Hammer's Favorite Country Clubber Shoots the Tea Party in the Face

I came across this David Brooks editorial on Facebook, where Hammer posted it, closing with "what an ass-wipe".  And while Mr. Brooks has disappointed me in the past now and then, I must depart company with my Facebook pal Hammer and applaud Mr. Brooks on this one.

Brooks has painted an unflattering portrait of the Tea Partiers, one they have earned in spades.  They are becoming what Don Rumsfeld used to call the insurgents in Baghdad--"Dead-enders", folks who have no desire to negotiate, no ability to recognize incremental (and sizable) attainment of long sought after goals.  The Tea Party is increasingly coming to mirror ideological libertarianism, interesting stuff to talk about in a dorm room but utterly incapable of serving as an actual approach to governing in anything but an autocracy.

As inconvenient as it is for Hammer and others, we live in a Democracy in which a sizable MAJORITY of the American public disagrees with the ideology of the Tea Party.  Not a plurality, a MAJORITY.  Not that there aren't wonderfully inspiring elements in that ideology, elements which have already shaped the debate in positive ways bound to put a spring in the step of any conservative.  Far too many people disagree with far too much of what the Tea Party represents for its approach to be adopted in toto.  Like "useful" libertarianism, Tea Party ideas will alloy with "country club" Republican ideas to form governing approaches that appeal to the "muddled middle", those who thought Mr. Obama gave a good speech but who now wonder whether there was any there, there.  This alloyed Republican Party will be stronger and more successful at the ballot box than any singular Country Club or Tea Party approach would produce.

My advice to the Tea Party Dead-enders?  Win first, then get cocky about your ideology.   And by win, I mean win a big policy debate. And win it within the system, the system of public debate and legislative compromise. Join with the dreaded "Country Clubbers" to dramatically reduce the scope and whim of government.  Show the American people what a new and idea-brimming Republican Party is all about.  Take back the Senate.  Defeat Barack Obama.   Once we've reached this point, well then if the Tea Party wants to conduct a Stalinist purge of the David Brooks/Bryan McGrath wing of the party, so be it.  I'll accept my fate. 

UPDATE--here's a good interview with David Brooks from The Daily Caller in which he 'splains himself.  Pretty straightforward stuff, from where I sit.

The Tea Party and Social Conservatism

Two months ago, I wrote here of my crystal-izing grand unifying theory of Tea Partyism's rise, which was the fact that they steered clear of social issues--thereby making them more attractive to moderates (who ultimately win a Party elections).

It seems that I may be onto something, as 16 Tea Party groups have signed a letter to the Republican Party urging them to put social issues on the back burner and concentrate on the things Tea Partiers are interested in--namely, lower taxes, less spending, less government, abiding by the Constitution.

Why Is The Tea-Party Thriving?

I started to talk about this on the radio show the other night, but I didn't have the time to develop it fully.  David Brooks' column this morning provided me with the last piece of the puzzle, and that is some sense of empirical data that the "Tea Party" is in fact, not unpopular with independents.  Here goes.

As I've said many times in this blog, elections are won by swaying independents and undecideds (generally, the same people).  Liberal Dems and Conservative Republicans vote for their guys/gals--leaving about a third of the electorate up for grabs -- and each party's job is to win more of that group than the other.

The Tea-Party--emphasis on fiscal discipline, lower taxes, less spending, small government, free markets--is clearly much closer to the down the line Republican Party approach than it is to the Democratic Party--so when independents look for a place to vote, it is increasingly in the Republican column. Where independents generally tend to shy away from Republicans is on social issues--abortion, religion, gay rights, etc.  Don't be confused by Glenn Beck's rally--while there were Tea Partiers there--it wasn't a Tea Party function.  Tea Party rallies are ALL ABOUT POLITICS--and almost never about social issues. Glenn Beck ran a tent meeting.

The Tea Party offers socially libertarian/socially moderate independents a REASON for voting Republican.  Let's face it--social issues are NOT what Republicans are talking about in this cycle--they are talking about fiscal and structural issues, and it is resonating. The Tea Party is changing the character of the Republican Party--like a drop of dye in a glass of water.  I see the Tea Party as CRITICAL in helping the Republicans to build a governing majority, and I hope ultimately that their presence in the party leavens some Republican social issue stands. 

Michael Gerson on the Tea Party

George W. Bush's former Speechwriter Michael Gerson--now a WaPost editorial writer--has a column up this morning in which he raises a series of questions for "Tea Party" candidates, questions clearly derived from his uneasiness with the movement (or what may be more properly viewed as a fringe of the fringe).  Gerson is as always--civil. But civility does not hide the overall weakness of his view.

