Quotes of the day

One difference is that while Mr. Reagan made Republicans more conservative, the tea party is making them more populist. Business interests will find, for example, that when they turn to the Republican Party to support free-trade agreements, the tea-party contingent isn’t going to fall into line as Reagan conservatives did. And certainly this new wave of Republican leaders doesn’t share the late president’s positive view of immigration.

Today, as in 1980, it’s centrists in both parties who have to figure out where this process leaves them: Do they have a home in the evolving political system?…

The only certainty is that the landscape won’t look the same when the merry-go-round stops whirling.

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Every Tea Party candidate has been variously described as crazy, stupid, and on track to destroy America, if elected. Funny, that’s pretty much what was said about Barry Goldwater and his followers by the establishment. And yet, that didn’t stop him from reshaping the Republican Party and laying the groundwork for the Reagan Revolution…

Whatever you make of them, Zernike’s reporting makes clear that the Tea Partiers care deeply about the future of their country. They aren’t intimidated by difficult odds. Many of them had their first experience in political organizing when they put together their maiden Tea Party rally. They detest the Republican Party almost as much as the Democratic Party.

And the more they are mocked, the more determined they are to push forward. The derision of elites, to them, is a badge of honor.

***
Some intellectual conservatives believe that the Tea Party populism will be domesticated by governing. Says one: “The movement doesn’t last through 2012 in anything like its current form. It will carry a Republican House and less Democratic Senate, but its energy will inevitably dissipate as national politics becomes more complicated with divided government and the economy improves some. That’s why I think the policy wonks are important — people proposing real ideas, how smaller government should mean a more robust civil society, while making sure there is a safety net for the poor. The new House might listen to these ideas more than the protesters themselves.”

But it is also possible that the Tea Party will define the hated “establishment” not just as moderate Republicans such as Mike Castle of Delaware but also as moderate conservatives of every stripe. Many Tea Party activists espouse a “constitutionalism” that amounts to an extreme libertarianism. Their goal is not just deficit reduction but the dismantling of the modern state. And they may prove harder to tame than some imagine.

A Republican Party propelled by Tea Party enthusiasm is headed toward victory. A Republican Party dominated by Tea Party ideology would be pure, disturbing — and small.

***
Tuesday was the best day Democrats have had in a long time — but only in relative terms. Republicans invited the Tea Party into the GOP tent and now have to worry about being devoured. But at least the party is full of passion, energy and resolve — which can’t be said of the Democrats, at least not with a straight face.

If the Democrats can’t generate some real enthusiasm among the base, and fast, the word “unelectable” may cease to have meaning. Counting on the Republicans to self-immolate may be the Democrats’ hope, but it’s not a plan.

***
This doesn’t mean that the Tea Party influence will be positive for Republicans over the long haul. The movement carries viruses that may infect the G.O.P. in the years ahead. Its members seek traditional, conservative ends, but they use radical means. Along the way, the movement has picked up some of the worst excesses of modern American culture: a narcissistic sense of victimization, an egomaniacal belief in one’s own rightness and purity, a willingness to distort the truth so that every conflict becomes a contest of pure good versus pure evil…

But that damage is all in the future. Right now, the Tea Party doesn’t matter. The Republicans don’t matter. The economy and the Democrats are handing the G.O.P. a great, unearned revival. Nothing, it seems, is more scary than one-party Democratic control.