Well, Boortz had an argument – one that he later seemed to withdraw – that the movement is inchoate and without real direction. That is, what is the specific agenda of the movement? It’s not enough to say, “We’re spending too much” or “The bailouts aren’t right.”

There has to be a systematic agenda along with the protests.

As I said, he sort of stepped back from that initial point but it’s not entirely invalid.

SteveMG on April 10, 2009 at 5:15 PM

Leadership is essential to any political movement – all that energy has to be focused by someone who can articulate the positions of the movement in an engaging and passionate way. The leadership also has to be strong enough to take the hits, particularly in an information-age economy with a heavily biased media. Not everyone can write a powerful treatise, or hold up under a hostile interview, or acquit himself well in a debate. For that matter, not everyone can read a teleprompter well. Without leadership, a popular movement is a target for every sniper with a telephoto lens.

I think the Tea Party movement is useful because it demonstrates support for the potential leadership of the conservative renaissance. It is useful for those in Washington to see a growing movement of energetic support. I hope the Tea Party organizers can resist the tendency toward factionalization that affects so many grass-roots endeavors. We have a long, long way to go before we’ve moved the country far enough back to the center, and can begin splitting hairs about the differences between social cons, fiscal cons, libertarians, and so on.

Conservatives know very well how to deal with the artificial outrage and forced marginalization tactics of the Left. It takes voices who will not be silenced or intimidated, who never stop issuing challenges and never forget they speak for a vast number of ordinary people, the kind whose concerns and beliefs are not often discussed at newspaper editorial meetings or Los Angeles cocktail parties. It takes people who know the difference between determination and rage, who cheerfully accept they will be held to a far higher standard than their opponents on the Left, and are ready to reject all of socialism’s premises instead of negotiating over a few they think they can live with. It takes people who acknowledge they have a duty to both the future and the past, instead of seeing the former as a plump source of revenue that isn’t around to complain about high taxes yet, and the latter as a prologue that can be re-written as needed. It takes people with the courage to say what everyone is thinking, instead of what everyone is feeling.

Sometimes it takes a thousand voices raised in unison at a tea party. Sometimes it just takes one guy with a lot of guts and a golden microphone.

Doctor Zero on April 10, 2009 at 5:43 PM