TIME: The Resistance Is the Majority of Americans, Not a New Tea Party

[CousinIT]

The zeitgeist is quickly setting in: Republicans right now face a backlash akin to what Democrats faced from the Tea Party in 2009 and 2010. Some have gone so far as to call this resistance the Democratic Tea Party. It’s a convenient comparison: Democrats like it because the Republican Tea Party was successful in 2010, and the media appreciates it as a simple and straightforward story. I've been guilty of leaning on it myself.

But the Democratic resistance and the Tea Party actually differ in a number of important ways, each of which tells a different story about where our country is and where our politics may be headed.

For starters, the Tea Party was forged as an opposition to a societal reality in our country, while today’s resistance is opposed to a political reality. The Tea Party began before the election of President Obama, as a reaction to President Bush and the bank bailouts of 2008. Tea Partiers believed that society and the economy had all left them behind. The movement’s anger was stoked by the realization that the country had changed to the extent that it would elect someone like Barack Obama and support his “liberal” policies like the Economic Recovery Act (the so-called stimulus) and the Affordable Care Act (scornfully dubbed “Obamacare”). These members wanted the entire country to revert to a set of values that more closely resembled what they saw on Leave It to Beaver.

On the other hand, the current resistance isn't based on a belief that our country has gone astray from some former golden age. It's a political backlash, borne out of Donald Trump’s policies and his presidency. Its participants aren’t rejecting the social structures of American society. They are embracing and defending our evolving structures of diversity and inclusiveness. The people stepping forward to resist the Trump Administration are standing against an Administration that doesn’t respect the core values that this nation holds: that we are all equal and that we can all achieve our own dreams.

. . .

Today’s resistance is almost the complete opposite. While Trump is indeed president — winning the Electoral College by approximately 75 votes — he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million. While Republicans maintained their control of the House and the Senate, they lost seats in both. The current resistance isn’t reacting to its lost status as the majority in American politics, as the Tea Party was. It is speaking out for the majority of Americans who feel inadequately represented in Washington. This resistance is giving political voice to those the political system has deprived of a voice. They are speaking for the silenced majority.

http://time.com/4676825/democratic-resistance-tea-party/

[dalton99a]

1. Great article.

[roamer65]

2. The resistance IS America.

It's in our blood to resist. We were born of revolution. All we have to do is look to the founding fathers for guidance.

[Chasstev365]

3. YES!

[Cha]

4. Damn straight.. none of that FAKE NEWS PROPAGANDA

TEA BAGGER for us!

Thank you, TIME!

[democratisphere]

5. This is!

[wildeyed]

6. Exactly.

Glad the media is finally catching on. These are not angry people or even overtly political people. These are moderates who are finally getting frustrated with gerrymandering, electoral college and bad Supreme Court rulings that decreased their say in governance. They are mostly white, educated, fairly affluent and they are used to getting their way. Trump and his minions spitting all over them is not going over well. Trump woke the beast. He is going to pay.

[SammyWinstonJack]

29. I like the sound of that.

Trump woke the beast. He is going to pay.

[Warpy]

7. Well, at least TIME is consistent

They completely misinterpreted the top-down TP and they've completely misinterpreting the grassroots resistance to Dolt45.

The TP might have started in the upper middle class suburbs, but it was easily coopted by the far right, especially the social conservatives. Koch money poured in and made sure it stayed coopted Glenn Beck and Dick Armey being their point men.

Nobody's giving much of anything to the resistance people and certainly there is no media presence to tell it what to do. Right now nobody knows exactly what to do about it and the prospect of answering to angry constituents has congress running scared. There are no leaders to discredit or buy off and they have no strategy for coping with it. They're facing an angry majority for the first time in their plush lives instead of an angry minority funded by the same plutocrats who fatten their campaign funds.

Right now, the anger is focusing on yet another diddled election and the accession to a completely inappropriate and dangerously ignorant man-baby to the White House. What it eventually morphs into is anyone's guess.

And this guy was Clinton's campaign spokesman? Whoa.

ETA: he did identify it as a majority movement, I'll give him that much. However, he also tried to pigeonhole it in the way the matured TP people could eventually be pigeonholed and it's way too soon for that.

[NastyRiffraff]

8. I just subscribed to Time

They've been doing some good work lately.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Don't anyone DARE call it the D T Party! That's a trap, malicious framing from Republicons. . . .nt

[democrank]

10. The Resistance is like a quilt.

Lots of different squares from lots of different places.

[littlemissmartypants]

16. Agree. ♡

[lillypaddle]

11. K&R nt

[KT2000]

12. this is the populist uprising

Gerrymandering and devising ways to prevent citizens from voting would created the mess we have now. An unpopular idiot was installed as president due to schemes to steal an election. The R's created this turmoil so they will just have to live with it.

[NCcoast]

13. I'm with this guy. I think he sees it very clearly.

For obvious reasons of focus and brevity he doesn't go into the fact that the Tea Party was largely redirected from anger at the bank bailout. Or that that redirection was calculated to work against the best interest of the group, which presents certain marketing difficulties. Or that they put them on buses, fed them lunch and drove them to another state for stage craft.

Conservatives have a 'tell'. They always accuse progressive of doing whatever it is they are up to. Because they're thinking 'Of course they're as sinister as us, aren't they?, so they have to be doing the same things.'

So they're crying that we're being 'organized' and that we're being 'paid'. I saw where Wayne LaPierre said recently that we lefties are getting paid $1500 a week to incite violence. Which one of you has my check?

Here's a prediction. This week has changed things. The GOP needs ignorance and public indifference to do what it does. The last thing they need is an engaged public. This week they have seen a public on fire. They'll blame Trump, and they'll get serious about getting rid of him. I think we'll get a special prosecutor for this thing, this Russia/Trump thing, whatever we're going to call it.

[littlemissmartypants]

17. ♡

[notdarkyet]

25. My state, az, just used the justification that we are paid protesters giving them

An excuse to charge us with racketeering which could subject protesters to forfeiture and confiscation of property as well as hefty finds. Will go find a link. This is their next attack. Eleven states already. Brb

http://www.alternet.org/activism/state-lawmakers-are-brutally-cracking-down-protesters-under-cover-trumps-law-and-order

[NCcoast]

26. You guys should have the ACLU on this

If they're saying there were payments made then make them produce some evidence of it.

[SammyWinstonJack]

30. +1000000! They won't be able to. They surely aren't that ridiculously stupid, are they?

[littlemissmartypants]

14. Considering the fact most of us can spell and

If we can't most know how to use a dictionary*, devastates the likeness to Tea Bagger argument. We would never, ever put "morans" on a protest sign.






*And the community here is home to several word smiths, editors, grammarians and creative writers that are generous with their support. ♡

[NBachers]

22. Are you sure it's not wordsmiths, as opposed to word smiths?

[littlemissmartypants]

24. See, my point exactly. ♡

[littlemissmartypants]

15. Thanks for the post CousinIT.

Kicking. And shaking my damn head. Tea baggers, so yesterday's news.

[NCcoast]

19. Home girl! Hail and well met.

Keep fighting the good fight.

[littlemissmartypants]

20. Forward together. Not one step back. ♡

[SunSeeker]

18. K & R

[Lucinda]

21. TY KNR

[Hekate]

23. KnR

[lindysalsagal]

28. This is the 99%: Same as Occupy Wall St: Not a wierd uninformed minority

This isn't going away.

[NCTraveler]

31. This will not give some ther needed feelings of self-importance. Nt