Here's how Gerson begins his argument:  "In the normal course of events, political movements begin as intellectual arguments, often conducted for years in serious books and journals. To study the Tea Party movement, future scholars will sift through the collected tweets of Sarah Palin. Without a history of clarifying, refining debates, Republicans need to ask three questions of candidates rising on the Tea Party wave:"

First, do you believe that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional?... It reflects a conviction that the federal government has only those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution -- which doesn't mention retirement insurance or health care.....This view is logically consistent -- as well as historically uninformed, morally irresponsible and politically disastrous. 

Gerson starts out by telling us that political movements begin as intellectual arguments--and on this, we agree.  Then he takes a potshot at the Tea Party by suggesting that future scholars will sift through "tweets" to get at the underpinnings of the Tea Party movement.  This is ungenerous. Basic, enduring Constitutional principles lay at the heart of much of the Tea Party's angst.   It is Gerson who is historically uninformed, if he fails to recognize that the same arguments made today by (some) Tea Party candidates were made against the enabling legislation of both Social Security and Medicare.  Clearly, those principled arguments were not based on "tweets", but on an ideologically honorable view of the role of government that animated the discussions of the Founders.  Do I think Social Security or Medicare is unconstitutional?  No.  Do I think that objecting to them on constitutional grounds is loony or fringe or worthy of contempt?  No.  Gerson moves on to question number 2:

A second question of Tea Party candidates: Do you believe that American identity is undermined by immigration? An internal debate has broken out on this issue among Tea Party favorites. Tom Tancredo, running for Colorado governor, raises the prospect of bombing Mecca, urges the president to return to his Kenyan "homeland" and calls Miami a "Third World country" -- managing to offend people on four continents. Dick Armey of FreedomWorks appropriately criticizes Tancredo's "harsh and uncharitable and mean-spirited attitude on the immigration issue." But the extremes of the movement, during recent debates on birthright citizenship and the Manhattan mosque, seem intent on depicting Hispanics and Muslims as a fifth column. 

I don't know about Mr. Gerson, but I don't hear Tea Party advocates bashing "immigration".  I hear them bashing "illegal immigration", which is of course, very different than lawfully entering the country.  That Mr. Gerson does not distinguish between them is unfortunate.  Additionally, Gerson sweeps right over the legitimate questions (constitutional questions) surrounding birthright citizenship and the considerable cultural insensitivity surrounding the placement of a mosque so close to the defining attack of radical Islam upon modern western civilization.  These are questions that vex not only Tea Party advocates, but also folks in the middle--which is why so high a percentage of Americans are on the Tea Party's side of both issues.

Question three: Do you believe that gun rights are relevant to the health-care debate? Nevada Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle raised this issue by asserting that, "If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies." Far from reflecting the spirit of the Founders (who knew how to deal with the Whiskey Rebellion), the implied resort to political violence is an affectation -- more foolish than frightening. But it is toxic for the GOP to be associated with the armed and juvenile. 

I agree completely.
Frequent readers know I am not of the Tea Party,  and that I am far less a populist than is required to adhere to much of the movement's ideology.  Gerson is right that the GOP should not be led by the Tea Party--but in his criticism of the intellectual roots of the movement and its current popular appeal, he denigrates a potential source of strength in practical right of center politics.

The Most Important Blog Post You Will Read Today

Arthur C. Brooks of The American Enterprise Institute describes the new "culture war" in the US, one pitting free-enterprise versus government control. His identification of free-enterprise AS a cultural issue is new to me, and I find it particularly persuasive. Indeed, the contrast of Euro-slaves marching in the streets to protest a feared new era of government accountability, with the Tea Party marching in the US to demand such accountability, is striking. We ARE culturally different than Europe, and the march toward statism her is inconsistent with the prevailing culture.

I see in Brooks' words the first real "root cause" analysis of what is motivating the Tea Party movement--at least the first one I've read that makes sense to me. What we see in the Tea Party is an organic, basic rejection of a perceived threat to our very culture. Words such as Brooks' have motivated the Conservative cognoscenti for years--but it was only when some indescribable line was crossed--perhaps it was TARP, perhaps the auto bailouts, maybe the "stimulus bill", that people began to question whether there wasn't something very, very wrong going on in Washington--far more so than any usual griping and grousing about government. People across the country have awakened to the threat of creeping statism--and they have taken to the streets in a deeply emotional--but also deeply American way.

