John Judis of The New Republic identifies four:
1. “The Tea Party is not a movement.”
2. “The Tea Party is a fascist movement.”
3. “The Tea Party is racist.”
4. “The Tea Party is a conventional Republican group funded by big business.”
Judis is doing a public service, but I suspect that many of his fellow liberals are still not willing to take the Tea Parties at face value. Misguided dismissals of the most powerful grassroots political force in years are bound to continue, particularly at this weekend’s Rally to Whistle Past the Graveyard. Perhaps that will change after Tuesday, but don’t hold your breath.
Hmm, this is a tricky comment to write. The potential for double negatives is everywhere.
I think John is correct on point one. Makes a Legitimate argument on point 2, though I think he underestimates the movement’s potential on; he is factually accurate at the moment.
On point 3, I think he is wrong. At the very least the movement is xenophobic, I don’t think it is a stretch to call the movement racist, I don’t think calling it racist helps to defeat the movement, however. Generally because the people in the movement don’t recognize their actions, beliefs, etc. as being racist, even if they are. To wit, calling them racist only makes them defensive. So a better point 3 is: It is unhelpful to call the Tea Party racist; which is true.
On point 4 I think he is wrong given the significant funding of the Koch Family and BP, etc. This funding and the endemic calls to violence in both the Tea Party and Republican party over the last few decades, I think, is why he is under-estimating the fascist potential of the movement. Italy was far less violent but just as fascist as Germany, so I think he is over valuing the Brown shirts.
In other news, John Boehner stumps for Nazi sympathizer Rich Iott (R candidate Ohio). You seriously can’t make this shit up, I mean the dude likes to play dress up as an SS officer… So I believe Mr. Judis is seriously underestimating the fascist potential of the Republican / Tea party.
So…A Democratic Senator serves as an officer in the KKK, and that is OK, but a Republican candidate dresses as a NAZI re-enactor, and that is beyond the pale……
I don’t know on what basis you can call the Tea Parties xenophobic other than perhaps their opposition to illegal immigration, which is hardly irrational and thus not xenophobic at all. Calling them racists is not just a stretch but a slur that only validates the conservative critique that liberals dismiss all their opponents as racists.
As for the Koch family, HA! They’ve been supporting free market campaigns for almost 40 years without ever setting off anything like the Tea Parties, and it is likely for that reason and not any “endemic calls to violence in both the Tea Party and Republican party over the last few decades” that Judis correctly doesn’t see the Koch family as any kind of nefarious rightwing puppetmasters here.
And as for “brownshirts”, the “purple shirts” at the SEIU have behaved far more like fascists than any rightwing group has.
The Left has a problem with the Koch family because they just assume that they are doing the same thing for the Right that Soros has been doing for the Left.
I’ll be interested to see how the Tea Party evolves if Republicans take the House and/or Senate. Will they continue pressing or back off? In my eyes, the answer to that question will show how legitimate this “movement” is and whether it’s really serious about its espoused principles or more interested in getting the GOP back in power. The GOP will need to change a lot of its policies too, to come into line with what Tea Partiers apparently want. I’m doubtful that will happen and I doubt they’ll want Democrats back in power at any point.
kcatnd makes a good point. In addition to what I’ve read and heard from the Tea Parties, the fact that they supported O’Donnell in the Delaware primary leads me to believe that getting the GOP back in power is not foremost on their minds.
getting the GOP back in power is not foremost on their minds.
I’ve been saying this for months. The Tea Partiers are just as mad at the GOP leadership as they are at the Dems. If the GOP gets power and goes back to Democrat-lite, the 2012 election will be a bloodbath for them.
Joe, yes Koch and BP etc have been funding to greater or lesser degrees of success over the years. But two points, they are always trying to succeed at it, and they seem to have found a successful thing to fund. to wit my point was that 4 is wrong based on use of traditional funding sources. Which is demonstrably true. As we just discussed. You don’t get to have point 4 and its rebuttal both ways.
