WP: Why the Tea Party is toxic for the GOP

[SkinsHokieFan]

Some us remember the early, non hijacked tea party which actually had some potential

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/24/AR2010082405001.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Those days are long gone. Here is a great article by Michael Gerson

Why the Tea Party is toxic for the GOP

By Michael Gerson

Wednesday, August 25, 2010; A19

So the "summer of recovery" swelters on, with Democrats sun-blistered, pestered by bottle flies, sand in their swimsuits, water in their ears. Jobless claims increase, Republicans lead the generic congressional ballot, and George W. Bush is six points more popular than President Obama in "front-line" Democratic districts that are most vulnerable to a Republican takeover. Still, Democrats hug the hope that Obama is really the liberal Ronald Reagan -- but without wit, humor, an explainable ideology or an effective economic plan. Other than that, the resemblance is uncanny.

Yet the Republican Party suffers its own difficulty -- an untested ideology at the core of its appeal.

In the normal course of events, political movements begin as intellectual arguments, often conducted for years in serious books and journals. To study the Tea Party movement, future scholars will sift through the collected tweets of Sarah Palin. Without a history of clarifying, refining debates, Republicans need to ask three questions of candidates rising on the Tea Party wave:

First, do you believe that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional? This seems to be the unguarded view of Colorado Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck and other Tea Party advocates of "constitutionalism." It reflects a conviction that the federal government has only those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution -- which doesn't mention retirement insurance or health care.

This view is logically consistent -- as well as historically uninformed, morally irresponsible and politically disastrous. The Constitution, in contrast to the Articles of Confederation, granted broad power to the federal government to impose taxes and spend funds to "provide for . . . the general welfare" -- at least if Alexander Hamilton and a number of Supreme Court rulings are to be believed. In practice, Social Security abolition would push perhaps 13 million elderly Americans into destitution, blurring the line between conservative idealism and Social Darwinism.

This approach undermines a large conservative achievement. Despite early misgivings about Social Security and the Civil Rights Act, Ronald Reagan moved Republicans past Alf Landon's resistance to the New Deal and Barry Goldwater's opposition to federal civil rights law, focusing instead on economic growth and national strength. A consistent "constitutionalism" would entangle Republicans in an endless, unfolding political gaffe -- opposing, in moments of candor, unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, the federal highway system and the desegregation of lunch counters.

A second question of Tea Party candidates: Do you believe that American identity is undermined by immigration? An internal debate has broken out on this issue among Tea Party favorites. Tom Tancredo, running for Colorado governor, raises the prospect of bombing Mecca, urges the president to return to his Kenyan "homeland" and calls Miami a "Third World country" -- managing to offend people on four continents. Dick Armey of FreedomWorks appropriately criticizes Tancredo's "harsh and uncharitable and mean-spirited attitude on the immigration issue." But the extremes of the movement, during recent debates on birthright citizenship and the Manhattan mosque, seem intent on depicting Hispanics and Muslims as a fifth column.

Click link for rest

[Fergasun]

1) Good point on social security and medicare. The best way to reform social security is to go back to how we derived the number 65, and then write that derivation into the law. If life expectancy was 70, and we derived 65 from that number, than we simply change the age to "life expectancy -5" and use a sliding scale life expectancy number.

2) I don't understand how people can defend "illegal immigration". Now it is true, some of the rhetoric is amped up; but why do people think it is cool to allow so many people to enter the country "illegally"? Should we as a country have an immigration policy that favors Mexico? Is it even possible to debate this without being called a 'racist' or 'xenophobe'?

3) The problem with the GOP is that they've given "lip service" to teaparty ideals for the past 10+ years. I read some about speech's by Cantor and Boehner recently, consider me completely non-plused and unenthused about the GOP's legislative agenda. I think that they should run on the following platform:

- Rolling back health care reform (obvious, its not really my issue but I think this is a huge distinction they can draw)

- Changing the debate on "immigration reform". The debate should focus on "how we are going to enforce the border" rather than "let's get rid of birthright citizenship". I don't see any rational voices in the GOP... actually I think Graham is quite rational and Senators like him play an important role (I think his backing up of birthright citizenship repeal is a negotiating ploy, and he's right to play it).

