What happened to tea-party “rage”?
Gone is the white-hot rage that famously defined the town hall meetings of August 2009 and sent incumbents from both parties packing a year later.
In its place is much of what met Graham at a half-empty Tea Party town hall in North Charleston earlier this week: lingering frustration and continued anger with Washington, but a growing realization within the upstart movement that sustaining a revolution is harder than starting it—and that merely electing conservatives doesn’t guarantee they’ll buck the system they promised to overthrow…
One senior Republican aide says the Senate races may not reflect a decline in Tea Party power as much as the determined efforts of senators like Hatch and Snowe to stay in the activists’ good graces after seeing such colleagues as Utah’s Robert Bennett sent home in 2010…
“The Tea Party has added an energy on the big issues we haven’t had before,” Graham told The Daily Beast after the meeting. “These people are fearless. They could care less about reelection. In that regard, they’re doing the nation a great service.”
Blowback
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Tea Party “members”? Can you please source that? I hunted for it and only saw numbers like that associated with Tea party “supporters” or “those that agree with the tea party”, which probably includes the vast majority of Republicans, half the moderate independents and a noticeable portion of Democrats.
elfman on August 28, 2011 at 9:53 AM
If it wasn’t for that Tea-Party backed, freshman class of 2010, Boehner would have agreed to the “Grand Bargain”, signing on for at least $800B in new taxes, and probably more. Obama doubled-down for more and walked away with nothing. They’ve already made a huge impact on DC thinking and get-along mentality. I’m not happy with the level of spending cuts we got, which makes next year’s senate elections critical.
PatMac on August 28, 2011 at 9:56 AM
I think Sarah Palin would disagree with the basic premise. It’s not so much Tea Party Rage as it is Tea Party Restoration, restoring what made the USA great.
JimK on August 28, 2011 at 10:13 AM
If it wasn’t for that Tea-Party backed, freshman class of 2010, Boehner would have agreed to the “Grand Bargain”, signing on for at least $800B in new taxes, and probably more. Obama doubled-down for more and walked away with nothing. They’ve already made a huge impact on DC thinking and get-along mentality. I’m not happy with the level of spending cuts we got, which makes next year’s senate elections critical.
PatMac on August 28, 2011 at 9:56 AM
First, the budget deal guaranteed a $4T tax increase. It allows the Bush tax cuts to expire unless we cut $2T more from defense and $2T from that small portion of the budget that’s Social Security, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, civilian and military retirement. I don’t know why this isn’t more widely known.
Second, there are no spending “cuts”. We merely have small reductions in plans for future spending increases (say that 10 times fast) that have little effect on what future congresses actual budget, much less spend. Since we will spend more this next year than we did last, we have not cut spending.
Third, it will be much harder to cut spending under a Republican president because most media will bury how Democrats with no responsibility will agitate their base which will have much less to lose by rioting in the streets against a Republicans government that appears to have destroyed the economy. (And yes, the lay offs from the spending cuts required will initially appear to destroy the economy.
Fourth, as you can see Obama didn’t “walk away with nothing”. He got a $4T tax increase on the rich, budget battles pushed back until after his election and the vast majority of reductions in spending increases pushed off into the future, assuming they occur at all. Republicans’ got a breather, Americans got a delay from budget cuts that will now be $2.4T more severe and I can’t even remember what fiscal conservatives got.
elfman on August 28, 2011 at 10:59 AM
Forgot to quote you above…
elfman on August 28, 2011 at 11:00 AM
..agreed. Let them whistle. The personality of The American Revolution changed radically between the Boston Massacre, Tea Party, and Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill and Cornwallis surrendering at Yorktown.
Put the left to sleep with mantras like this; sing them a lullaby.
The War Planner on August 28, 2011 at 11:05 AM
There is no official Tea Party. There is no list where you check your name and go through initiation. Supporters are members. Remember, grass roots. Well, the Tea Party are those who associate with it.
When ever a blog post here and other places goes towards cuts the government can do, look at all the people who say they are Tea Party and read what they say. Over and over again on HotAir, they refuse to look at the places where the real money is, not to mention the fact that those are also the places where the most decay in our society can be traced to.
Social Security severed the link between family and secure retirement. Funny that it was not long after that where people were so needing of easy divorces, abortion and started failing to look after the few children who got through the gauntlet to make sure they were raised to be good upstanding and productive citizens. It created the entitlement mentality that permeates our nation.
If the Tea Party will not face down Social Security, then the rot that it continues to promote in our culture will never allow fiscal sanity to reign for more than a few years after a crisis, and the short memory of the people will then elect into office those who promise them free lunches.
astonerii on August 28, 2011 at 11:25 AM
Can’t argue with your points above, we have a long way to go. My point is the DC establishment would have completely sold us out on the “Grand Bargain” with even worse tax hikes and non-existent spending cuts, if not for the 2010 freshmen class. We need to take the senate and elect a conservative president in 2012 that will change the business-as-usual thinking in DC.
PatMac on August 28, 2011 at 11:37 AM
I do not agree. What we got for the Tea Party efforts was a theatrical performance telling us that it could have been far worse, but look at the much better raping of your children’s future earnings we accomplished. Thanks Tea Party, wink wink, nudge nudge.
Obama could not get what he wanted, even if he had all democrat congress, because he knew it would destroy what was left of the economy and any chance he had left of winning 2012. Big winner in all of this, Obama. Big loser, my recent arrival newborn baby girl.
astonerii on August 28, 2011 at 11:54 AM
The Tea Party Patriots has a member list through their web site, and the other two Tea Party organizations probably do as well. They may not give out ID cards, but they count heads. I presume that most of the moderates here are not counted on those Tea Party member lists. There are of course lots of Tea Party members who think that the budget deal was in our best interest. I don’t question their values, just their understanding of our problem’s magnitude and their strategic political competence.
elfman on August 28, 2011 at 2:22 PM
Bingo, at least someone got it. A lot of the vitrol and “don’t give up, reload!” stumping has gone *poof* since the false accusations that the loon had anything to do with the TP.
mythicknight on August 28, 2011 at 4:16 PM
Sound like a quitter to me. The battle to big? to hard? Just gonna put your head back in the sand? You are free to succeed. Carry on.
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of liberty must undergo the fatigues of supporting it” –Thomas Paine
You go and vote for your boy OBAMA! As long as the Tea Party can’t do for you while so busy with new baby. You can tell your child you voted for He who wants to be King.
sweet pea on August 28, 2011 at 10:33 PM
Would America have gotten its freedom if instead of George Washington as our general it were someone lesser? Would our nation exist today if the founders were really just drunks in a tavern throwing something together and calling it a constitution? No, neither would have been fruitful without the proper leadership and people.
So, I will not throw my flag behind a poor excuse for a leader when looking at the situation our nation is in today. I do think we can save this nation, but I know that we will not do so with a Romney as our standard bearer, a man who thinks government just needs to have better management to do everything it does today.
We could have ended up a dead end of history if Washington had not led our nation to victory. We would have ended up a Monarchy with a king had it been another man with greater ambition but lower morals.
We have a moral dilemma in this nation, and if the people cannot elect a moral president this go around, then the nation is finished. The time for fixing things is nearly past, as once we reach the tipping point of solvency, nothing we can do, no leader can save the nation and bring it back to its former glory. It will have to be rebuilt from scratch. hopefully with new leaders as capable as our founders, but with the new wisdom that 224 years has added to our base to craft a better constitution.
astonerii on August 28, 2011 at 11:17 PM
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