Newspapermen used to keep files on major figures, for that inevitable day when the newsworthies shuffle off that final coil. Timely obituaries don’t just “happen.”
Heedless of the danger of a premature obit, today’s journalists seem always ready with an autopsy, even before the corpse cools.
Every few years we endure talk of the death of a major political party. Journalists love this sort of speculation. And apparently it’s so forgettable that it never really sticks to the journalists who trotted out the last false prophecy. In the real world, sociologists study what happens to cults “When Prophecies Fail”; in journalism, the eternal cranking out of copy goes on as if nothing happened.
The Last Democrat, a book produced at the height of the Bill Clinton scandals, argued that Americans would never again elect a Democratic president — Americans, you see, had finally wised up, given up on the old redistributionist racket. Wishful thinking.
The book should be prominently placed on every would-be prophet’s desk. A cautionary title.
Today, the old political rackets have ratcheted up, and Democrats are riding high. Sort of.
So now, after Tuesday’s elections, we hear talk of the death of the Tea Party.
A possibility? Yes. But remember: it was never a real party, and it was never about tea. It was (as near as I could make out) about responsibility. In government.
I can’t see how that idea will ever go out of style.
Though how it will win, that’s harder to envision.
And whether the name will stick with the idea, that’s another matter, too. Tea and revolutions, like obituaries, must be prepared in advance.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
7 replies on “Is the Tea Party Dead?”
Only one thing to say about this.
.
There is virtually no such thing as a journalist anymore.
(Present company excepted, of course) :’)
A further thought. No “pre-obituary” has ever been written that so misrepresented or vilified the “deceased” in such a self-righteous way as the MSM and others have done to the Tea Party. What are they so scared of?
I am not a full fledged fan of some of the Tea Party thinking and rhetoric, but their core message of government shrinkage I like. Trouble is they are so inconsistent. Most of them clearly desire bigger government in the social areas. Even when they are correct (why should a religious institution have to do things against their religious convictions) they are unable to articulate that portion without getting trapped. Their inability to separate personal from governmental and their inconsistency has hurt their ability to present “common sense.”
The only mistake here is referring to the TP in ‘past tense’.
The mass media consistently referred to a ‘Tea Party’ as if it were a political party. A Tea Party was an event attended by people interested in a smaller and less costly national government. Other people supported that stance without ever attending a Tea Party. People who support less government still exist, and they don’t need Tea Party events to stick with their beliefs.
The media is nearly impotent against a movement that has no head. Can’t Alinski-ize it by demonizing a leader if one steadfastly refuses to be there.
To Lynn Bloxham:
Yes, many social conservatives find the Tea Party’s fiscal conservatism attractive. I hope we can show them that their desire to “enforce virtues” (what else can you call laws prohibiting certain actions which do not harm others or their property) is contrary to freedom and limited government. This is exactly what liberals want to do, but with a different set of virtues. E.G., liberals want to force the productive to be charitable (even though it’s not charitable to force others to pay for something you want) and to fund government welfare, via force.
Hopefully I pointed out where force is used here enough. And that we don’t need force to have charity.
Thus, I hope to persuade, that social conservatives should leave virtues to individuals, and have government deal with actions that harm others, by making such actions illegal, and enforcing them. That way, when liberals want to force their virtues down social conservatives throats, conservatives will say that it’s not government’s role.
And perhaps liberals might be willing to give up forcing their virtues on us, given that social conservatives state they don’t want to force their virtues on liberals, and that government should have no role in “virtues”.
After all, when all you do is initiate violence against people, how virtuous can you be? Even if that violence is supposedly only used to protect our freedom.