There’s nothing patriotic about the Tea Party Patriots. By Michael Kinsley
The right-wing populist Tea Party movement has politicians of both parties spooked. Democrats fear it will bring so many Republicans to the boil, and then to the voting booth, that they will lose control of Congress. Republicans fear the movement will frighten away moderates and leave their party an unelectable, ideologically extreme rump. The press, both alarmed and delighted by this political force that sprang from nowhere, is eager to prove its lack of elitism and left-wing bias by treating the Tea Party activists with respect. Journalists also sincerely appreciate having something new to write or talk about. It is in their interest to keep this story going.
A Harris poll released the last day of March reported that a third of all adults support the Tea Party, and slightly less than a quarter oppose it. Do they know what they are supporting, or opposing? The movement is not yet united on a single platform or agenda, like Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract With America, which started as a triumph and ended as an embarrassment. The lack of specifics allows anyone who is just existentially fed up (and who isn’t, on some days?) to feel right at home. No one will demand to know what he or she is fed up with. On Web sites and in speeches, Tea Party Patriots reveal a fondness for procedural gimmicks (like a ban on congressional earmarks), constitutional amendments (term limits, balanced budget), and similar magic tricks or shortcuts to salvation. Apart from a general funk, though, the one common theme espoused by TPPs is the monstrous danger of Big Government.
The Tea Party movement has been compared (by David Brooks of The New York Times, among others) to the student protest movement of the 1960s. Even though one came from the left and the other from the right, both are/were, or at least styled themselves as, a mass challenge to an oppressive establishment. That’s a similarity, to be sure. But the differences seem more illuminating.
First, the 1960s (shorthand for all of the political and social developments we associate with that period) were by, for, and about young people. The Tea Party movement is by, for, and about middle-aged and old people (undoubtedly including more than a few who were part of the earlier movement too). If young people discover a cause and become a bit overwrought or monomaniacal, that’s easily forgiven as part of the charm of youth. When adults of middle age and older throw tantrums and hold their breath until they turn blue, it’s less charming.
Second, although the 1960s ultimately spread their tentacles throughout the culture and around the world, politically there was just one big issue: ending the war in Vietnam. No such issue unites the Tea Party Patriots. You might guess from some of their materials on the Web that the repeal of health-care reform is the TPPs’ Vietnam, their towering cause. But even for devoted TPPs, stripping health insurance away from people who’ve just gotten it is unlikely to summon the same passions that the activists of the 1960s brought to stopping a misguided war. Not only do TPPs not have one big issue like Vietnam—they disagree about many of their smaller issues. What unites them is a more abstract resentment, an intensity of feeling rather than any concrete complaint or goal.
The antiwar movement also worked, sort of. As did the civil-rights movement that preceded it. Antiwar protests ultimately turned the establishment itself against the war, though extracting us from it still took years. By contrast, the Tea Party Patriots, I predict, are just the flavor of the month: the kind of story that the media are incapable of not exaggerating. The antiwar movement and the 1960s changed America in numerous ways forever. The Tea Party Patriots will be an answer on Jeopardy or a crossword-puzzle clue.
A final difference: although the 1960s featured plenty of self-indulgence, this wasn’t their essence. Their essence was selfless and idealistic: stopping the war; ending racism; eradicating poverty. These goals and some of the methods for achieving them may have been childishly romantic or even entirely wrongheaded, but they were about making the world a better place. The Tea Party movement’s goals, when stated specifically, are mostly self-interested. And they lack poetry: cut my taxes; don’t let the government mess with my Medicare; and so on. I say “self-interested” and not “selfish” because pursuing your own self-interest is not illegitimate in a capitalist democracy. (Nor is poetry an essential requirement.) But the Tea Party’s atmospherics, all about personal grievance and taking umbrage and feeling put-upon, are a far cry from flower power. There is a nasty, sour, vindictive tone to the Tea Party that certainly existed in the antiwar movement and its offspring, but never dominated the atmosphere created by these groups.
Some people think that what unites the Tea Party Patriots is simple racism. I doubt that. But the Tea Party movement is not the solution to what ails America. It is an illustration of what ails America. Not because it is right-wing or because it is sometimes susceptible to crazed conspiracy theories, and not because of racism, but because of the movement’s self-indulgent premise that none of our challenges and difficulties are our own fault.