I think the primary point is true on number 3 Joe, that calling the movement racist is unhelpful. I think it is wrong to say there are not racist elements both in it and to it. I also think it is wrong to say that they are the primary moving factor. To wit, it is not a helpful argument. My point is simply that it would have been more defensible to phrase the statement on 3 that way, given that rebuttal to the point on (if some of the posters are an indication) pretty factual grounds.
Joe, I also agree with you re kcatnd’s point.
So gahrie, your response is to bring up someone that is old, dead, and renounced their ties to the organization to attempt to lessen the validity of an argument against someone that is actively involved in a) running for office and b) activities that are sympathetic to Nazi Germany? Like always, your comments are useless.
I agree with kcatnd: what happens next will indeed be the test. Apropos of which, NPR had a good story yesterday about this very question. I think Becky and I will probably discuss it in our podcast Sunday night.
So Tom Cruise is a NAZI sympathizer? And everyone who watches a movie with a NAZI in it is a NAZI symphathizer?
Re-enactments and LARPs are entertainment, not political endorsements.
dcl, you’re flat out wrong, and there are zero grounds for calling the Tea Party xenophobic. Immigration is not a hot topic with the Tea Party in general so much as anti-illegal immigration activists in the Southwest have found the Tea Party in their states to be a good outlet for their overall political activism. And even in that case, crying out for the government to clamp down in illegal immigration is not xenophobic, it’s just common sense.
The only argument I would even entertain that somebody on the Right is xenophobic would be Tom Tancredo, but even there, I would default to saying he’s just incredibly insensitive and uncareful with his rhetoric — not actually afraid or hateful of foreigners. The right thing to do is fix the immigration system and put the Tancredos of the Right out of business, not smear the Tea Party and the rest of the Right with labels that don’t really fit the facts.
As for the Koch family, Joe Mama and gahrie have already set you straight on that.
Finally, labeling Iott a “Nazi sympathizer” is wrong and that’s a flat-out falsehood. I don’t get the Renaissance fair / Civil War re-enactment thing in general, but I understand that many people feel re-enacting history is a great way to understand it better and bring it to life. Well, you can’t re-enact WWII without somebody playing the Germans. Iott might be politically naive if he didn’t think this would one day blow up in his face just based on the ease of which it enables misperceptions, but I take him at his word for why he participated in the movement:
I’ve known many people who have preferred re-enacting the Confederates in Civil War re-enactments, and it had nothing to do with a supposed preference for the Confederacy and its principles of slavery. It was more of an attraction to the myth of the antebellum South and the conflicted brother-against-brother melodrama that infuses every great Civil War book, movie, or miniseries. So unless you’re going to label every fan of Gone With the Wind as a slavery sympathizer, I suggest you reconsider your logic of saying Iott is a Nazi sympathizer. You can’t re-enact WWII scenarios without someone playing the Nazis.
If you want a thoughtful, better supported critique of the Tea Party, see Robert Reich’s piece in the WSJ today. In sum, the Tea Party is an immature, populist-based movement, and once it has a seat at the Big Boy Table, it’s going to have to grow up a bit. One could make good comparisons to the MoveOn movement and how that matured into a very effective organ of the Democratic Party. The Tea Party could very well flame out, it could pursue unrealistic and damaging populist policies like opposing free trade and cause friction with its allies in the GOP, or it could find a way to coexist in the GOP and mature some of its specific policy positions while maintaining its principles.
dcl,
I would agree that Koch et al. may have found a successful thing to fund in the Tea Parties, but that just means that the Tea Parties were a successful grassroots organization prior to any such funding, which actually supports 4 rather than undermines it. Judis didn’t say that the Tea Parties aren’t in some instances sponsored by organizations funded primarily by “big business” (in fact, he explicitly states that they are); rather, he argues that despite such funding the majority of those in the Tea Party “are new to politics and are moved by specific grievances rather than by an allegiance to the Republican Party,” which I think is exactly right.
