when they learn that for every American voter who identities as a liberal there are two conservatives, by saying, Ah, you don't get it; studies show that the majority only subscribe to conservative philosophies but they are 'operational' liberals.

What are these candidates hiding from? The Politico story subscribes to the sports metaphor, explaining that the candidates are "running out the clock." If they say nothing, they won't get caught saying anything stupid, the theory goes.

But when politicians beat this sort of a retreat, they're not signaling that they fear the questions but that they fear the answers.

But filter-free media are self-limiting. To begin with, anything that Sarah Palin tweets goes out unfiltered. That's all well and good, but within seconds, the uber-media will suck it up, interpret it, fact-check it, and spit it out, making a mockery of her unfilteredness. Second, because the nonpress media speak primarily to supporters, they simply preach to the converted. To win, candidates must speak to more than the congregation, which requires conventional media exposure. Third, appearing on a friendly soundstage comes at a cost. A Tea Partier speaking on Fox News is just as prone to committing a campaign-debilitating gaffe as one taking a pummeling from aggressive reporters.

This economic downturn structurally resembles the depressions of the 1890s and the 1930s rather than the cyclical recessions that have recurred since World War II. The American people, mired in debt, with one in six lacking full-time employment, are not spending; and businesses, uncertain of demand for their products, are not investing no matter how low interest rates fall. With the Fed virtually powerless, the only way to stimulate private demand and investment is through public spending. Obama tried to do this with his initial stimulus program, but it was watered down by tax cuts, and undermined by decreases in state spending. By this summer, its effect had dissipated.

Many voters have concluded that Obama’s stimulus program actually contributed to the rise in unemployment and that cutting public spending will speed a recovery. It’s complete nonsense, as the experience of the United States in 1937 or of Japan in the 1990s demonstrated, but it will guide Republican thinking in Congress, and prevent Obama and the Democrats from passing a new stimulus program.

as the Obama administration recognized, much of the new demand will focus on the development of renewable energy and green technology. As the Chinese, Japanese, and Europeans understand, these kinds of industries require government coordination and subsidies. But the new generation of Republicans rejects this kind of industrial policy. They even oppose Obama’s obviously successful auto bailout.