“Personal responsibility” has been a great conservative theme in recent decades, in response to the growth of the welfare state. It is a common theme among TPPs—even in response to health-care reform, as if losing your job and then getting cancer is something you shouldn’t have allowed to happen to yourself. But these days, conservatives far outdo liberals in excusing citizens from personal responsibility. To the TPPs, all of our problems are the fault of the government, and the government is a great “other,” a hideous monster over which we have no control. It spends our money and runs up vast deficits for mysterious reasons all its own. At bottom, this is a suspicion not of government but of democracy. After all, who elected this monster?
“I like what they’re saying. It’s common sense,” a random man-in-the-crowd told a Los Angeles Times reporter at a big Tea Party rally. Then he added, “They’ve got to focus on issues like keeping jobs here and lowering the cost of prescription drugs.” These, of course, are projects that can be conducted only by Big Government. If the Tea Party Patriots ever developed a coherent platform or agenda, they would lose half their supporters.
Principled libertarianism is an interesting and even tempting idea. If we wanted to, we could radically reduce the scope of government—defend the country, give poor people enough money to live decently, and leave it at that. But this isn’t the TPP vision. The TPP vision is that you can keep your Medicare benefits and balance the budget by ending congressional earmarks, and perhaps the National Endowment for the Arts.
What is most irksome about the Tea Party Patriots is their expropriation of the word patriot, with the implication that if you disagree with them, you’re not a patriot, or at least you’re less patriotic than they are. Without getting all ask-notty about it, I think a movement labeling itself patriotic should have some obligation to demonstrate patriotism in a way other than demanding a tax cut. In their rhetoric, the Tea Party Patriots do not sound as if they love their country very much: they have nothing but gripes. Yes, of course, these are gripes against the government, not against the country itself. But that distinction becomes hard to maintain when you have nothing good to say about the government and nothing but whines to offer the country.
Times are tough, and some sympathy is due. Still, times have always been tough for many folks for one reason or another, and people didn’t always resort so quickly to all-purpose bellyaching, did they? But in recent years inchoate rage against the government has almost become part of our civic religion: the short list of values we all do share. To say, “Yeah, the government’s okay by me,” or even to express gratitude for a country that sends you a Social Security check and pays your medical bills, actually does seem almost un-American. Our new national motto is from the movie Network: “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.” And what is “this”? Ask not.
By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly
Snap!: "Many security people are now billing themselves as counterterrorism specialists [b]ut they have no idea how terrorists think or operate," ex-CIAer slams . . . Gilding the lily: "The U.S. already has an effective means of stopping terrorism without the need to child proof the transit system," maven maintains . . . And that's that: "Anyone who says America's federal courts can't bring terrorists to justice is overlooking the facts," Sen. Feinstein says. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.
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“Many security people are now billing themselves as counterterrorism specialists, whatever that means. But they have no idea how terrorists think or operate,” ex-CIA operative Charles Faddis tells U.S. News’ Alex Kingsbury. “It is currently very difficult to prevent a suicide bomber from attacking a public transport system,”BBC News’ Chris Yates surveys — as Reuters’ William Maclean reports that “pressure on national budgets and growing problems identifying would-be bombers will make a tough task even harder,” and Jena McNeill chides in The Foundry, “The United States already has an effective means of stopping terrorism without the need to child proof the transit system.”
Ivory (Watch) Towers: The 528 students enrolled in homeland security studies at U-Mass can select from 21 courses in areas such as domestic terrorism, WMDs and forensic psychology, The Boston Globe profiles — while The Huffington Post polls readers: “Would you major in counterterrorism?” A Purdue University innovation using Bluetooth signals from wireless devices to track checkpoint wait times could help make more accurate airport staffing decisions, Homeland Security Newswire updates. John Yoo, who gave legal cover to Bush-era enhanced interrogation methods, tells the Los Angeles Times he’s happy teaching at Berkeley, “despite calls for his ouster and protests by liberal groups.” A Muslim scholar previously denied a visa and barred from speaking engagements in the United States is scheduled to speak at Harvard Law School, The Boston Herald briefs (and see below).