If your only point about 3 is that calling the Tea Parties racist is “unhelpful,” I can’t really quarrel with you, but that’s not the only thing you said in your first comment. You said, “I don’t think it is a stretch to call the movement racist,” and now you’re supporting that statement with a generic reference to “posters” that presumably contain racist remarks. Since I don’t know what posters you’re referring to, I can’t really comment on them, but suffice to say that, like Judis, I won’t deny there are some racists in the Tea Party movement, just as there are invariably cranks is any political group of similar size. Here again I think you’re missing Judis’ point, which is that “it is a mistake to reduce the Tea Party to a racist movement,” which is the impression I got from your first comment.
Messed up that last paragraph. Should read:
If your only point about 3 is that calling the Tea Parties racist is “unhelpful,” I can’t really quarrel with you, but that’s not the only thing you said in your first comment. You said, “I don’t think it is a stretch to call the movement racist,” and now you’re supporting that statement with a generic reference to “posters” that presumably contain racist remarks. Since I don’t know what posters you’re referring to, I can’t really comment on them, but suffice to say that, like Judis, I won’t deny there are some racists in the Tea Party movement, just as there are invariably cranks in any political group of similar size. Here again I think you’re missing Judis’ point, which is that “it is a mistake to reduce the Tea Party to a racist movement,” which is the impression I got from your first comment.
I’ve seen enough photos of Tea Party rallies to know some of these people have come up with some seriously bat shit crazy stuff that uses the iconography and code words about lynching among other things. These symbols and slogans are then directed against a black president. Disagree with the guy all you want, that’s fine, start talking about lynching a back guy, it comes off pretty racist. Andrew as much as seeded the point of elements with in the movement using it as a vehicle for general anti-imigrant sentiment and so forth. Is it a prime moving force for the whole movement? No, is it in there, yes. Which is why point 3 is strategically sound but not entirely factually sound. Which is, again, the point I’m trying to make. If you want to argue that the Tea Party movement is racially insensitive instead of racist per se, I could see there as being the potential for that argument to be reasonable.
At 13 it is a bit of a chicken egg cart horse question. Did the funding make a grass roots effort take off, or did funding help create a grass roots effort. I’m cynical and see it as a marketing move that had an idea that turned out to be sticky. Which is the point. I think he is demonstrably wrong on point 4. I would say it is the more extreme elements of the Republican party that have been involved, but is certainly an off shoot of these extremist Republican elements and is finding monetary support for the traditional sources for those kinds of activities. Time will tell if this is a movement that escapees the traditional Republican tent or get’s pulled back into it. Which is, of course, why kcatnd’s comment is actually the most pertinent in this discussion.
(And just to beat a dead horse, of course point one is correct and point two is also factually accurate at least for the time being. If the movement does escape the Republican tent then all bets are off on point two). Whereas Mr. Lott’s comments strain to the edges of credulity. AML is willing to take him at his work, as is his prerogative. I’m not, which is mine.
There are far more pertinent reasons to dislike Tom Cruse than his questionable acting skills in Valkyrie.
Andrew, you’re flat wrong that there is zero evidence that the Tea Party is racist and/or xenophobic. In the Washington Post survey of Tea Party Movements around the country, 10% responded that the president’s race or religion was a significant reason for joining the movement. At least *some* of the Tea Party is racist.
However, there’s a whole lot of movement out there that’s not explicitly based on race or religion. And it would be folly to ignore them because some in their ranks are douchebags.
I wonder if race was a significant reason for over 90% of Black People voting for Pres. Obama?
I wonder if race is a significant reason for people who are part of La Raza? or the New Black Panthers? Or CAIR? Or the NAACP?
at 18, possibly, but there is a high percentage of African Americans that vote Democrat anyway, so it would be difficult to prove that correlation is causally based.
As to 19, I have never maintained and never will maintain that any group is incapable of or does not engage in racism or any other form of identifying characteristic prejudice. Because such a statement is easily proved to be untrue. Any identifiable, or non identifiable group is capable of, can, will, and has engaged in prejudice towards some other identifiable or non directly identifiable group or groups. And if someone can think of a less tortured way to say that, it would be nice.
