A few things happened recently that went under reported. One, president Obama signed a debt limit increase. Two, the TEA Party celebrated it’s fifth birthday as a “grassroots” political organization. I say under reported because they’re both non news, but they are important in the run up to this years midterm elections. The GOP thinks it’s going to capture the Senate this fall, mostly on the back of Obamacare’s implementation and Democratic Party implosion. They couldn’t be more mistaken, but crazier things have happened.
But why the sudden change in tenor from the GOP right-wing? Why wasn’t there the usual Republican so and so on cable news networks screaming that the world was ending and sliding down the slippery slop of socialism as decreed by the almighty King Obama? Why is the TEA Party’s birthday marginalized to the back of the paper as a “Oh yeah, this happened”? Well, mostly because the GOP wants to win this midterm election really, really bad.
Of all the articles to pick about this fresh face emerging within the GOP, I chose Michael Gerson. He’s just your run-of-the-mill middle-aged white man that writes benign political opinion for the Washington Post. His interpretation is pretty comical, and you have to wonder if Mr. Gerson understands the mercenary animal that is a political party backed in to a corner.
First off, the hangover analogy isn’t very apt. The TEA Party has become part of the GOP, just like the evangelicals. The GOP needs all the voter bloc they have scared up in ensuring decades to pad out their old white men element that’s dying off on them. To be fair, there is a LOT of overlap between TEA Party and evangelicals, so the 2010 electoral shot in the arm of true patriots may have been a bit muddy.
This pure and faith based faux ideology is what Mr. Gerson says made the GOP right-wing start pulling away from the crazies in the party. Mentioning a recent outburst from Ted Nugent, Mr. Gerson surmises that since the ideology of the party is “faith and morality” they HAVE to pull away from old Uncle Ted, who was using “dehumanizing” language or else they look bad. So, he’s at least on point there.
But the GOP right-wing won’t pull TOO far away, as they need those thinly veiled racists to come out to the polls and vote against Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Obamacare-Abortion-They’reGonnaTakeYerGuns. In this desperate grab for the Senate they believe they can do without those who would typically come out to vote for a republican. Mr. Gerson agrees to as much when he states that the majority of republicans still identify with the TEA Party ideology.
Also worth noting is this notion that many right-wing pundits have been parroting lately: populism. I about lost my mind when I read George Will espouse it in a recent column, and of course it finds itself here in an also ran Michael Gerson column. Problem is, the GOP right-wing is totally going to take the wrong “lessons” from this recent turn of events. And I’m fairly uncertain that even though the TEA Party birthday was still marginalized, that they aren’t a potent force.
The reason I say this is because Ted Cruz spoke at the D.C. birthday bash, as did other TEA Party congress people. Ted Cruz is hoping to save a bit of face after imploding the GOP right-wing last fall with his buffoonish filibuster. Mr. Gerson seems to think the Cruz debacle was a liberating moment for the GOP, which in a way, it was. The GOP right-wing could very well send him down river under the notion that he was the old, crazy, racist, bigoted GOP right-wing. This 2014 on forward GOP is your real friend, no…neighbor, who just lives up the street in that shining city on a hill.
But the notion that Mr. Gerson provides in the populist choices that the GOP right-wing has to make is laughable: “Do they want to be identified with the tactics of Ted Cruz? Or do they want to give the populist backlash that Obama has provoked a positive governing purpose on issues from health care to education to economic mobility?” Problem is they are ALREADY identified by Ted Cruz tactics, see every recent debt limit increase, house Obamacare repeal, and so on since Obama entered office. It’s a false choice. The other choice? Give me a break! In order to capitalize on the “populist backlash” they need workable ideas. I’ve already written about some of those ideas at length. They aren’t hiding something super awesome up their sleeve that’s just going to blow independent voters minds.
To end his column Mr. Gerson sticks to the talking points memo: liberalism is in a state of disrepair…because of Obamacare? I’m curious to see if and when the GOP right-wing unleash their healthcare plan if it’s going to work minute one of implementation? That they will find no barriers to enacting the law, and that everyone will gladly accept it with open arms. This is assuming that the GOP right-wing as a whole decides to repeal Obamacare, which many have said is easier said then done. Aside from that, the independents aren’t going to be swayed because Obamacare failed, seeing as that isn’t really an issue to them. A more pressing issue to them has been and will always be the economy.
What’s more, the vast majority of independents are former republicans that have been repulsed by what the TEA Party has done to the GOP. The notion Mr. Gerson lays out is that the GOP right-wing must embrace populism to get votes has never been more apt. But it’s going to take a long, long time before the GOP shakes it’s “scary” elements that are disenfranchising voters and chiefly independents. And you can bet that if the GOP fails to grab the senate this fall, they’ll be more than happy to have that TEA Party hair of the dog to keep the party going to 2016.
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