The Republican Party MUST tap into this emotion, but it must also attempt to shape it with serious policy options and a repudiation of its own time in the leadership of Congress, when it greatly expanded the role of government at the same time it severed the relationship of many of the governed from the government through tax policies that have removed nearly half of all wage-earners from contributing to the general operations of the federal government.

There's work to do, friends. Let's get to it.

The Source of My Discomfort With The Tea Party Movement Is Identified

Many readers have figured out by now that I haven't exactly cozied up to the Tea Party movement, to the disappointment of some. I've generally lumped my discomfort into a few categories--I don't like the anti-intellectualism of the movement, I'm afraid I don't get a good sense of what the movement is FOR (though what it is against seems relatively clear), and the prominence of the birth certificate crowd bothers me greatly. But none of those quite cut it as a holistic explanation for my angst. I figured it out last night.

I have an annoying habit (ask the Kitten) of getting worked up in the present about things that MIGHT happen in the future. This is a trait that served me well in the Navy (it's known there as "foresight" and "strategic planning"), but in the civilian, personal and interpersonal worlds, it is less valued. I'm getting worked up right now about what I think it going to happen in 2012--and that is a Tea-Party third party presidential run--a la Ross Perot in 1992 (think Sarah Palin). I've said it before--the Tea Party movement is an insufficiently ideologically coherent construct around which to build a modern political party. But that won't stop them from trying, and it won't stop them from creating enough interest and enough momentum to guarantee Barack Obama an additional four years in the White House. Let's face it--should they do what I'm suggesting, the overwhelming injury will be to the Republican Party. I actually think Rahmbo and Axelrod sit there in the White House loving the rise of the Tea Party movement--yes, it causes them some tactical problems in getting their agenda passed. But strategically? The Tea Party is a gift from the political gods.

The adults in the Republican Party had better start figuring out a way to work with the Tea Party--not roll over for, but work with. Continuing to just ignore them and support your homeboy (as we saw with Mitch McConnell supporting Rand Paul's opponent in KY) is a losing strategy. But so is openly embracing it--as that will surely drive away the apolitical middle you need to create a governing majority. The longer Republicans wait, the more powerful and determined the Tea Party will be.

A Conservative Goes Down In Utah

It looks like the Tea Partiers have their first scalp, and it belongs to a rock-ribbed Conservative from Utah-- Senator Bob Bennett. Bennett lost out in the Utah Republican Party nominating convention, so he'll go home after 18 years in the Senate. Republicans are expected to retain his seat.

A couple of things are worth mentioning.

There is a great deal of "anti-incumbency" feeling out there, and Bennett got swept up in some of it. Clearly, his vote for TARP didn't do him any favors with the many of the Tea Partiers, but you all know how I feel about TARP--and how little respect I have for Republicans who voted against it.

The media are of course eating this up, pointing to it as some kind of a Stalinist purge in the Republican Party being undertaken by the Tea Partiers. I wonder what they'll say if Blanche Lincoln is unhorsed from the left in Arkansas?

But all in all, I don't like this. Bob Bennett was a good Senator and he was a good Party man. Utah will have to send a very quality person forward in order not to have made a terrible mistake here.

I Love This Guy

Alonzo Rachel came under the scrutiny of the New York Times Charles Blow after Blow attended a recent Tea Party. Rachel responds brilliantly in the a video message here.

H/T Instapundit

Tea Parties, Michele Bachman and TARP

Regular readers of the blog know that I have not fully embraced the Tea Party movement, and people who know me well might rightly conclude that I will never feel totally comfortable with the zeitgeist the movement now rides. But I think as a sentient being and a conservative Republican, I have been derelict in my duties in not paying closer attention to the movement.

So over the past few days, I've tried to turn the corner on that a bit. No, I did not attend a Tea Party rally, but I should have. I watched plenty of video, listened to lots of podcasts, and read a ton of interviews, polls and blogposts.

I see amazing positive energy, I see genuine love of country, and I see a mixed bag of free thinkers and those who seem to ape whatever it is they last heard on the radio or saw on their favorite conservative TV program. I am struck by some of the contradictions I hear. I simply LOVE listening to Seniors complain about socialist takeovers of the healthcare system, and in the next breath decry cutting medicare to pay for it.

What I like least of all though about the Tea Party movement is some of the speakers who whip Tea Partiers into collective frenzies, speakers who appeal to the lowest common denominator and who use simplistic and over the top rhetoric to drive home often very important points. For instance--Saxby Chambliss addressed a crowd yesterday and was presumably talking about tax code simplification--a worthy, important subject. How did it get packaged? A discussion of how he's working to get rid of the IRS, how he was working for a time in which "we" determined how much tax we paid rather than the government" (presumably a reference to a tax system geared to consumption rather than work/saving). Again--good topics to take on, but rhetoric so base and simplistic as to detract from the important policy questions.