Seems to me its pretty obvious there is a strong racist element involved in the Tea Party movement, but that isn’t surprising given the very clear, very obvious fear and blame style of leadership that the Tea Party is based on. While not actually facist (at least not yet) its not hard to see the parallels between the ultra-patriotic, blame outsiders, near incitement to violence metholdogy being used (intentionally or not) but the movers and shakers of the movement. Couple that with will full ignorance of facts and logic, and its even easier to see why people find parallels between the Tea Party movement and certain German and Italian groups of the early part of last century.
This is, incidentally, something that people who are genuinely concerened about issues like size of government, fiscal policy, etc. should be pretty damn pissed about. Any legitimate concerns they have (which there are some mind you) are being subsummed by the hate filled, angry, blame “others” rhetoric spewed by scum like Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, etc.
The Tea Party movement is bad for this country not because they voice opposition to others, but the manner in which they do so.
“So Tom Cruise is a NAZI sympathizer? And everyone who watches a movie with a NAZI in it is a NAZI symphathizer?
Re-enactments and LARPs are entertainment, not political endorsements.”
Dressing up as a Nazi to portray one in a film telling an actual story is one thing. Dressing up as a Nazi because you admire them is another. Iott’s group admires the Nazi regiment they re-enact as while trying to whitewash that groups history, especially their involvment with Concentration Camps perpetrating genocide.
If you can’t tell the difference then you are clearly part of the problem.
So..don’t vote for O’Donnell, because she once got drunk and didn’t have sex with a guy she knew. Don’t vote for Lott because he once wore a NAZI uniform. Don’t vote for rand because of something to do with an “aqua buddha”. Don’t vote for Whitman because she once hired an illegal alien who lied to her, and fired the illegal alien when she found out.
What do these and all the rest of the personal attacks the Democrats are making mean? The Democrats know they can’t run on their performance or their stand on the issues, and have to resort to defamation and diversion to have any chance of winning.
Oh no, I think it’s more than reasonable not to vote for any of the above mentioned people based entirely on stance (or in most instances) lack there of on the issues.
And given the obstinate obstructionism of the Republicans, I think the Dem’s record is pretty good.
Actually I think the Gawker piece on O’Donnell was awful, they never should have printed it. I feel sorry for her on that one and its absolutely not why I wouldn’t vote for her. I would avoid voting for Iott in part because he seems to think dressing up as a Nazi as a sign of respect for them is a good idea because I think anyone who thinks the Nazi’s are worth respecting would be a bad leader. I also wouldn’t use the illegal alien thing as a reason to vote for Whitman unless she knowingly hired her and then campaigned against illegal immigrants or something.
I agree to an extent that negative attacks are in poor taste but then Republicans use them as much or more, so I don’t see where you get your moral high ground from. As for performance, lets see, they passed comprehensive health reform (although not comprehehsnive enough, IMO, but some is better than none) and kept our economy from completely crashing (George W. Bush did help with the bank bailout right before he left office, but thats kinda like rewarding a guy for helping put out a fire he intentionally started (or negligently started).
, lets see, they passed comprehensive health reform (although not comprehehsnive enough, IMO, but some is better than none) and kept our economy from completely crashing
From your perspective this may be true, but the Democrats certainly aren’t running on this platform.
Oh, and in honor of halloween I am going to use something that is sure to frighten and terrify gahrie: FACTS!
1) In 2008, we lost an average of 317,250 private sector jobs per month. In 2010, we have gained an average of 95,888 private sector jobs per month. (Source) That’s a difference of nearly five million jobs between Bush’s last year in office and President Obama’s second year.
2) In FY2009, which began on September 1, 2008 and represents the Bush Administration’s final budget, the budget deficit was $1.416 trillion. In FY2010, the first budget of the Obama Administration, the budget deficit was $1.291 trillion, a decline of $125 billion. (Source) Yes, that means President Obama has cut the deficit — there’s a long way to go, but we’re in better shape now than we were under Bush and the GOP.
3) On Bush’s final day in office, the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 closed at 7,949, 1,440, and 805, respectively. Today, as of 10:15AM Pacific, they are at 11,108, 2,512, and 1,183. That means since President Obama took office, the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 have increased 40%, 74%, and 47%, respectively.