Bugs ‘n bombs: A dangerous ammonia gas leak in Indiana prompted evacuation of hundreds from their homes and sent at least three people to hospitals Tuesday, The Indianapolis Star relays. “Bizarre incidents among drug abusers in Europe force us to question whether experiments with biological weapons might be under way already,” a Washington Times op-ed leads. A recent CIA report warns that Iran has maintained its pursuit of nuclear capabilities that could help the Middle Eastern state build a nuclear bomb, Global Security Newswire notes. Iran’s nuclear ambitions, meanwhile, took center stage Tuesday at a Group of Eight foreign ministers summit on global security and terrorism, Agence France-Presse reports. A naval assessment group “is the latest government agency to tackle the threat from an EMP, a devastating electromagnetic burst that fries computers, sensors, weapons and all other electronics in its path,” Navy Times notes.
Close air support: Among the masses patiently queued up at an Orlando checkpoint early Monday a.m. was ex-DHS chief Tom Ridge, who quipped, “Some say it’s justifiable punishment,” The Washington Post reports — while WALB 10 News has suspicious luggage being “detonated, causing tension and flight delays at the Southwest Georgia Regional airport.” Colorado Springs Airport, meanwhile, is moving checked luggage screening back into the lobby while its baggage area is refitted for new automated explosives detection equipment, the Gazette relates — as The Baltimore Sun sees AirTran unveiling a $39 million baggage security system at BWI. A U.K. parliamentary report recommends that “passengers, and terrorists, should not know what [security] regime they will face when they arrive at airports,” The Times of London tells.
Courts and rights: A federal judge ruled yesterday that warrantless eavesdropping on a now-defunct Islamic charity was illegal, Bloomberg reports. The Army officer accused in the Fort Hood shooting rampage is apparently being moved from a hospital to jail, AP relates. U.S. prison units specially designed to muzzle communications by inmates considered extremist are unconstitutional and discriminate against Muslims, Reuters has a lawsuit filed Tuesday charging. Digital Due Process, whose members also include Intel, eBay, AOL, AT&T and the ACLU, wants to require law enforcers to get a court order or search warrant before accessing any personal e-mail or other Internet data, The San Jose Mercury News notes.
Over there: A Pakistani court yesterday formally opened the trial of five Americans charged with terrorism and plotting attacks, which could see them jailed for life, AFP reports. The Russian-backed leader of Chechnya vows that terrorists who target innocent civilians must be “poisoned like rats,” CNN notes — while NPR has a Chechen rebel chief yesterday claiming the Moscow metro bombings. Russia’s decade-long fight against an Islamic insurgency has not worked, USA Today, relatedly, has analysts asserting. “In Iraq, we’ve seen the number of female suicide bombers swell due in part to a resistance to having men search women at checkpoints,” Salon suggests.
Mapping the thin ice: San Francisco’s police chief has had to apologize for quipping that the Hall of Justice “is susceptible not just to an earthquake, but also to members of the city’s Middle Eastern community parking a van in front of it and blowing it up,” The SFist relates. When six young Southern California Muslim men paused for prayer during a trip through Nevada earlier this month, police were suspicious enough to check their names against a national terrorism watch list, The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reveals. “Because they live together, guard their privacy and practice an unfamiliar faith, residents of Islamville have been viewed with suspicion,” The Tennessean profiles. A parliamentary committee has concluded that the U.K. government’s anti-terrorism scheme, Prevent, has backfired by stigmatizing and alienating Muslims, The Daily Telegraph discusses. FOX News “baselessly suggested that Muslim scholars Tariq Ramadan and Adam Habib . . . are ‘terrorists,’” Media Matters chides.
Holy Wars: Terrorism experts say recent conservative political unrest has fueled a resurgence of radical militias, even though their popularity had declined after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, The Detroit News surveys. “There is a good reason to worry about right-wing anti-government extremism,” a Post columnist, relatedly, contends — as New York Magazine wrestles with whether a just-busted Michigan Christian militia cell is a terrorist organization. “Pakistani terror camps are teaching children the three R’s: reading, ’riting and rage . . . Graduates don’t go to college — they blow themselves to bits in Afghanistan to find paradise,” The New York Daily News spotlights. “The metro bombings in Moscow make clear that terrorism is far from exorcized from Russia. So where has it been hiding these last few, quiet years? The Web,” Foreign Policy leads. Two women dressed in Muslim clothing were attacked and beaten in Moscow after Monday’s deadly subway suicide bombing, Pravda reports.
JohnAMacDougall Starting Points: My Country, Tis of Me - #Tea #Party 'Patriots' http://bit.ly/apauZH #american #right-wing
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