Distrusting the Establishment

I want to comment here on the Tea Party movement, analyzed so well in Dave Barstow's article in the New York Times, excerpted here on this blog.  The crucial paragraph in that article is this one:

But most [of the Tea Party groups] are not [appendages of the Republican Party]. They are frequently led by political neophytes who prize independence and tell strikingly similar stories of having been awakened by the recession. Their families upended by lost jobs, foreclosed homes and depleted retirement funds, they said they wanted to know why it happened and whom to blame.

Frank Rich wrote about the Tea Partiers in his column yesterday, with the revealing title, "The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged."  Now, I normally find myself agreeing with Frank Rich, but this time, not so much (more on Rich in a moment).

Where to begin?  First by saying, I am not a Tea Partier.  In fact, Glenn Beck, who is such a hero to many of them, comes across to me as a real buffoon, a parody of a southern evangelist preacher, with his faux weeping, his hysterical speaking style, his slick and manipulative mode of communication.  I know evangelistic preaching very well, having grown up with it until I turned away in disgust, and Beck is a fraud.  A 21st century political Elmer Gantry.

On the other hand, I have much more respect for another of their heroes, Congressman Ron Paul, with whom I agree quite a bit actually.  His integrity is impeccable, and he says what he means and means what he says.  And his honest, longstanding position and argument against the 'warfare/welfare state' has a lot to be said for it.  There is a growing bit of 'libertarian' in me that I'm still adjusting to.

So, having gotten that off my chest, the next thing I want to say is that the Tea Party movement is a direct result of and reaction to the failure of the political and economic Establishment of this country.  The Establishment--as represented by our three branches of governmment, the two political parties, the mainstream media, and the main economic institutions of our society, like Wall Street--have failed the people of this country.  The economic crash of 2009 and the resulting deep economic recession (with little relief in sight for many, many people) simply brought this failure on the part of the leadership of this country to the attention of millions of people who would normally be going about their lives, trusting in the Establishment to do the right thing on their behalf.  That trust is now gone.  Caput.  It has been replaced by incredible distrust and frustration.

The Tea Party movement is just one major public expression of a growing  revulsion with our national Establishment.  Fortunately, it is so far fairly benign, as these things go.  Yes, the rhetoric tends to have a revolutionary tinge to it, but it is a tinge that is well within our national patriotic and revolutionary mythology ('Tea Party', for example, harks back to the founding event of our national independence movement.)  This is a far cry from the Aryan Nation movement, for example, with its roots in Nazi ideology and anti-semitism.

I don't believe that the 'mainstream' of the Tea Party movement is racist, anymore than any of us are.  Some fringe elements may be, just as there are racists in both the Democratic and Republican parties as well.

Both political parties and their acolytes are very fearful of this movement, because they can't control it or necessarily benefit from it in terms of money or votes.  Voices from the mainstream media, like Frank Rich, fear it because it doesn't pay any attention to him or his column, but thrives off of the new media, the boggers, the internet.  Or perhaps Rich simply buys into the progressive propaganda against conservatism populism, such as propagated by academic Richard Hofstadler and his 'Paranoid Style in American Politics'.  (Did you notice all the 'p's in that last sentence?) 

Congress is simply scared to death because they fear the Tea Partiers will turn on all of them, regardless of whether there's an 'R' or a 'D' before their name.  The Republicans, for their part, have a tiger by the tail here.  And they know it could turn on them at any time and eat them alive.  The mainstream conservative movement is frightened, because the Tea Partiers can't stand George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John McCain, and certainly not Michael Steele.

The Tea Party movement is unpredictable and dangerous to the powers that be.  It is like a raging bull elephant charging through the village, able to destroy anything in sight if it decides to.  And the powers that be are desperately trying to tame it, put it to sleep with an anesthetizing dart, or kill it.

Frankly, I don't have much sympathy for the Establishment.  They deserve what coming at them right now.  They have largely failed us.  They need to be shaken up and become much more responsive to the average person in this country.  And when they do that, then things will calm down again.  If they don't do that, who knows what will happen.