That last one is even better when you consider that when Bush took office.
The NASDAQ closed at 2,757.91, meaning by the end of his Presidency it was worth about half of what it was when he started. The Dow? 10,578.24, a loss of about 25%. To be fair it did go up quite a bit while he was in office, but as a result of his policies and negligence those sky high gains lead to rock bottom drops later.
I see that David and I remain on the same side in the down with Gawker campaign. As if I needed ANOTHER reason to boycott Gawker media and it’s loathsome founder Nick Denton.
“From your perspective this may be true, but the Democrats certainly aren’t running on this platform.”
No, and I think its a huge mistake. I also think the Tea Parties fear, blame, ignorance campaign platform is a huge mistake and a far far FAR more frightening one because it reflects what they want to DO in office.
David K #27 2) Having quoted the tentative source, why not complete things and quote the final numbers ? “the Treasury Department will
report the actual deficit for fiscal year 2010 later this month.”
How do those numbers compare with when Congress changed hands in 2007, as opposed to when the President changed in 2009 ? After all, the President, George W was a constant for both those times … his policies, to the extent that they could affect things, would have remained generally consistent … what did the change in Congressional direction do to those numbers ?
Holy bajeezus are there tons of dumb stuff to debunk in this thread.
Addressing the Tea Party = racists issue, responding to dcl at #16 and Becky at #17, as John Judis has expounded at length, analyzing the Tea Party movement through the prism of race doesn’t make sense. Judis notes that the Tea Party is primarily populist, and that populist movements in American history on both the Left and the Right have had their shades of racial resentments and/or explicitly racist members, but that nevertheless the general movement motives of populist movements are not based in racism, they are typically class- or economic-based. Judging a group racist because some minority of it are racist means a whole bunch of groups are now racist, including the Democratic and Republican parties.
As for David at #21, Judis argument is damn near bulletproof. The Tea Party can be considered reactionary, but American reactionary and European reactionary produce very different results, which is why the fascist label is wholly inaccurate and inappropriate.
Regarding remarks from David at #22 and at #25, there is zero justification for saying that Iott admires Nazis! What he admired was the historical lethality and success of the German military machine, just as one might admire the military dominance of the Roman Legion or the Huns. He was part of a group of people with avid interest in WWII history that re-enacted a German military group. Re-enacting as a Confederate soldier does not make one a Confederate sympathizer, and the same is true with WWII re-enactments and Nazis. Now, I would make the argument that, if you are into WWII or Civil War re-enactments, and you choose to play the role of a Nazi or a Confederate, be very, very careful about entering the world of politics, but that’s a different discussion.
As for David’s comments at #27, you forgot to put the word “IRRELEVANT” in front of “FACTS!”
1) If you’re going to judge a president on job creation (which is an somewhat dubious exercise in and of itself, since you should also be considering who controlled Congress), you have to take his entire term — not just cherry-pick one year. As it is, 95k jobs a month doesn’t move the needle on the economy given that our population is growing and more people enter the workforce each month. I don’t have the exact numbers, but I believe you need about 150k jobs a month just to stand still, so 95k would still be a net loss from an employment % perspective.
2) These numbers are damn near lies the way they are presented. President Bush signed a budget (written by a Democratic Congress) for FY09 (10/1/08 – 9/30/09) that spent $3.1 trillion. Revenue at the time was projected at $2.7 trillion, for an expected deficit of $400 billion. Actual revenue came in at $2.1 trillion, meaning an increase in the deficit of $600 billion. An additional $200 billion in the deficit was added to FY09 as a result of the Obama stimulus bill, while another $150 billion came from TARP, and the remainder coming from other Obama spending policies.
In sum, the FY09 deficit was in fact $1.4 trillion. $1 trillion of the FY09 deficit came from the budget passed by Bush, $200 billion came from Obama and the stimulus (ARRA), and $150 million came from TARP (a joint venture between the Democratic Congress, Obama, and Bush), and another ~$60 billion from various other Obama spending proposals, for a total of $1.4 trillion. At worst, you can only pin $1.2 trillion on Bush, which means even if you accept your FY10 number at face value, the deficit is unchanged — not reduced.