I know, I know--some of you will think "but CW, you're an egghead policy wonk Bill Kristol Republican--Chambliss isn't talking to you". And you'll be right. But then you will have answered the unasked (thus far) question--"why isn't the CW more taken with the Tea Party movement". They simply aren't talking to the likes of me.

Another example of "they're not talking to me" was a clip I heard of Minnesota Republican Michele Bachman from one of the Tea Parties yesterday. Representative Bachman is a darling of the Tea Party movement, and has never met a camera/microphone she didn't like (me either). That said, when talking about (again) a very important topic--and that is, increased government intrusion into the marketplace--she cited the fact that this latest round began under a Republican President--when the Congress passed the $700B "bailout of the big banks--a bill that I did not vote for". Said with great pride.

So here we have a "spokesperson" for this movement proudly crowing about having rendered what I consider to be one of the most scurrilous votes Republicans made during the contagion that was the credit market melt-down. Now that the credit markets are ungummed, now that the Dow is up 70%, now that the economy is clearly recovering from the recession and now that it is increasingly indisputable that the $700B TARP bill saved our entire economic system--Representative Bachman excites a crowd by saying she did not support the only thing government has done in the past two years to actually MAKE THINGS BETTER. And the crowd loved it.

I can understand the revulsion that bailing out Wall Street causes in people. I can understand the disdain people have for the folks on Wall Street--aided and abetted by Congress and the Presidency (both parties)--who recklessly hazarded our Republic's financial health--but I cannot support ridiculous, demagogic rhetoric detached from economic and policy reality and promoting a vote which had it prevailed--would have sent this economy into depression.

There are tough problems out there friends, and the solutions will not be easy. I have a tough time thinking I will find them at a Tea Party.

David Brooks On Tea Parties; Jonah Goldberg on David Brooks

This is a heavyweight discussion. First David Brooks took the ramparts of the New York Times editorial pages to offer his analysis of the Tea Party movement. Then, Jonah Goldberg offered his analysis of Brooks in National Review's blog The Corner.

A couple of things. These two--along with Mark Steyn--represent for me a sort of Holy Trinity of conservative thinkers. Day in and day out, Steyn, Brooks and Goldberg can be counted on to pen some of the most insightful, readable, and analytical views of policy and social events to be found. Brooks is brilliant and prep schoolish--and bit too cozy with Obamanism. Goldberg is a giant of conservative thinking, but I think his Puckishness sometimes causes him to be taken less seriously than others--though a reading of Liberal Fascism should cure even the toughest critic of charges that Goldberg is unserious. And Steyn--he's simply in a class by himself.

Brooks' piece on the Tea Party movement upon first reading made eminent sense to me, and it helped put me in touch with some of the basic, deep down, questions I have about their approach to policy. Had Goldberg not then made his commentary, I would likely have simply put a check in the box that Brooks had once again fairly well encapsulated my way of thinking. But Goldberg does a great job of standing Brooks' argument on its head. Whereas Brooks wrote an article showing the similarity of the New Left of the 60s with the Tea Party movement of today, Goldberg does just as admirable a job of staking out the differences--which are important, and redound to the benefit of the Tea Partiers.

Here's the bottom line for me--both of them are right as far as their arguments go, and I will consider myself better informed for having read them. That said, the real question for me is the extent to which the Tea Party movement will impact the character of the Republican Party. Not the Conservative Movement mind you....but the Republican Party. While there are conservatives in the Tea Party movement, and some of its basic instincts are conservative, it is not an abidingly conservative impulse. It is populist, and populism knows no ideological bounds--it speaks largely and simply to its own requirements. In our two-party system, the Tea Party movement is far more likely to (and has already done so) find its impact within the Republican Party--and I have to wonder if that impact will make the party more or less electable in upcoming contests.

At this point, the Tea Party movement seems to have little or no interaction with social questions (abortion, gay rights). If it manages to remain devoted to questions of fiscal restraint and good governance, I think the Tea Partiers will strengthen the Republican Party. If for some reason, the Tea Party movement takes on a social component more reminiscent of the Religious Right of the late 70's and early 80's, I fear it will have little positive impact and potentially negative effects.

Glenn Reynolds on the Tea Partiers

Instapundit actual--Glenn Reynolds--has a piece in the WSJ about what he saw at the Tea Party convention.

We talked at length about the Tea Partiers on the Radio Show earlier this week. Give a listen here for the details.

Bottom line: they will have influence, but it will be within the Republican Party--they are ineffective as a third party movement.