- In 2006, with the Democrats in Congress they got the ball rolling on health care reform. I want to know what the GOP is going to get rolling that will come down the pipe in 2012.

4) Quite honestly, I am sick of both parties. I want an "open, honest and transparent" party. Do you know what that means? It means the citizens will get a Congressional FOIA, that means Congress has to keep track of who they are coming in contact with and report it on demand. That means lobbyists need to be more specific in their lobbying activities. This is the real type of reform that can transform our democracy.

[ACW]

I don't like Gerson. He has a STRONG anti-libertarian streak.

[SkinsHokieFan]

I don't like Gerson. He has a STRONG anti-libertarian streak.

He is a political creature, designed to figure out how to win elections.

While libertarianism has lots of fantastic ideas IMO, and I tend to slide my economic views in that direction, politically its a big loser.

And I agree with Fergueson, transparancey is a major major missing element from Congress right now. Ethics too. As for illegal immigration, the GOP has to figure out how to discuss it without alienating an entire group of people in the US. That particular debate HAS moved to the right, however demonizing hispanics is going to do no favors for the GOP's long term prospects

[The 12th Commandment]

2) I don't understand how people can defend "illegal immigration". Now it is true, some of the rhetoric is amped up; but why do people think it is cool to allow so many people to enter the country "illegally"? Should we as a country have an immigration policy that favors Mexico? Is it even possible to debate this without being called a 'racist' or 'xenophobe'?

I'll try to tackle explaining this one.

Those who don't have a problem with illegal immigrants that there was a tacit acceptance of their coming across by those who in charge who knew they were needed to fill positions but also that keeping them illegal would keep them cheaper. In other words the immigrants were just taken advantage of by big corporations and the politicians in their pocket by keeping our current system, it's years long wait to gain legal entry, quotas that were ridiculously low and finally jobs that with low benefits and pay and no way for the illegal to protest the conditions. In a nutshell they believe an honorable country should have let them in legally since they were needed and as a result their animosity is reserved for those who perpetrated this injustice out of greed (or chasing profits) and not the hard working, poor worker.

That take held a lot more water when we had full employment. Now, I think a lot of the illegals are probably stuck without jobs but face an even worse situation in Mexico than when they left. It's also easy to see how someone who believed the above would see anyone coming down on the poor immigrants now and denying their own (or their party's) guilt in the situation while picking on the easiest target (who are poor and brown) as racist or xenophobic.

[Fergasun]

I don't see how we can claim to be a "rule of law" country when we allow something as jacked up as you describe to happen.

Regardless, I think the tea-party should take an anti-fence/border securities position. Both parties simply pretend to "throw resources at the border" like that's a viable solution. After studying the issue, I've concluded we need to spend the money on things like "e-verify" which means $3B in funds to upgrade. I am kind've annoyed that the GOP has "accepted" throwing money at the border through guards or a fence is worthwhile.

The real question is "how do we enforce the law?". I think the best way is to mandate e-verify for every employer, and make sure we have an accurate e-verify system (which I think is pretty accurate). I think there's a reason I never see this talked up in the press; in fact in the press I see a lot of people *complaining* about how hard or inaccurate e-verify is, which is bunk.

Americans I think are right to be beefed about the immigration situation with high unemployment. I've watched 3 town hall meetings in the past month on C-SPAN. The major complaints seemed to be:

- Where are the jobs (in general)?

- What are we going to do about the deficit, don't you cut my social security (I could write a whole post on this as it seems to be older folks pushing this... yet the deficit is a result of the way they voted for many years)

- How come we are still allowing H-1's and illegals in, I'm unemployed in computer field and I can do the job! This is outrageous!

- People complaining about how we shouldn't cut the defense budget.

- People complaining about how much more money government workers make and how cush Congressmen have it and how much their own pensions are horrible, and why Congress shouldn't get full pension and retirement after 1 or 2 terms (in which case the Congressmen had to try his hardest and correct that myth).

I find the town halls fascinating because a) it shows how masterful ear-tickling politicians are at pleasing the speaker at the same time getting his talking points out, it shows me how uninformed the voters are.