As it is, the FY10 outlays of $3.55 trillion represent a 14.5% increase in spending from Bush’s last submitted budget. Estimates for receipts are $2.4 trillion — a 14% increase from the $2.1 trillion of revenue that came in the year prior. It also must be noted that this FY10 budget makes no new appropriations for TARP or for ARRA, which add another $350 billion to the deficit. So the real FY10 deficit — should revenues meet forecasts — looks to be closer to $1.5 trillion — not $1.2 trillion as cited by you.
In sum, the real numbers are far more damning to Obama than you try to portray.
All of these numbers come from Wikipedia.
3) Again, this is statistically irrelevant. Why look at stock exchange values? Why not analyze Treasury yields, or dollar exchange rates, or oil prices? These are all economic indicators that are so loosely connected to a president’s impact on policy and the economy, it’s seriously not even worth citing as a pro or a con for either side of the debate.
@Alasdair
So you are saying that the President has no power then? Or are you saying that something as complex as the economy or housing market reacts instantaneously? You find it more realistic that the collapse of the economy in 2008 was a direct result of congressional take over in 2007 rather than years of bad policy allowing the banks to build an economic house of cards over the years finally coming down?
Hmmm, who should I trust more, economists, facts, and rational though, ooooor a know-nothing right wing huckster with a demonstrated lack of understanding for depth and complexity like yourself?
Gosh, tough call…
I don’t know if this is still on topic or not, but The Tea Party is a mash-up of many factions. Mostly bitter Republicans that are upset that their crooked party is out of power, a big group of right-wing extremists that think the Republican party isn’t conservative enough already, people with no party affiliation that hate the government no matter who is in power, a sprinkling of racists who don’t want a black president, a small group of people who love civil and revolutionary war re-enactments that like to dress up like it’s 1776, and nearly all of the Linden LaRouche followers.
The fact that the icons of the Tea Party movement are Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck says all you need to know about the people that follow their message.
Silly David K … there you go again with your “always” and “never” and “every” and “no” …
The President has limited power to affect things – intentionally limited by “Checks and Balances” …
So – for example, if we wish to look at what happened during a given President’s watch, say Dubya’s, since there was the same President for all 8 years, take a look at the way the economic indicators *you* chose went from start to edn of each of the 4 Congresses during which Dubya was President … after all, it is commonly agreed that Dubya was not a small-government President … how did the economy fare during each of the 4 Congresses ?
If, just hypothetically, as an example, not saying that this is what happened, but, just hypothetically, the economy grew during Congresses 1, 2, and 3 … and plummeted catastrophically during Congress 4 … and, remember, it’s the same President all the way through … what would *you* hypothesise to have been the cause of the different results between the various Congresses ?
By all means, trust your “rational though, “ – some of us, however, note the consistency of your typing accuracy and we further note how it matches your economic and political uunderstanding …
Actually, the 2006 Congressional takeover didn’t solely cause the economic collapse, it merely allowed the same folk who set it up to complete adding that last straw (or multi-billion) which broke that economic camel’s back … last time I looked, the GOP made several (and unsuccessful) attempts to head off the crisis (without most folk having realised yet that it was going critical) … Dem policy forced the issue to the catastrophic level … GOP policy tried unsuccessfully to fight it … so everyone, pretty much, contributed, some WAAAAAYYYYYYY more than others …
“uunderstanding” – dammit ! Now you folk have *me* typing with an American accent !
(grin)
Ya know, despite his negative tone toward all the Tea Party groups, Sandy has the most succinct summary of what the Tea Party is I’ve seen yet. It’s a bunch of factions that have aligned toward a common purpose. It’ll be interesting to see if that group can stay united once the stress points start. Anyone who dismisses them out of hand is stupid.
