Why The Tea Partiers Are Wasting Their Time

[babylonsister]

http://mydd.com/users/upstate-dem/posts/why-the

Why The Tea Partiers Are Wasting Their Time

by Upstate Dem, Sun Feb 21, 2010 at 07:45:40 PM EST


Before there was a “Tea Party Nation” there was the “Christian Right”. These two conservative movements share one fatal weakness: Both are held in utter contempt by the corporate interests that run the Republican Party.

Here’s an oldie but goodie from the Dubya Administration:

Top White House political advisers embraced evangelical supporters publicly to get their votes while mocking them privately as “nuts” and “goofy,” according to a new book by David Kuo, the former No. 2 man in President Bush’s so-called “faith-based” initiatives program. . . .

Asked if White House officials really mocked conservative Christians, Kuo told Lesley Stahl, “Oh, absolutely. You name the important Christian leader and I have heard them mocked by serious people in serious places.”

Specifically, Kuo says people in the White House political affairs office referred to Pat Robertson as “insane,” Jerry Falwell as “ridiculous” and that James Dobson “had to be controlled.” President Bush, he wrote, talked about his compassion agenda, but never really fought for it.

Today’s teabaggers can expect similar treatment from the Boehner-McConnell Gang: fulsome expressions of support in public, and nothing but ridicule and condescension behind the scenes.

The Tea Party movement, to the extent that it’s “about” anything at all, is supposed to be about “liberty” and “smaller government”. But corporations don’t care about that stuff. Corporations don’t even care about capitalism. They care about tax giveaways, market share and higher profits. Period. The astonishing naiveté of the teabaggers — their wide-eyed willingness to be used like Kleenex by Republican bagmen — dooms their noisy movement to substantive irrelevance.

Republican politicians have been spewing empty rhetoric about “limited government” and “individual freedom” for thirty years. It hasn’t stopped them from piling up huge deficits and expanding the powers of the national security state to snoop on Americans — all with nary a peep from conservatives. (As Ross Perot used to say, it’s good dog food if the dogs will eat it.) The GOP doesn’t need a bunch of angry wingnuts dressed up like Paul Revere to tell them how to regurgitate Ronald Reagan’s tired old platitudes. It’s all fake anyway!

Teabaggers are simply the latest in a long line of grass-roots suckers. They need to find a more discreet social outlet for their rage before they embarrass themselves into political oblivion.

[dkf]

1. Tea partiers are the desired outcome of repubs "starve the beast" strategy.

While they may not be of use to corporate interests they are the vehicle upon which repubs dismantling of social programs rests.

[athenasatanjesus]

2. I'm sure republicans mock many of their constituents

They have to know how moronic most of their policies are and that you would have to be a fool to support them unless you are super rich.

[Walk away]

3. Teabaggers.........n/t

[FSogol]

4. K & R n/t

[Silent3]

5. "before they embarrass themselves into political oblivion"

If it were possible to be embarrassed into political oblivion, I'd have thought the teabaggers would already have disappeared in a puff of chagrin.

They can remain on the scene for as long as they are useful, and their usefulness to corporate interests is far from being at an end.

[DisgustedInMN]

6. Yeah...

... good thing Democrats wouldn't ever do anything like that to people who worked their asses off to put them in power! :sarcasm:

[Last_Stand]

8. +1

[calimary]

9. +2

Nah, couldn't possibly happen! They always remember who brought 'em to the dance to begin with! :sarcasm:

[applegrove]

7. I believe that underneath many teabaggers and fundies feel anxiety.

They can't quite identify why they feel anxiety but anyone who had ever had a psychopath mess with their lives would recognize it as the fear of all your fears (the fear of being small & being forced to grow down) that a psychopath will input into you before they make you do things by boxing you in with your anxietes so the only course of action is the one the psychopath wants (no taxes for rich people). And acting on this fear of being small makes them fall into the trap of supporting legislation for rich people (no governmnet, no taxes, no empathy for others (anti gay marriage), etc. ). Because when you feel such anxiety you have to act. So they march for their false leaders the GOP. And they keep taking action because that is what anxiety requires of you. So they get smaller and smaller and the anxiety provoked in them is doubled up. And they lash out at the elites' enemies as they are directed to. And they hate. And they never get relief (why didn't the bush white house do anything about abortion when it had control of congress).And they loose their place in the world (US middle class is shrinking). And here they are. Marching for the rich elites who don't want to pay taxes. And the teabaggers and christian right are not fighting for the middle class....which is actually thier base.