A Tea Party Turning Point?
Millions of Americans are paying their taxes (making Ron Paul look strangely appealing, if only for a day), and because of this, the Tea Party movement is holding events across the nation. For that reason, this day has much political import.
Today day is arguably more important for the Tea Party movement than any yet, given that a) it's the first to come together after the passage of ObamaCare, and b) it's probably the last group of widespread rallies until November. There's going to be plenty of media coverage, no doubt, which means that the image of the movement after today is going to be difficult to augment over the next 7-8 months.
We already know the tack that will be taken to define the Tea Party in a negative light: we've already seen many efforts to deflect attention away from complaints about spending and government overreach, and onto the demographics and racial attitudes of those attending the rallies. Some of these have been more subtle, and some have been anything but. Both, however, clearly mean to discredit the idea simply because it's coming primarily from white people, rather than through reasoned persuasion. The second source, by the by, neglects to mention the article's lead, which is that "Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public." The article's comments amusingly try to spin "supporters" into "financial backers," suggesting that the phrase refers to shadow puppet masters, even though there's no mention of this in the article and the context clearly suggests otherwise.
What people can't seem to explain is why this racism took so long to manifest itself this way. I'm pretty sure all these people knew Obama was black when he was inaugurated last January, or when he won in November of '08. Heck, I'd wager most of them knew he was black even before then. But since then and now, he's created a massive entitlement program with a teeth-skinning majority and spent trillions of dollars. So maybe -- just maybe -- that's the catalyst here.
But I digress. To this point, the Tea Party movement is still seen by moderate, sane Americans as a genuine populist movement upset about spending and government control. It has admirably resisted anyone who has tried to curtail or co-opt it, and it must continue to do so if it hopes to capitalize come November.
But all of that can be wiped out, silly as it seems, by a handful of angry protesters or even fake protesters planted there by an opposing organization. Any number of politicians, pundits, and media outlets are going to seize on anything they can to make the Tea Parties seem as angry and possibly bigoted as possible. They will not require much ammunition, so they must not be given any.
How the Tea Party appears to moderate voters at the end of the day will go a long way towards maintaining -- or damaging -- its collective credibility from now until Election Day.
» April 15th, 2010
|
|
Calendar
More Entries
Blogroll
Instapundit
Tom Maguire
Informed Speculation
Categories
Email Me
|