Sandy – U are barking up the wrong tree with your “Linden” Larouche reference …
Lyndon LaRouche ran as a Democrat candidate for how many different offices at how many different times even as sane Democrats refused to have anything to do with him … he is basically like David Duke for the GOP side … sane GOPers refuse to have anything to do with him that might be construed as supporting him …
Alasdair its clear that you aren’t actually interested in understanding what happened, merely blaming the people you want to blame and ignoring others you don’t. The economic collapse wasn’t caused by the congress who came into power at the end of Bush’s second term. It was a long term problem that was GOING TO COLLAPSE eventually because it was inherently unstable and unsustainable. The problem is not when it collapsed, its what led to the situation in the first place, and that was Republican economic policy and in particular the out of control debt growth under George W. Bush.
P.S. the war spending didn’t help much either.
“sane GOPers refuse to have anything to do with him that might be construed as supporting him”
As opposed to supporting Sarah Palin or Rich Iott or listening towatching/believing Glenn Beck?
+1 to AMLTrojan. Seriously, you should get a medal for the job you do a debunking the silliness that some seem to think is rational discourse.
As I sit hear and read these posts, I can’t help but be amused by DavidK’s attacks on the Tea Party’s tone, when his snarky, “the other side is so evil” posts reveal that he’s just as extreme and intolerant as they allegedly are. DavidK, do you realize that you are that which you despise, just on the other side of the ideological spectrum?
For that matter, let’s just look at your own side of the political divide.
“…obvious fear and blame style of leadership…”
DavidK, by “fear” and “blame” did you mean like Obama telling Hispanics that they need to “punish” their “enemies”? Did you mean like Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez imploring Latinos in SPANISH that they need to fight to keep the Vietnamese form taking “their” (implying the Latinos’) congressional seat? You mean like Congressman Alan Greyson’s statement that the GOP healthcare plan is for people to just die? Or his blatant editing of a video record to make a Christian Republican appear to be using the Bible to command wifely obedience, when in fact he was doing just the opposite? All the Democrats are doing right now is running on BLAMING Bush mixed with anti-globalization appears and instilling fear of senior citizens. The DSCC is running tons of ads here in PA that basically amounts to red baiting, attacking Pat Toomy for working as a consultant for a Chinese firm and for favoring MFN status for China (they fail to mention that Bill Clinton did as well).
In case you haven’t noticed, fear and blame are pretty much required elements of political campaigns. Mediscare, Get Old People, they’re gonna steal your Social Security, foreigners are taking your jobs, blame Bush, Bush doesn’t care about black people, etc. etc. etc.
Have you heard of psychological projection? Well, that’s what liberals like you do with your characterizations of conservatives. You’re constantly “worried” about the fascist and violent tendencies of the right, yet look at what various branches of the left does. Who smashes windows, riots, and threatens violence when they don’t get their way? The left. Who defends the rioters and their violence as some justified reaction to the eeeeevil American society? The left. Who would like to use the power of the government to silence the primary medium of political opposition to their point of view? The left, via the “fairness docterine” aimed squarely at talk radio. What’s the “Card Check” bill all about? It’s the left trying to get rid of secret ballots in union organizing drives. Getting rid of secret ballots? Sounds pretty fascist to me. And who is consistently trying to centralize more and more power in the hands of an ever more power government? The left.
The next time you want to call the Tea Party movement fascist or racist because of one or two questionable signs out of hundreds, think to the illegal immigrant protests. Mexican and other Latin American flags are more common at these protests than Galveston flags are at Tea Party protests. There are usually hundreds of fools with bandanas over their faces so that they looked like Che Guevaraesque Marxist revolutionaries. The defacing or disrespect of the American flag seems to be a common amusement at these things. So if you can say that a few racists at a Tea Party mean that the Tea Party is racist, then others can say that the illegal immigrants and the pro-amnesty movement are a bunch of American hating Marxists. Oh, I also remember the students ditching class so they could run down the middle of the freaking 101 in downtown LA, blocking traffic. So I guess I can call the entire amnestia movement a bunch of uneducated, inconsiderate, morons, right? After all, a few bad apples tarnishes the whole barrel.
I would also mirror B. Minch’s observation that Sandy Underpants arguably has the best summary of what the Tea Party is, especially when you remove her obvious leftwards bias.