I'm sorry but people over 50 can't have a beef about the deficit. You are part of electing these politicians and never complained for the policies even when it was clear the direction the deficit has been going for 20 years (ever since Reagan). The whole "Reagan prosperity" was a result of government getting involved so deeply in the economy! Now the government can't extricate itself from the economy because industry is so reliant on government spending and benefits as a crutch.

And the young people are always so disappointing at these things.

Also, the setting provides an awesome contrast at the makeup of the country. California Republicans had town hall meetings in local government centers, which are very nice. An Arkansas democrat from a rural place, it looked like his town hall was held in a cabin in the woods, they didn't even have a mic to pass around to everyone. An Illinois democrat had his town hall in a high school gym.

During one of the California Republican town hall meetings one citizen got murmurs for suggesting that we let the Bush tax cuts expire. Minutes later another citizen made the statement "we are at war with al Qaeda and Islam!" and no one murmured at all (I find that statement more shocking), I'm not even sure the Congressman acknowledged it.

[Fergasun]

Let me bring this back to the point I wanted to make regarding the border.

The GOP feels to think it can "satisfy the base" by throwing $1B or $600M at the "border security" issue (like the fence, the National Guard on the border, or more funding for the border patrol). To me this is paying mere lip-service to the problem. The real problem is that we need to find a way to make it so no one has an incentive to hire an illegal, whether they are complicit in document fraud or not. I also think laws like Arizona's are needed as a further prophylactic (maybe not ones that are as forceful).

If there's one genuine beef with both parties I think it is the immigration situation. If we need the workers than openly come out and say it and officially support them with a guest worker program and path to citizenship. This is a loser of a policy because it is very unfair, it says "American's are lazy and can't do the work" it also says "our education system is failing us so bad" or "our companies are so driven by the bottom line that the wage difference is huge". Having it policy by fiat is ridiculous.

[Hunter44]

1) Good point on social security and medicare. The best way to reform social security is to go back to how we derived the number 65, and then write that derivation into the law. If life expectancy was 70, and we derived 65 from that number, than we simply change the age to "life expectancy -5" and use a sliding scale life expectancy number.

From what I have gathered about the formation of SS, the life expectancy at the time was around 54, the creation of 65 as the benefit age meant that they never wanted you to collect in the first place. :mad:

[Duckus]

Very good article. This part especially was well done.

First, do you believe that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional? This seems to be the unguarded view of Colorado Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck and other Tea Party advocates of "constitutionalism." It reflects a conviction that the federal government has only those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution -- which doesn't mention retirement insurance or health care.

This view is logically consistent -- as well as historically uninformed, morally irresponsible and politically disastrous. The Constitution, in contrast to the Articles of Confederation, granted broad power to the federal government to impose taxes and spend funds to "provide for . . . the general welfare" -- at least if Alexander Hamilton and a number of Supreme Court rulings are to be believed. In practice, Social Security abolition would push perhaps 13 million elderly Americans into destitution, blurring the line between conservative idealism and Social Darwinism.

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This approach undermines a large conservative achievement. Despite early misgivings about Social Security and the Civil Rights Act, Ronald Reagan moved Republicans past Alf Landon's resistance to the New Deal and Barry Goldwater's opposition to federal civil rights law, focusing instead on economic growth and national strength. A consistent "constitutionalism" would entangle Republicans in an endless, unfolding political gaffe -- opposing, in moments of candor, unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, the federal highway system and the desegregation of lunch counters

.

[Hubbs]

He is a political creature, designed to figure out how to win elections.

While libertarianism has lots of fantastic ideas IMO, and I tend to slide my economic views in that direction, politically its a big loser.

I disagree (of course). There's no particularly logical reason why we have a party of small government (rhetorically, at least) and social conservatism and a party of big government and social liberalism. They'd actually be a lot more consistent if they happened to trade one of those positions. It's just turned out this way due to quirks of partisan history. If further quirks result in one of the main parties (or, ideally, a replacement party) having a rather straightforward libertarian platform, I'd expect it to have similar electoral success to the current Democrats or Republicans.

Anyway, I remember those early tea party days. They lasted, what, three and a half weeks?

[Thiebear]

Anyway, I remember those early tea party days. They lasted, what, three and a half weeks?

IF the teaparty is putting nonames vs. incumbents.. wouldn't that show they are still not "owned" by the repubs in power?