Big Red Car here. Bit cool in the ATX and windy. Today will be 70F and tomorrow, Old Sport, is going to be brutal. Brutally cold with a low in the 20s. Brrrrr.
So The Boss is meeting with a couple of his political cronies. The Boss is running for election as the District Chair for his District. As The Boss says:
“They couldn’t get anyone to volunteer, so they drafted me.”
So The Boss is talking about the 2014 mid-term elections and the discussion turns to the Tea Party. The Boss thinks that the Tea Party is greatly “misunderestimated”. [Bonus points if you know from whence that lovely word was spawned. Haha, the Big Red Car knows it all. STFU, Big Red Car, please?]
Who is the Tea Party?
The Tea Party is like the French Resistance, an organization formed with the primary organizing theme of opposition to a philosophy of political governance rather than in support of a particular philosophy of political governance. This is not to suggest that there are not some very powerful organizing themes at work here but that it was reactive initially rather than proactive.
The French Resistance brought together the most disparate groups in France — Communists, Royalists, unions, workers, Catholic Church — in opposition to the German occupation of their country. These disparate groups did not coalesce around a common philosophy but rather their common hatred of the Germans. And why not?
In much the same way, each individual who sympathizes with the Tea Party has their own particular ax to grind, it is the common opposition of the status quo that unites them.
Take you pick: the size of government, the cost of government, balanced budget, the deficit, the national debt, social issues, entitlement reform, tax reform, privacy issues — the list could go on forever. Today you might marinate all of that in a splash of OBAMAcare, an organizing theme in opposition if ever there was one.
When Tea Party sympathizers go into that voting booth, it really does not matter why they are voting as they are. The final count — disregarding dead folks who vote solidly Democrat — will not really care about the “why”.
[Big Red Car joke: How did Al Qaeda finally verify that Osama Bin Laden was dead? He turned up registered to vote in Chicago! Sorry.]
The Tea Party is NOT a party
In the course of misunderestimating the Tea Party, it is important to understand that it is not a “party” and does not lust after becoming a party. It is an idea, an amorphous and evolving idea. It adapts immediately to the emergence of new concepts. It takes on the shape of the local electorate. It is more important who is not actually there rather than who is there.
[WTF does that mean, Big Red Car?]
Like the French Resistance, it is not the active and vocal and obvious supporters but the silent sympathizers. The folks who do not publicly show their support but who will pull the appropriate lever in the privacy of the voting booth.
Case in point — The Boss and The Real Boss have never been to a Tea Party function and yet they support the notion of a balanced budget, entitlement reform, tax reform — OK enough — and will be pulling the lever that evidences their sympathies with the Tea Party’s principles. The Tea Party ideas. They do not, however, show up publicly in the ranks of the Tea Party until election day.
The country is irked
The country is quite volatile and mercurial just now. The economy is really not recovering. Look at this graph as a means of tracking the rate of recovery as compared to earlier recessions. We have been in a deep, long recession — over six years, OMG — and folks are vexed.
In this context, it is apparently quite radical to suggest that the Federal government would be well served by a balanced budget, a keen eye toward reducing spending and some careful management of our deficit and accumulated national debt. Of course, every Governor in America is delivering a balanced budget routinely every year. For some reason the Federal government thinks this evidence of radicalism. Color me radical on this score, please.
We were promised entitlement reform in return for enhanced revenues. The administration got their enhanced revenues and the people got stiffed on the entitlement reforms. Blame the Republicans in equal measure. They failed to enforce the agreed upon deal. Neither party has adhered to the sequester but that’s only because they never really intended to adhere to it in the first place. [Can you say “head fake”, Big Red Car? Yes, you can, sweetie. Now STFU.]
Truth = trust
The government has managed to leap to the top of the list of all time liars. When a government fails to speak the truth, trust is the first casualty. Who trusts a liar?
The Tea Party is embodiment of a movement focused on the absence of trust of the government and thus whatever individual is identified with the government will pay the price. Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu is going to have to do some heavy lifting on the issue of OBAMAcare.
The Tea Party is going to be fueled by this virulent distrust of our government which will be standing in the voting booth next to every voter in just eleven months.
So, the Big Red Car is emboldened to say: The Tea Party — those whose votes are cast with sympathy to Tea Party principles — will be a virulent force for change come November. Everyone will be surprised but it is evident now.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. [Stay alert, stay alive. Stay warm, stay dry.]