Cartman @ 40 FTW!
dcl #1 – I’ll see your Nazi re-enactor – and raise you 1 Dem candidate who proclaims his support for US troops with pictures of German soldiers ((grin) even more deliciously re-enactors of German WW II soldiers – what are the chances that dcl’s re-enactor is in the pic ?) – Dontcha just love Dem suport for US troops ?
The majority of Obama dressed as Hitler pictures at Tea Party rallies are held by LaRouche supporters. While I would agree that LaRouche supporters, in the past, would be closer to voting democrat than republican, they have a strong (for them) presence at the Tea Party. Crazy birds of a feather flock together, and lets face it, the Tea Party’s absence of logic or misappropriation of common sense creates the perfect petri dish to produce a clone army of LaRouche supporters once the Tea Party collapses.
Regarding post #34, the term “He was left holding the bag” comes to mind. The economy collapsed because of the cumulitive effects of years of bad policy. Wars we didn’t need to fight for a full decade, de-regulating banks and lending practices, borrowing all the money from China. This all went on under Republican rule the past decade.
The 00’s were like taking a credit card out in your dad’s name without his knowledge, spending to the hilt, looking rich and powerful, paying off the minimum every month by borrowing money from the same card, and then when you realize that you’re over-the-limit and broke you just blame him cuz the card is in his name. You wouldn’t get away with that with Dad, but you can get away with it in US politics.
Remember the economy began to collapse 8 months after Democrats took office and 18 months before Bush left office. Nobody can fix a disaster this big in 2 or 3 years, and experts said it would take 5 years after McCain or Obama took office to turn the country around.
Didn’t mean to inject facts, reason or sanity into your model, Alisdair.
SU #44 – “Didn’t mean to inject facts, reason or sanity into your model, Alisdair.” – don’t worry – you met expectations, and you didn’t … (leaving aside the obvious question – “Who is this imaginary friend, Alisdair, to whom you address yourself ?”) …
If you had followed the link, you would have realised that Rep. Spear certainly doesn’t proclaim himself to be a LaRouche Democrat … StrawMan 1 Rational Response 0 …
Since “post #34” pointed out that the economic downturn start once the 2007-2008 Congress had started to show how it intended to legislate and since then-Senator Obama was part of the ruling majority in that Congress, he wasn’t “left holding the bag”, he was actually one of the bag’s designers, acting in direct opposition to then-White-House policy … StrawMan 2 Rational Response 0 …
I’m glad you raised “you just blame him cuz the card is in his name” – an excellent example of projection which contains ironic reality, given how you persist in blaming Bush II for the results of the legislative efforts of the 2007-2008 Congress (of which Obama was a member) … (not a StrawMan per se, so StrawMan 2 Rational Response 0) …
And your last StrawMan is best answered by a simply picture of actual deficits 2000-2009 … notice how the *actual* deficits were during 2004-2007 – and how that changed as the effects of the change in Congress in 2007 became known … and, before you corner the world supply of straw, those numbers are based upon CBO and OMB figures … StrawMan 3 Rational Response 0 …
Which, funnily enough, is the expected scoring for SU comments …
Oh – and I enjoy injecting facts, reason, *and* sanity into my remarks, complete with links as appropriate … you might want to try it some time …
The facts you missed are that the Republicans 12 consecutive years majority in the Senate and Congress (1995-2007) and 8 consecutive years in the presidency (2001-2008) made all the financial decisions that led us into the disaster that began August 2007. Maybe in your own head you can pretend that the Democrats in the House destroyed the entire country in 8 months without passing any bills that went into effect during that time. But that would be another argument absent of logic and/or facts.
You also can’t really blame Obama for tanking the economy 18 months before he took office in the white house. He was left holding the bag after Bush pushed to give the banks $1.5 trillion, no strings attached, October 2008. It was the Democrats in Congress that made sure the banks and auto companies were held accountable and responsible to payback the government for all the money that was “given” to them.
How are those strawman arguments? Oh yeah, the senate was a 50/49 democratic majority for 2 years in 2001. I almost forgot that one. That was probably the 2 year term that did us in.