The Disaster of Tea Party Thinking

Andrew Sullivan points to the big fallacy of the Tea Party argument about fiscal responsibility: why weren't they upset when George W. Bush and his Republican administration was ballooning the deficit and national debt with his multiple wars and budget-busting tax cuts?

I welcome the belated right-wing opposition to out-of-control government spending. But the one thing you have to note about tea-party fervor is that none of it existed when they had real leverage over a Republican president, who spent us into bankruptcy. That tells you something. And if you think a party led by Palin will not embrace every neocon crusade or Christianist social policy, you're dreaming.

The Tea Partyers are simply not believable when it comes to fiscal matters. They have no credible proposal to balance the budget and bring down the awful deficits that face us. They won't increase budget revenue with tax increases, they won't cut our bloated defense spending or end the wars we're in, they want Obama to keep his hands off 'their' Medicare, and so on. Do they really think that a balanced budget is going to be accomplished by cutting the Department of Education, Food Stamps, and the National Parks? 

Furthermore, what do they plan to do to bring back manufacturing to the United States, which is behind a lot of our current economic woes?  What is their plan to staunch the flow of billions of oil dollars to the Saudi Arabias of the world, or the billions of import dollars to the Chinas of this world, that is putting such pressure on the value of the dollar?  Understandably, they avoid all the hard economic thinking and instead resort to taking potshots at Obama and Pelosi, and pursue the kind of magical thinking that believes that we can return to Oz by simple clicking the heels of our ruby red slippers.

The Tea Party thinking in general, from all I've heard, is hyper-partisan (ie Republican), unrealistic, simplistic, emotional bordering on hysterical, overly personalistic, nativistic, jingoistic, absolutistic, and when it comes to President Obama, simply slanderous and completely absurd (Obama as Muslim, Socialist, Foreigner).  Tea Partyers seem to want someone in office "just like me" (I heard that with regard to O'Donnell, that it was fine that she had had her home foreclosed on and she hadn't paid her college tuition bills, because she was just like the rest of us!  Oh, great.)

Tea Party thinking (or the lack thereof) is a recipe for sheer national and even global disaster.  If you think it's bad now, if you thought right-wingers George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were a disaster, just wait till the likes of Palin, O'Donnell, Angle and their ilk come to power.  (And yes, it is possible, we almost had Palin as our Vice-President two years ago, thanks to John McCain.)  That's right, just try and imagine Sarah Palin with her finger on the nuclear button, being confronted by a crisis with China or North Korea or Russia or Iran.  I'm sorry, pretty Sarah from Alaska, who didn't even finish out one term as governor, is not the one I want determining the fate of our country or the world. 

Compared to the Tea Party leaders like Sarah Palin, 'poppy' Bush the Elder was a complete economic genius and world statesman.  Please, I'm begging you, give me back the old Republican Party, the Party of Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Bush Sr., and even Reagan!  (I'm not Republican, but if we have to have a Republican as President, I want one of them!)