Obligatory Storm In A Teacup Joke

Tea Party-ing

What is the Tea Party? Does it represent a new third way in American politics, an unruly branch of the Republican Party, or the successor of Ross Perot and so many other failed third parties. The Tea Party, of course, held its brand-spankin’-new convention this week, feat. Sarah Palin. This conservative confabulation is the most recent headline to come of the incandescent group. Started as a hybrid of grass-roots organizing and top-down protest, the Tea Party has been making things uncomfortable for Dems and RINOs (and now FCINOs) alike since the Dems came forward with the triple threat of stimulus package, bank bill, and health care plan.

Conservative elites grabbed hold of the tea folks with both hands- Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck at one point vied for the title of “Miss Tea Party” so hard we were afraid to turn on the television. The effects were undeniable. From decently behaved protests to unruly town halls to downright scary signs (rightly reputed by the protest leaders, it must be noted), this groundswell of grassroots anger at high costs and poorly communicating politicians did serious damage to the Obama momentum that had seemed so undeniable mere months before.

The question now is, does the Tea Party have a future? It is a quarrelsome group. The most problematic issue facing those who would like to ride this tiger is that nobody really seems to know just what the Tea Party actually is. According to one interpretation, the Tea Party is just a bunch of folks from either side of the political aisle fed up at Washington politicians mortgaging the US’s future off to China. The appearance of Tea Party candidates appearing in elections nation-wide gives credence to the third-party thesis. While the Tea Party seemed to represent white middle-class anger at both big-spending Bush and same-as-the-old-boss Obama, this idea made sense.

Almost as soon as this non-partisan interpretation appeared, it was rendered obsolete by the arrival of the Fox punditry. Any group headed or at least chiefly promoted by Misters Beck and Hannity or their compatriots can hardly make a claim for non-partisanship. There was also the unfortunate mingling of the grievances of the Tea Partiers with the rather more dubious claims of the birther movement, to the point that, at the town-hall-splosions of summer 2009, the two factions were almost impossible to distinguish. Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter, the noted paragons of leftism, even took time off their busy schedules of saving America from Obama to bash the birthers, which further muddied the political sides (watch at about the 1 minute mark).

Still, Tea-Party-ism appears to have shaken off its more berserk members and is attempting to emerge as a legitimate third party. Maybe. They did have a convention, which is something real parties do. Unfortunately, this convention is itself tearing the Tea Party asunder. The selection of Sarah Palin as the marquee speaker has led to turmoil within the party. While Mrs. Palin spoke for a rather handsome fee, two other GOP luminaries, Rep Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn), backed out citing ethical concerns. Allegedly, both speakers and some of the sponsors were alarmed by the for-profit status of the convention, the dubious past of the organizer (a “small-town lawyer with money problems”), and the ticket prices. At $549 per person, the tickets are more than double those of similar national conventions. Meanwhile, some within the party are decrying this event as a simple attempt at co-option, complaining that the Republican Party simply used the night, and the organization itself, as another fundraiser with new decorations. The price of a convention ticket, the for-profit status, and Mrs. Palin’s $100,000 speaking fee cannot have aided in this perception.

Liz Sidoti of the AP calls the Tea Party “a loose citizen group with no leader but many voices”, which sounds like another way of saying that it is hardly a coherent group at all. No politician to the fiscal left of Mrs. Palin should take much comfort from this fact, however. The Tea Party represents real anger felt by a large, if monochromatic, proportion of Americans, and the ability of Republicans to turn that anger into money has political importance.

It would be a mistake, however, to herald the Tea Party as a major new player in American politics. Even ignoring the inertial and structural strengths of the our two-party system, the Tea Party lacks an important prerequisite for third-party strength: intellectual coherence. As a front for right-wing grassroots anger, the all things to all people approach was not consequential: the “party” was decentralized, a social network of angry, ignored, and generally hard-done-by voters. As an independent political Party, top-down leadership is necessary; without agreed-upon direction, goals, and visible leadership, the party will simply fade into obscurity or be subsumed into the Republican tent. Within the Tea Party, there is even debate regarding the name: does it reference Boston in 1776 or is it a punchy acronym for Taxed Enough Already? In order to be legitimate, and distinct from the GOP, the Tea Party needs to find some homegrown leaders to go along with the homegrown anger, not simply act as a front for the GOP faithful.

Unless the newly independent Tea Partiers can differentiate themselves, they risk one of two self-defeating outcomes. Either they will simply be subsumed back into the GOP as Mrs. Palin would undoubtedly wish, or they risk dividing the conservative vote come November, a catastrophe for conservatives anywhere. It is rather worth noting that Ronald Reagan, under whose presidency the US went from being the world’s largest international creditor to its largest international debtor, falls into the camp of the FCINOs. One way or another, the Tea Party, and the ideological purity it represents, is unlikely to last long. It turns out that governing is a lot harder than complaining – ask the Democrats.